Free Huntress by J L Taft

today.
    His thoughts wandered and he dozed off, absorbing the
comforting feeling of his childhood hideout.
    Trent awoke abruptly and stood, crashing his head into the
dead branches that made up the roof of his fort.
    Fiona needed him. He knew it without a doubt.
    Cursing, he stumbled out of his fort and made his way back
to Granny’s. It was dusk and the forest was quickly getting darker. Then the
sky opened up and it started raining. He had spent the whole day out here.
    He came to an impulsive stop when something teased the
fringes of his mind. He could see her. She was ducking under a long, silver
metal door. It was raining and her hair hung down in thick, wet ropes.
    Her eyes were huge in her pale face. She was afraid of
something.
    The vision faltered and weakened and he immediately felt the
disconnection. But right before it faded completely he saw a man standing in
the rain.
    Watching Fiona.
    Trent jogged the best he could in the dark on the uneven
ground. He wouldn’t be able to help her if he fell and broke a damn leg. The
rain made it even harder to see where he was going and he was already soaked
through.
    He was stunned at what had happened, how he had been able to
see her so clearly, but he didn’t doubt it had been true.
    She was in trouble. He didn’t know what the hell she was
doing crawling into a storage unit at night in the rain but he intended to find
out.
    The vision had taken longer than he had realized. When he
had snapped out of it the forest had been completely dark.
    He burst into his grandmother’s back door. “I have to go,”
he said, hardly stopping to kiss her cheek.
    He had the front door open before she stopped him.
    “Go get her and bring her back here before she gets herself
killed.”
    He nodded once. The screen door slammed behind him as he
jumped on his bike.
    He knew where she was. He recognized the units. Within
seconds he was barreling down the dirt road faster than was safe but he didn’t
care. All he could think about was getting to her.
     
    Fiona tried to resist checking out Grandma’s storage unit
all day. She had other things that needed to be done and she had already dealt
with the more pressing issue of the bill.
    But she couldn’t concentrate and managed to spend the whole
day talking herself into being productive. It didn’t happen.
    Then she hadn’t heard from Trent and it had only made
matters worse. She had just grabbed her car keys and the unit key before she
left the house. She wasn’t even sure if she locked her front door on her way
out.
    She wasn’t an impulsive person, usually, and she already
regretted being here this time of night. But she was already here so she might
as well have a look. Grabbing her flashlight from the glove box, she scanned
the row of units and headed to the left. She was looking for number three. She
turned a row and got to five then four. Stopping in front of three, she looked
at the big door.
    Something ominous crept over her. She glanced around behind
her as the skies opened up and made her soaked to the skin in seconds. No one
was there but she definitely had the creeps.
    She struggled with the lock for a second, thinking she maybe
had the wrong key. After she jimmied with it for a few moments the key finally
slid in and the lock opened.
    The door was on a pulley system so it was easy to lift and
duck under. She closed it most of the way behind her, letting in some of the
street light but blocking most of the rain.
    Fiona searched for a light but there wasn’t one. There were
old, dusty crates stacked up against all three walls. They were all different
sizes and had no labels of any sort. Opening the first one, she found baby
clothes and a few small keepsakes. Maybe they had been her mother’s?
    Fiona looked in several of the other crates and found that
Grandma had all of her personal possessions hidden away in the storage unit.
    There were things here she would never have expected Grandma
to keep. It showed Fiona a side of