Hunting Sawyer

Fast Forward

TWO YEARS LATER

SAWYER POV

Fast forward two years and I was bustling around Nadine’s shop, a basket of clean and rolled towels on one hip and a mixing bowl of lightener in the other. I greeted the client that walked in and checked them into the computer system before setting down the towels to put away later. I tended to my client quickly but efficiently, knowing we were a little behind schedule and if I could time it right, I could wash out Nadine’s other two clients to get her back on track, all while my client was processing.

Caroline, Nadine’s fifteen-year-old daughter, came strolling in from the back room with Tucker on her hip and a smile on both of their faces as they took turns taking a bite of banana. Caroline was a godsend. She adored children and planned on studying early childhood education. And while she obsessed over Tucker, she used it as an opportunity to test her skills. So not only was my newly-turned-2 year old massive in size, his vocabulary was astounding, and he was smart as a whip.

Caroline watched him during the day in the little room attached to the salon while Nadine and I worked tirelessly side by side. It was perfect because I had eyes and ears on Tucker all day long since the suffocating dread Blake still had on my soul hasn't let up in the two years that have passed.

As for Nadine, she paid me a great hourly wage on top of what I earned from clients. She refused to let me pay for lodging since the house and guest house was something she had acquired from an old aunt some time ago. We split utilities and the grocery bill, but otherwise, I was doing alright. For the first time in my life, I was able to save up a little.

Tucker was easy. He was home to me. Even though I felt exhausted, it was the good kind. His cute little face was the first thing I woke up to, even if sometimes it was because of his massive feet digging into my back….and it was the last thing I fawned over at the end of the long day. He’d fall asleep every night petting my arm or twirling my hair in between his fingers.

I’d switched my disguise out here, even though it was days away from my hometown. The fear of Blake and what he was capable of still haunted my dreams. So now I had a curly black wig with a fringe bang to help me blend in as one of Nadine’s (and Tessa’s) many cousins spread across the country.

Tessa and Joe were doing as well as they were able. The morning after I left there was a rampage across town. The damage was so bad that I would feel incredibly guilty ever returning. From what Tessa told me, there was never any formal explanation for what Blake did….but the whole town knew. The whole town feared. Just thinking about it made my eyes sting with angry tears and my throat well up with anxiety.

From what I’d gathered, Blake came storming into the town with a fleet of blacked out SUVs…likely the ones I’d passed on the way out. Two abandoned buildings on each side of Joe’s bar were burnt to the ground. The bar and Joe both suffered significant damage, and they turned their sights on Tessa and her salon next. Apparently, several folks were taken that night, never to be seen from again. Maybe more than several, to be completely honest. Because they were taken on the other side of town, no one could link the disappearances to Blake.

Tessa’s shop made out okay other than some shattered glass and overturned chairs. My basement lodgings were all but decimated, but Tessa laughed about it in the end. “It’s just product storage,” she had quipped when I was mortified at how much inventory he had destroyed. “All product can be replaced. But you and Tucker….. let’s just say there is no replacing you.”

But I survived. Where were all the others who were now missing? What about them? That guilt would likely never leave.

“He would have taken them regardless, Sawyer. There’s no use in you carrying that burden. Only Blake can.” Joe tried to assure me.

Tessa said that Blake came in a different man than the last she’d seen. “He’s broken, Moxie. Like a crazed mad man. Any time I’d seen him before he was cool and calm, the danger swimming underneath. But now, it’s on full display for everyone to see. It was like he was ill, and the illness was making him mad.” She’d gone on to give other details, but I laughed at her final statement.

“Pity you drove him crazy. He used to be so fun to look at. Now it’s just pathetic. But still, insanely scary.” Tessa and Joe called once a week. Every Thursday late afternoon. She would do her grocery shopping then and Joe would just happen to do his then too. And they would pop back into the little seating section by the deli that no one ever used. Tessa would call her cousin and Nadine and I would take the time to catch up with our family back home in Juniper.

It was hard to believe that was two whole years ago. Hard to believe that I had lived out here, north and in the never-ending cold for that long. I hated the cold. I hated the snow. I hated the slush of sleet. I was just thankful for my life now. I missed Tessa and Joe with everything I had in me. But I had Tucker now. And he was everything I ever needed.

Watching him destroy an entire blue cupcake on his second birthday was what made this worth it. Watching him sing happily in the corner of the salon with Caroline, naming the colors of the rainbow or counting backward…made it all worth it. Seeing how his precious little smirk with those interesting eyes would always find me in a room, it was priceless. And I just wish that Joe and Tessa were here to see him.

Which is what made the phone call we got late on a Monday night all the more challenging.