Page 9 of Rake

I turn off my space heater, bundle up, and trudge out into the snow. It’s a quick walk to the bus stop. My shin starts its familiar ache. It’s annoying, but I’m lucky that’s the worst physical souvenir I retained.

I woke in Mass General Hospital two days after the assault. I hadn’t been found until early the next morning, and I’d been lucky to survive that long given all the internal bleeding and the swelling in my brain. My doctors were stunned I not only survived, but with time and physical therapy, made a full recovery.

There’s a scar on the back of my wrist from where the nylon cord shredded my skin to the bone, but it feels like a friend to me. It knows what we went through.

My shivering intensifies, and it’s not from the cold. There’s no one lingering around the bus stop, but something’s set off my fear response.

Is it real this time? It’s only six o’clock in the evening, but the dark of winter and blustery snow makes it hard to see clearly. I hate not being able to differentiate if my gut is telling me something important, or if it’s something completely innocuous triggering my PTSD. I thought only soldiers got that, but my doctors tell me it’s a very real thing for people who went through what I did. I can’t remember any of the coping mechanisms they taught me right now, though.

Bile rises in my throat. My senses heighten as the world around me slows. I can’t stay here. I need to move.

That’s fine. I can climb up the hill toward home and walk until the bus catches up with me. Being on the move usually calms some of the panic.

But then I hear footsteps behind me and I’m too terrified to look back. No matter how fast I walk, I can’t seem to outpace whoever follows me. Fear claws at my throat but I fight to keep my thoughts clear. Not getting distracted: that’s what got me into trouble last time.

Finally, I decide to ditch this road lined with vacant industrial parks and slip into one of the fancier neighborhoods.

There at least someone might hear me scream and think it’s out of the ordinary. Not like in Doherty Park.

My leg protests as I hustle through the side streets, hoping that the dense clusters of brownstone buildings and the possibility of witnesses convince whoever’s following me to give up.

That’s when I hear the laughing.Christ.That nasally cackle has been the soundtrack of my nightmares for months.

Does Carney know about the application already?

I didn’t tell the casino staff I was going to file to protect us. Does Carney have a contact at the NLRB? Or did Gary sell me out? Either seems impossible to believe. The NLRB is federal, not local, so hopefully beyond Carney’s grasp. And Gary is too vanilla to be a double agent.

It’s probably just more fallout from the petition card process. Not every staff person wants the union, and we suspect it’s the ones who don’t who dropped dimes to Carney in the first place.

But it doesn’t matter as I sprint through the snow, running wildly toward any hint of another person. I was scared running from my attackers back in July, but this is a new level of fear.

Now I know what it feels like to have my bones shattered and the brutal months of recovery that follow. I know how sleep is something to fear now, exhaustion preferable to the night terrors that make me bolt awake, screaming and sweating.

My ankle buckles as I hit a divot in the sidewalk that’s been obscured by snow. I don’t fall, but it slows me. My body screams with the effort of trying to push through the pain, but I feel his hand snag my coat. It’s over.

“Goddamn, you’re a fast one,” he says, yanking my body against his. His hand is over my mouth again, and I bite down hard, tasting the salty leather of his gloves.

He laughs. That fucking laugh.

“Can’t feel it, Cinderella. At least you kept both shoes on this time.” He squeezes my face with one hand, holding me immobile as he fishes in his pocket for something.

Please, God, let someone come out of their house. Please.

But the force of my will has never been strong enough to save me.

When I first got back to work, someone walked me to the bus stop every day or drove me home to help keep me safe.

But as the outward evidence of my assault faded, their sympathy did as well. They congratulated me for being brave and not living my life in fear. And I wanted so badly for that to be true that I pretended to believe it too, fighting the good fight and taking the bus every day, even when it was dark and I was petrified.

Fight through the fear.

Face it and it will go away.

But it never went away, and my bravado just feels like foolishness now.

He pulls a hood over my head.

“It looks just like a nice hat, don’t worry. Not many people out in the storm.” His tone is conversational, like this is an ordinary winter stroll. Panic makes my limbs go numb, and I fight to stay conscious.

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