Page 96 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

Chapter 30

Gabby

Iwoke to the smell of coffee and the soft creak of the cabin settling around us. For a brief, blissful second, I forgot where I was—forgot the pain, the chaos, the crushing weight pressing down on my chest. Then I sat up too fast, and reality hit like a wave. The throb of broken bones, the sharp pull of the bandage around my side, and the dull, aching stiffness in my head all came roaring back.

And there was Ira, humming to himself in the kitchen like this was just another quiet morning on some strange, off-the-grid vacation.

He caught me looking and grinned. “Morning, sleeping beauty.”

I groaned as I pulled myself upright more carefully this time. “Remind me never to let you pick the vacation spots again.”

He laughed and brought over a battered mug of coffee, setting it on the small end table next to me. “Drink up. We’ve got work to do.”

Work. Right.

I sipped carefully and stared at the old cabin around me. It looked deceptively peaceful, which wouldn’t be enough if Clayton Barris came looking.

Ira settled into the chair across from me, pulling out a yellowed notebook and a handful of supplies from a duffel bag I hadn’t noticed last night.

“We need to set traps.” My voice was raspier than usual. “Real ones, not just noisy distractions.”

He nodded, entirely unfazed. “I figured you’d say that.”

Together—slowly and carefully—we started laying out a plan.

The first was the classic wire traps. Not the kind that set off an alarm—but the nasty ones. Trip one, and you’d find yourself jerked six feet into the air by your ankle, dangling like fresh laundry.

It took us most of the morning to rig it.

Ira worked like a man half his age, tying knots with a speed and precision that made me wonder if he’d been a Boy Scout or something a lot more interesting.

I hobbled around with him, pointing and guiding as much as my battered body would allow, tightening the snare wires and setting the tension just right.

We hid them carefully—across the paths leading to the front door, between the trees along the trail, and even near the old outhouse. They were high enough that even a cautious step wouldn’t notice them until it was too late.

“You realize we could actually maim someone with these.” I checked one last anchor point.

“That’s the idea,” Ira replied cheerfully.

I tried to suppress a smile. “You’re not supposed to enjoy this.”

“I’m eighty-three,” he told me dryly, tossing a coil of wire over his shoulder. “I’ve earned the right to enjoy whatever the hell I want.”

Point taken.

We moved on to other traps after that: cans strung to fishing line across entry points for noise alerts, sharpened sticks wedged underbrush piles, and even a few homemade spike mats hidden under thin patches of moss. Nothing lethal—well, not immediately—but enough to slow down anyone who thought they could sneak up on us.

Enough to buy us time.

By midday, we were sweating and aching, but the perimeter was rigged better than most second-rate survival shows I’d watched on TV. I collapsed onto the couch, breathing heavily, my head pounding in time with my heartbeat and the rest of my body reminding me that it'd been through hell. I’d only done what work I could do from the wheelchair, but it’d still drained me.

Ira sank into the old armchair, looking downright pleased with himself.

“If we don’t catch Barris,” I gasped between breaths, “we’re definitely catching some poor postal worker who took a wrong turn.”

Ira laughed—a real, belly-deep sound—and reached for the can of sardines he’d bought at Walmart. “If that happens, we’ll feed ‘em and send ‘em home with a story to tell.”

I leaned back against the cushions, exhaustion clawing at me again. But somewhere beneath the pain, the worry, the fear was a kernel of satisfaction. We weren’t helpless. We were ready.

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