Excerpt: The Orphan - Nowhere

 

HE BOUND HER, gagged and blindfolded her, put her in the back of a truck or van – she felt ridges under her and surmised it was more of a pickup – and then drove without stopping for many hours.

When they finally stopped, he dragged her by her foot to the edge, and snapped something cold and hard around her ankle.

“It’s a GPS tracking device. Run, and I can find you anywhere at any time. Nod if you understand.”

Sunflower nodded.

“If you attempt to remove it, it will trigger an explosive chip inside and you will lose most of your leg. Nod if you understand.”

Swallowing, she did just that.

“An alarm will sound if you are more than a hundred yards from my receiver. You will have ten seconds to return to range. If you don’t, the explosives will trip. Nod if you understand.”

With tears seeping from under her blindfold, Sunflower nodded vigorously.

“If someone comes and you do not hide immediately, I will set it off myself. Do I need to say it?”

No, he did not. She nodded.

He lifted her to her feet, removed her bindings, ungagged her and shifted the blindfold down. He gave a strange smile and waved a hand. “You are free to move around within those constraints.”

First, she stared at her ankle. An ugly metal band sat there; a tiny red light glowed steadily. She believed him. It could do all he said. Escape was virtually impossible. Then she looked up to their surroundings.

A stone cottage squatted in the middle of absolutely nowhere, in a field of grass with nothing but a lone tree next to it to break the severity of isolation. There were no other homes in sight, not even a stable or pen or corral. The middle of nowhere. There was nowhere to run to, had she the ability to do so. There was nowhere to hide. No one would hear her scream.

Sunflower inhaled the fresh air.

Nowhere was by far better than a dank room in the dark.

An orphaned boy searches for a lost girl.

A woman abandons her new-born at a motel in the back of beyond. Adin grows up unloved, bullied, and no one remembers him. He doesn’t exist.

Until he sees a poster for a missing girl on a lamppost. There is an instant connection to little Sunflower, kidnapped for ransom, only to disappear after the money is paid. He exists because he must find her. Alone, he searches, a journey that takes him into the wild places, meeting along the way some interesting characters.

In dreams he speaks to her, for she is the one who will remember him.

THE ORPHAN