We found the cave opening with the blizzard raging full tilt. An expanse of slate-gray sky blended seamlessly with the frigid landscape making visibility brief and erratic. A gust shoved Tony and I in an arc, past Ollie to avoid toppling us all like bowling pins.

The sound of my heart pulsed loudly inside the coat hood, muffling the violent shrieks of the storm. Ice formed on the hairs in my nose. Cold air burned my nostrils. Tony’s bushy mustache glistened white, barely visible as he hunched his shoulders against the wind. I huddled deeper into my coat.

The two women had to be hiding inside a mountain cave. When we found them, Vicky’s response to our arrival would be unpredictable. I’d seen her flare up before, irrationally attacking anyone who defied her. 

She might have Deputy Spiesz’s pistol. Or his shotgun from the trunk. No one checked. 

I found the cave first. 

Tony and Ollie positioned themselves near the mouth, nodding they were ready for danger. Wind whipped their hoods, and cut into my cheeks with anger. Gusts pushed us off balance. The two men leaned against trees to stay upright.

A break in the gale cleared the air for a moment.

Vicky’s voice cut into me like a sharp blade. “You’ve let me down, Renée. Betrayed me, just like the others.” 

A rush of wind slapped at the rock face.

Tony’s wide eyes expressed a desire to rush them. 

I held up a hand and shook my head violently.

Renée blurted, “I betrayed you? You promised to love me, Vic. Promised a life of hope.” The tremulous sound of her words rang familiar, a tone I’d heard often since childhood. “What is this? There’s no hope in this cave. It’s as cold and icy as any moment waiting for my father to come home and hold me. You’ve taken it too far. Let me take Kayla home.” 

 

I looked at Tony. His eyebrows rose into his cap.

“Kayla?” I mouthed. My heart beat louder.

“No!” Vicky shouted. “That witch won’t protect her. She’s too busy screwing any and every dick who’ll have her. I won’t leave my baby sister with her.”

“This is not protection!” Renée shouted. “You’re betraying everyone who cares about you for no good reason. What has got into your head?”

Vicky’s voice became quiet, childlike. “It was so great when Daddy would bring us. Always spring time, full of promises. He was making a dream out of this place. A Glass Castle dream. A dream I helped him build.”

“That’s not the castle, Sissy,” Kayla’s small voice piped in. 

“Shut up, Kayla!” Vicky’s voice sharpened like a switch flipped inside of her. “You don’t remember.”

Kayla kept talking. “Daddy made the greenhouse and that’s where. We play  hide-and-seek and he told me to go there. So I did. You hurt Daddy. He can’t fix the castle because you hurt him.”

“Argh! You’re such a drama queen. You’ve caused so much trouble.” I could picture Vicky stomping her feet. 

Kayla sobbed. 

“Stop crying,” Vicky said.

“Uncle Hugh wasn’t nice, Sissy,” Kayla said between gasps. “He makes me icky.” 

“What are you talking about? He’s always nice.”

“He’s not nice!” The little girl wailed. “You don’t know.”

I heard a scuffle. 

“Vicky! Take it easy.” Renée trying to calm things. 

“Why couldn’t you just stay with the Jenkins?” Vicky’s tone pitched to a raspy growl. “That’s all you had to do.”  

I cupped my hands to direct my words across the front of the cave, mimicking Aidan’s voice. “You’re wrong. She needed to run from Hugh.”

“Daddy?” Kayla pleaded.

An explosive retort splintered cave rock into my hair. Another shot followed immediately behind it.

“You’re not real!” Vicky shouted. She was close to the opening. “I saw you die.”

Kayla began to wail.

“I stuck a pitchfork in you,” Vicky yelled over the cries of her baby sister. “You’re dead.”

“Things aren’t what they seem,” I said. “It’s time to go home.”

Rock fragments sprayed at me as the third explosion sounded. 

Kayla screeched. “Stop shooting bullets, Sissy! It’s too loud!” 

Vicky yelped. “Hey. Come back!”

Little Kayla shot past me like a high octane squirrel, into the blinding snow. 

“Grab her!” I yelled.

Tony and Ollie took off after her.

A loud grunt from inside preceded Renée bursting from the cave. She ran full tilt after Kayla, boots slipping on the icy ground.

“Renée!” I hollered, reaching out.

A spattering of rock hit me in the face with the pop from Spiesz’s Glock.

I jumped back against the rock wall with a “Damn!” Leaving Vicky inside with a loaded weapon meant she could chase us with bullets. “Ollie’s got a gun,” I hollered at the cave mouth. 

“I will end you, Connor Pierce!” Vicky’s voice steadied its tremor. 

“No doubt,” I replied. “And why not? Men have stolen your happiness.”

Another splash of rock fragments. 

“What do you know about it?” she asked.

“I know how it feels when a parent lets you down because they’re so caught up in their own madness.”

“You don’t know what my father took from me.”

“I know what my mother took from me.”

“It’s not the same!”

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s not the same. He took your Glass Castle. Took it and gave it to your little sister.”

Two more bullets whizzed by with only a bang bang to announce their arrival after the fact. I should have counted. Then again, I didn’t know how many rounds she’d brought with her.

“He took more than that. He took my innocence. I was just a child. I couldn’t let him take that from Kayla.”

“Did he do that, Vicky?” I waited for the bullet.

Nothing.

“ What if you were wrong? What if it wasn’t Aidan that molested you?”

Another silent beat.

Was she creeping closer?

I went on. “The man who molested you was Hugh Jenkins, Vicky. Not your father. It was Hugh.”

“You lie.” Her voice lacked conviction. “I know it was him. He tried again. When I came back with Renée. He tried to kiss me, but I ran away.”

“I don’t know about that, Vicky. But I’m not lying. I heard it from Faye. She told me about Hugh. That’s why she had to stop babysitting you, Vicky. That’s the reason you never went back.”

“No, no, no,” she wailed. I could almost visualize her crumbling to the floor. “I did it to protect Kayla! To get her out. So he couldn’t hurt her.”

“I understand that, Vicky. But what if you got it wrong? What if you protected her from the wrong guy?” 

Vicky’s voice trembled as she spoke. “I didn’t get it wrong. Hugh was getting her out.”

“Was he?” The question might feel like accusation. A dangerous approach with anyone betrayed by adults. “Hugh was using Kayla to make money.”

“He kept her here for what, an extra week, to earn a few more dollars. He was selling land to your father at the same time. He wasn’t even watching her well enough to keep her from escaping.”

She growled. “You messed it up, Pierce,” she said. “He’d found a family. Him and Deputy Spiesz had it all worked out.”

“He’s a liar, Vicky. They both lied to you.” 

“No, that can’t be true. They wouldn’t dare. Why would Hugh deceive me like that?”

“For money. He’s a child molester, Vicky. He doesn’t care about people. He and Deputy Spiesz had it all planned. They used you.”

“That’s not the way it went. They wouldn’t hurt Kayla.”

I shook my head, hoping she could hear the disappointment. “They did, Vicky. They hurt her just like Hugh hurt you all those years ago. He might be the craziest in the bunch of us, out for himself, willing to steal, and kill anyone who gets in the way.”

Vicky sputtered, and then she cried out in protest, “I had to do something! I couldn’t just stand by and watch Kayla suffer.”

“I get it. You didn’t know. No one told you. Your father abandoned the family. Makes perfect sense. But you see what happened? While you thought you were saving her, you turned Kayla over to the very man who actually hurt you.” 

She sobbed. The cave echo turned it into a haunting rhythm.

“Are you going to ruin the life of another person you love, Vicky? You were angry with your father so long that it morphed into the belief that he molested you.” The words stuck a knife in my own heart. “It’s time to change it up. Take control of your truth.”

“I can’t give up.” Her voice changed again. Resolute. Determined. “I’ve done the damage.”

In the same instant that I realized her intent, Renée charged up beside me. 

“Vicky!” she shrieked, lurching ahead. 

I grabbed her coat and hauled her back. “Stop!” I whispered harshly. 

She clawed at me to get free. I yanked her down and ran past, into the dark, and halted just inside. 

Blackness surrounded me but I could sense a large openness. Odors of standing water and rot caught in my mouth. I held my breath. 

A rustling sound pulled my attention toward it. A light flashed on, blinding me for a split second. 

I stepped to one side and squatted. 

No bullet came.

The size of the cave took me by surprise. Smooth, damp walls curved into a high ceiling. A steady drip of water fell from the ceiling center. 

I blinked and saw Vicky, not six feet away and slumped against the side wall. Her fingers white-knuckled around a gun aimed straight at me. 

“Are you going to shoot me, Vicky?” I kept my voice as steady as the exertion allowed. My wild heartbeat made enough noise to be heard outside of my body. “Killing me won’t help you. And it will break Renée’s heart.” 

Tears streamed down her face. “It’s too late.”

“No it’s not, Vic.” Renée squatted next to me. “Let’s just go home.”

Vicky’s eyes flickered over Renée. Her body trembled. “I failed, Ray. Everything is crumbling.” She shifted the loaded gun to her temple, bright blue eyes clouded over. Her face twitched when the cold metal barrel touched skin. “This is the only way,” she muttered, sobbing. The gun tip slipped down, the weapon heavier than she expected. She adjusted her grip, finger tightening on the trigger.

A bolt of fear shot through me like lightning and drove me forward. I didn’t consider ballistics or physics or calculate ricochet factors or trajectories. With a shrill cry, piercing and loud enough to make my own ears ring, I dove into her. 

My hand hit the pistol as the barrel muzzle flashed. Sparks flew. Pinpoints of flame stung my cheek.  

Vicky, or Renée, screamed. 

I landed on top of Vicky who hissed and spit like a cornered predator. 

Her thin frame thrashed and flailed with keen elbows, knees, and fingernails. A sharp snag raked my face beneath the eye, the sting adding to the fire of determination. 

I held on, muscles straining to grip and re-grip whenever she broke loose, my mind crazily following her movements in hopes of claiming restraint. She bit into my coat collar, jerking at me like a wildcat. Her strength was fierce, my muscles weakening with the fight. 

I lunged backward, ripping the material from her teeth as she slammed against the ground. She lost her breath, and I took advantage to roll and pin her with sufficient control of her ferocious limbs. I grasped the gun tightly by its barrel and wrenched it away. 

Exhausted and defeated, Vicky went limp beneath me. The tension in the air dissipated. My throat and chest burned, muscles tense and trembling. 

I rolled away with the pistol in hand. 

Renée stepped in and bent over her deflated lover. “Vic?” she asked.

Vicky’s shoulders shook uncontrollably, her gut-wrenching sobs reverberating off the dull rock. Renée enveloped her, swaying a soothing rhythm, whispering comfort. Vicky buried her head, covering her dirt-streaked face.

The odor of gunpowder hung in the air, mixed with the musty smells of fear.

Ollie arrived at the cave entrance, his figure blocking the light. “Everyone okay in here?”

“Depends who you ask,” I said. “No one shot or bleeding.”

Ollie nodded. 

“Sissy?” Kayla said, pushing in from behind the lawman. He stopped her with a gentle hand.

“Let her come,” I said. 

Kayla ran past and latched onto the sister who’d just threatened to kill her. 

The weird moment approved my lunge to save this lunatic, so deluded she’d sell her baby sister and stick a pitchfork in their father.