Set Fire To The Rain

Hostage

Noe

"And right, and left, and right and switch!"

This broad was out of her goddamn mind.

We'd been doing the right-left-right-switch routine dead on an hour, like we were going to a fire, and she wanted to tune it up and go another round?

"You doing ok back there, Noe, love?"

"I think we're gonna need a safe word," I panted, barely keeping up with the tempo of her alternating oars.

An hour of powering through rapid currents in the wilderness with an elderly widow whose only objective was to live a more daring, fulfilling life was no walk in the park.

"Don't we...Don't you think..." I was so out of breath, I couldn't even get it out.

The lady was dead built like Robocop.

I hadn't been a proby in the fire academy for over 22 years, and none of it got near the ballpark of this.

"I can't hear you, sunshine!"

"Don't you wanna take a break?" I huffed my way through another right-left set. "We're in a fish bowl. Where do you think we're goin' this fast? Not saying I'm complaining, I'm just concerned about you, that's all."

"Oh, darling, I could do this kind of cardio all day," she smiled back at me, bringing me damn near to tears when she said it. "And when night time comes around, I still got enough energy to put out for boo. Not bad for 72 years, you think? Ready for round three?"

Fucking Jesus.

"Abso-fucking-lutely," I answered instead.

I'd already lost my dignity. What more did I have to lose against this woman at this point?

"Looks like you caught somebody's eye!" she winked at me over her shoulder. "Look sharp, son. She's a doll."

I looked yonder to the far right of us where Cassie was pulling the sliding door shut to our cabin balcony, and quickly tried to pull my shit together and recalibrate before I embarrassed myself.

I'd never hear the end of it if she caught me wuss-as-shit getting my ass handed back to me by a senior citizen.

She waved at me smiling, looking cozy all wrapped up in my department issued sweater, with her wavy morning bedhead falling beautiful and ruby over my navy sweater like the 4th of July.

That's where that jacket went.

"Better make a move on that one before someone else beats you to it," the old lady dropped me some advice.

"Already done. She's the missus."

"Good for you."

We paddled a big, wide U-turn to head back out for another lap around the lake, and I lost my visual on the cabin balcony for a few minutes as we paddled in the opposite direction.

Once we were completely turned around, I glanced back at our cabin to wave Cassie goodbye, hoping she'd read it as a cry for help.

She was gone.

The balcony suddenly abandoned.

I didn't think too much into it, except to wonder why she ran back inside so fast without taking this opportunity to bust my balls.

Maybe she was busy taking more of my sweaters hostage. Or more accurately, her sweaters.

Sweater jacking was an ongoing wife-crime in our house, and because she usually got to laundry duty faster than me, she knew more about where my own sweaters were hiding than I did.

It was brick as fuck out on these mountains though, so I couldn't hate her for it.

"And right, and left, and right, and left, and switch!

I dragged my paddle back over me to the right side, turning my head back to the lake and the rough ass-pounding that lay ahead of me in that third lap.

But just before I turned my back completely, I caught Cassie's red hair again at the corner of my eye, just as she bolted back to the balcony sliding door. Her hands fumbling frantically against the latch to pull it open. Repeatedly glancing back over her shoulder at something I couldn't see clearly.

It was too shadowy from my point of view, and it happened so fast.

Cassie managed to get the latch open, but couldn't slide the door back fast enough when this shadowy something snatched her away from the latch so roughly, her head slammed into the glass door trying to break her fall.

Then she was fighting.

And whoever it was in there with her, they were desperate to shut her up and drag her away from being seen through the glass.

Cass lunged for the latch again, and I read my name out of a silenced scream on her lips before she was snatched away from the door for good and out of my sight.

My heart fell into my stomach.

"I gotta go," I told the old lady, deciding that paddling the boat in another U-turn wasn't a quick enough option and that I was close enough to swim for the lakeshore.

"You're leaving now? You don't wanna take the boat there?"

"Don't got time. Somebody just broke into the cabin with my wife. I gotta get up there now."