Mostly Good

Chapter Three

Uncle Rob! Uncle Rob, open up!

What the . . . How'd you get here, girl? Where's--

I shot Jeff!

. . . Wait, what?

He was gonna do more bad things to Sarah and he hit Jakob on the head--

You SHOT HIM?!

I had to! I had to! But now Mom won't let me stay with her anymore! Please can I stay with you?

No, no no! Uh-uh! You keep the hell away from me!

Wait! Please let me in! PLEASE! I got nowhere to go!

Last thing I need is a kid on my hands, specially one with the police after her! Now beat it!

SLAM!

Uncle Rooob!!

The girl's chest heaved as she awoke gasping for breath, then bolted upright, disoriented. She was in a strange bed, in a strange room, with no memory of how she'd gotten there. That was never a good way to start the day. The girl quickly threw back the blankets and sprang up, but silently cried out in pain and collapsed, gripping the edge of the bed so she wouldn't crash to the floor. Her entire body was severely stiff and sore, particularly her right thigh. Her feet felt like she'd stepped on a dozen nails.

Suddenly she noticed she was completely clean, and her cuts had been treated. Someone had dressed her in pajamas, and there was a set of clean jeans, underthings, socks, and a blouse on a nearby chair. Even her hair had been brushed, cascading softly down her back and shoulders smelling of lavender.

The girl's eyes flashed. What was going on here? Who had undressed and washed her without consent? Had they done anything else to her body while she'd been unconscious?
Also where the hell was she? Limping over to the nearby window, she peered out.

Sunbeams were poking out from behind gray clouds, and it was no longer raining. Spread out before her were barns, chickens, cows, horses, empty fields and woods that stretched off for miles, and way off in the distance were mountains. What the . . . Was this the old west?

The girl turned away from the window. She quickly changed into the clothes set out for her, which were slightly too big, and opened the bedroom door. Once in the hallway she could hear the murmur of conversation coming from downstairs. Crouching on the top step, the girl peered down the stairwell. She couldn't see much, but she could hear everything.

Conversations swirled around cow-calf operations, farm equipment, relatives, harrowing, and Easter preparations with several jokes and funny stories thrown in here and there. A woman's voice asked if the sheriff had found anything on the mystery girl yet. The girl tensed and listened intently for the reply to this.

"Jason don't really got much to go on." It sounded like an old man. "The girl's got no I.D. of any kind, her fingerprints and DNA aren't in the system, and she don't match any missing persons report. In fact, far as Jason can tell, that girl don't even exist."

"Think she's one of them illegal immigrants?" A younger male voice asked shortly. He sounded like an asshole.

A third male voice jumped in quickly, sounding even younger than the last. "We don't know what or who she is; speculatin' to the moon and back won't give us answers. All we can do is wait for Sheriff Jason to finish his investigation and for her to wake up."

A robotic dog zoomed into the girl's point of view, crashing into the bottom step and flipping over. A little girl of seven or eight appeared holding a remote control. She righted the toy, then happened to glance up the stairway. The girl had no time to back out of sight before the child saw her.