Obsession Falls by Christina Dodd

well—his wife’s? It held a lot more equipment than Cissie’s school backpack, and with that in mind, Taylor made her selection of freeze-dried foods.
    Then she found a weapon that fit perfectly into her hand.
    A sling. Not a slingshot, not metal and plastic tubing, but a length of braided leather with a pouch in the middle. Put a round stone in that pouch, and she was David, and anyone who tried to harm her was Goliath.
    Memories stirred. Once before she had been lost up here, truly lost. She was nine, almost ten, and as the sun set, her father had found her. He had wrapped her in his coat, then sternly lectured her about wandering so far afield. When she miserably stared at him, remembering how her mother had shouted at him, how he had shouted back, how angry they had been, he saw the truth.
    She couldn’t stay home. Not in that place of unhappiness and rancor.
    So he said, “If you’re going to go out, I’d better teach you how to hunt, and how to defend yourself.” One of the things he had taught her was to use a sling. He showed her how to take both ends in one hand, and with a swift underhanded swing, to propel a stone through the air and into a target.
    She loved it. She practiced for a week, got pretty good.
    Then her mother packed up and moved them to Baltimore. She said it was because Taylor was running wild, and if they stayed, she would get herself killed.
    Taylor said she ran to get away from her mother.
    Not surprisingly, that hadn’t helped.
    In Baltimore, Taylor had been pitifully out of place, unsophisticated, friendless, afraid. She had taken the sling and tied it around her waist, wearing it as a belt every day, practicing as often as she could. Knowing she could defend herself, knowing she had something of her father’s—that comforted her.
    On her thirteenth birthday, she took it off and put it away in a drawer. She had adapted. She fit in now. Her friends made fun of her for wearing such an unfashionable belt … but mostly, her father had not sent her a card or a present. Again. And she hated him for forgetting her so easily.
    Looking back, she realized her mother probably intercepted anything he sent. And the sling had disappeared in the move to her stepfather’s house, and been forgotten. But by God, she remembered now. The homeowner even had some round steel balls to use as projectiles.
    She thought of Dash.
    Yeah, it was David and Goliath all over again.
    She tied the sling around her waist, and at last, she sat down and turned on the computer. The poor thing wheezed as it started up; she wiped the dust off the intake vent and when the monitor lit, she sighed. No Internet. Of course not. Mr. Sporting Goods wouldn’t bother to connect to the modern world.
    “Thanks a lot, mister,” she said, and headed back into the hills with her ill-gotten gains.

 
     
    CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
    That afternoon, Taylor practiced with her sling, and swiftly discovered she was not as good as she had once been. But she could learn. She would learn.
    As the sun set, she settled down to a celebration. She caught two trout, cleaned them, built a huge fire in her fire pit, put them on a spit and roasted them until the skin crackled. She ate one with a package of freeze-dried vegetables, which tasted marvelous even if the carrots never did get soft. Then she closed her eyes and wished for a shot of good Irish whiskey served in a Waterford glass. Too bad she hadn’t been able to convince herself that liquor was necessary to her survival, and steal a bottle from one of the homes she had visited.
    Of course, she could always indulge in a smoke of Cissie’s weed.
    Her eyes popped open. She hadn’t smoked marijuana since she graduated from college. She’d never been a big fan. She hated the taste. She hated the fact she ate her own weight in crackers afterward. But she had liked the way weed made her feel.
    Really, what difference would it make if she indulged? No one was here. And … by God, she deserved to