Chapter 2 - The Mile Marker
The rain was no longer falling in drops; it was a heavy, grey sheet that flattened the world.
I lay on my side on the gravel shoulder, the wet grit pressing into my cheek. The pain in my lower abdomen was a living, pulsing thing, white-hot and deep. With every shallow breath I took, the incision felt like it was tearing further apart, the warm fluid—a mixture of blood and infected discharge—soaking through the thin fabric of my grey dress and pooling against my cold skin.
My fingers, numb from the drop in temperature, scraped against the wet ground. They closed over the crumpled twenty-dollar bill.
Twenty dollars.
It was a mockery. A final, spiteful gesture to prove that in his eyes, I had no value beyond the loose change in his pocket. He wanted me to call an Uber, but my phone was still sitting in the center console of his white Chevy Tahoe, charging next to his expensive sunglasses. I had nothing but the clothes on my back, a ruined body, and a soggy piece of paper.
I managed to roll onto my back, crying out as the movement pulled at my stitches. The sky above was a black, featureless void. Every few minutes, the blinding glare of headlights would sweep over me as a semi-truck or a speeding sedan hurtled down Interstate 87. None of them slowed down. To them, I was just a pile of discarded trash or a shadow on the shoulder of the highway.
"Help," I tried to scream, but the sound that came out of my throat was a wet, pathetic rattle. "Please."
My mind began to drift, slipping into the fever that had been simmering in my blood for the last three days.
I thought of my father.
I hadn't spoken to him in nearly four years. When I met Derek, he had systematically convinced me that my family was controlling, that they didn't understand our "modern love," and that my father’s immense wealth was a golden cage designed to keep me small. My father, Julian Vance, had warned me. He had stood in the study of our estate in upstate New York, his silver hair catching the light, and said, "Willow, that man doesn't love you. He loves the shadow you cast. He loves the idea of what he can steal from us through you. If you marry him, you do it without my blessing."
I had been young, foolish, and entirely consumed by Derek’s carefully crafted charm. I had walked away from the Vance empire, changed my last name, and lived in a modest suburban house, believing I was proving something noble.
Now, lying in the dirt, I realized my father hadn't been trying to control me. He had been trying to protect me from a predator.
A bright pair of headlights suddenly slowed down.
Unlike the other cars, this one didn't fly past. The high beams cut through the rain, illuminating the wet asphalt in front of me. I heard the hiss of air brakes and the heavy, rhythmic thrum of a large diesel engine. A massive, yellow tow truck pulled onto the shoulder, its amber emergency lights flashing in a hypnotic, rotating pattern.
The door opened, and a large figure in a neon-yellow rain jacket stepped down.
"Hey! Oh my god, lady!"
The man ran toward me, his heavy boots splashing through the puddles. He knelt beside me, his face etched with horror as he saw the blood soaking through my dress.
"Don't move, don't move," he said, his voice deep and panicked but holding a thread of warmth that made me want to sob. "What happened? Did you get hit?"
"My husband," I whispered, my teeth chattering so hard I could barely form the words. "He... he threw me out. Surgery. My stomach."
The man’s eyes went wide as he looked at my abdomen. "Holy shit. Okay, okay. I’m calling 911. Hang in there, buddy. My name is Artie. You're going to be okay."
He pulled out his phone, his rough, grease-stained fingers dialing the numbers with frantic speed. As he spoke to the dispatcher, he took off his dry, heavy jacket and gently draped it over my shivering frame.
"I’ve got a female, early thirties, mile marker 45 northbound," Artie yelled into the phone over the roar of the rain. "She’s bleeding bad from some kind of stomach wound. Looks like she was dumped. Get an ambulance here now!"
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He hung up and looked down at me, his hand gently patting my shoulder. "The medics are coming, sister. Just hold on."
I closed my eyes, the warmth of his jacket acting like a shield against the freezing rain. In my hand, I still clutched the wet twenty-dollar bill.
