Chapter 8 - The Weight of Sins
The agonizing pain shooting up from my shattered leg was absolutely blinding.
Evan’s entire body weight pulled me violently downward toward the roaring white-water rapids.
His violently shaking hands gripped my thick plaster cast with terrifying, desperate strength.
"Do not let me fall, Sarah!" Evan screamed in absolute, unadulterated panic.
The psychopathic, fiercely confident murderer was gone, replaced by a terrified, sobbing coward.
I gritted my teeth tightly to keep from screaming in pure agony.
My freezing fingers were slipping slowly on the wet, mossy bark of the heavy pine root.
The roaring river below sounded hungry for the inevitable disaster.
"Hold on!" a strong, completely authoritative voice shouted from the cliff edge above us.
Vance had successfully broken his thick plastic zip-ties and dragged himself to the precipice.
He reached his massive, bleeding arm down toward me as far as he possibly could.
"Grab my hand, Sarah, I've got you!" Vance roared over the deafening wind.
I desperately looked up at him, realizing the horrible, undeniable truth of the situation.
I could not possibly reach his outstretched hand while supporting Evan's immense weight.
If I tried to swing upward, the sudden shift in momentum would rip the root straight from the stone.
"Pull us both up, Vance!" I cried out, my muscles burning with sheer exhaustion.
Vance shook his head frantically, his eyes wide with absolute, terrifying realization.
"The root is cracking, Sarah, it cannot hold the weight of two full-grown adults!" Vance warned.
He was entirely right; a loud, sickening crack echoed from the thick wood above my head.
Evan stared up at me, his eyes wide with the realization that he was entirely out of options.
"You have to save me, you are supposed to be my mother!" Evan begged hysterically.
I looked down into the eyes of the monster who had murdered my beloved husband.
He was the exact same monster who had severed my brake lines and watched me bleed in the wreck.
"You ceased being my son the moment you poisoned David," I whispered coldly into the wind.
I violently raised my healthy right foot and aggressively kicked Evan squarely in the face.
The brutal impact broke his desperate grip on my plaster cast instantly.
Evan screamed an agonizing, echoing scream as he plummeted backward into the deadly abyss.
His body hit the rushing white-water rapids below and completely disappeared under the violent current.
The sudden release of his heavy weight instantly stopped the pine root from tearing further.
I swung my free hand up with a massive surge of pure adrenaline and grabbed Vance's wrist.
He hauled me aggressively over the sharp stone edge and collapsed safely onto the muddy ground.
We lay there in the freezing rain, gasping for breath as the federal agents finally swarmed our position.
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I turned my head to look for Claire, fully expecting to see her in heavy steel handcuffs.
But she was completely gone, and a single, heavily bloodstained zip-tie lay discarded in the mud.
