Chapter 4

Nia began to convulse from the soaring temperature.

Her tiny frame shook violently on the seat.

No matter how frantically I called her name, she wouldn't wake up.

"Nia! Don't go to sleep! Look at Mommy!"

I wept and screamed in total desperation.

Suddenly, a realization struck me.

There was a complete first-aid kit in the trunk of Brandon's SUV.

I had bought it specifically for this road trip.

Inside were fever reducers, anti-inflammatory meds, and emergency supplies.

Like a madwoman, I burst out of the van and stumbled across the asphalt toward Brandon's car.

"Brandon! Open the door! Open the door right now!"

I pounded furiously on the SUV's metal frame.

Brandon rolled down his window, scowling with deep irritation at having his sleep interrupted.

"What the hell are you wailing about in the middle of the night?!"

Pointing toward my van, I broke down in tears.

"Nia has a high fever! She's having seizures!"

"I'm begging you, give me the first-aid kit!"

"Just one fever reducer, that's all I need! Please!"

Brandon frowned slightly.

"A fever?"

"Kids get fevers all the time. Just let her sweat it out."

"Is that really worth making such a massive scene over?"

Mia poked her head out from the passenger seat.

Wrapped snugly in my blanket, her cheeks were rosy and warm.

"It's not that we don't want to help," she purred sweetly. "The trunk holds my personal luggage, full of very important and expensive belongings. I can't just let an outsider dig through it."

Lowering her voice, she whispered into Brandon's ear with an insidious edge, "Brandon, if the stuff in the trunk sees the light of day... what if the other stranded drivers come and loot us? We still have three whole days to survive on that."

Hearing those words, Brandon's eyes instantly shifted.

It was the feral, guarded gaze of a beast protecting its food hoard.

To appease Mia and to ensure his own worthless survival, he actually nodded in agreement.

"Mia is right."

"We can't waste Mia's emergency medicine on a worthless girl. What if Mia falls ill later?"

Martha chimed in from the other car's open window, backing him up.

"Exactly! Nia is tough as nails, she won't die! Stop disturbing Mia's sleep and get lost!"

I knelt there on the freezing asphalt.

Staring up at those grotesque, soulless faces.

The faint, pained whimpers of my dying daughter echoed in my ears.

The very last shred of sanity inside me snapped.

I stopped crying. I stopped begging.

Slowly, I pulled myself up off the ground.

I wiped the tears from my cheeks.

My eyes turned hollow, dark, and utterly dead.

I walked back to my van.

From the tool compartment under the seat, I pulled out a heavy-duty steel mechanic's wrench.

Gripping it tight, I marched step by step back toward Brandon's SUV.

Brandon was still sneering and yelling out the window, "Hurry up and piss off, stop being an eyesore—"

I raised the heavy wrench.

Channeling every ounce of strength in my body, I swung it violently into his front windshield.

*CRASH—!*

The entire laminated windshield spiderwebbed and imploded inward with a deafening crack.

Brandon let out a bloodcurdling shriek.

"Are you fucking insane?!"

I didn't stop.

Reaching straight through the shattered glass, I seized his collar with one bloody hand.

I jammed the blunt, icy steel tip of the wrench hard against his temple.

Blood dripped down the back of my hand from the glass cuts.

Staring straight into his wide, terror-stricken eyes, I hissed through clenched teeth:

"Don't think I don't know what you two disgusting parasites are planning. If you want my daughter dead, then we all die together tonight!"