Chapter Text
Exodus
“My name is Wendy Sawyer. Well, it wasn’t always Sawyer.”
It used to be Wendy Solis, and I don’t remember where I came from. Not really.
People always want to know. Was I running from something? Someone? They want a neat origin story, the kind you can package in a headline: Girl Escapes Cult. Girl Flees Abuser. Girl Survives… Something.
But there’s no single door I closed behind me. Just a slow drift eastward, one worn motel to the next, odd jobs here and there, the miles collecting like dust. I never stayed long. Didn’t trust roots. Didn’t trust myself.
All I had was a crumpled map of Florida, marked with circles around places I’d never been: Pensacola, Sarasota, Key Largo. I picked them for their names. Soft names. Warm names. Names that sounded like forgiveness, names that wouldn’t mind a stranger passing through.
✠ ✠ ✠
When I left West Texas, the horizon stretched so wide I felt like it might swallow me. The procession of podunk towns like the stations of Christ, each more punished than the last. Nothing left but dust and bones.
Then I arrived in Newt.
It wasn’t on the map. Most places like that aren’t.
The gas station was the kind that had a broken ice machine and yellowed lotto signs curling in the window. The kind of place where the air was hot, heavy, and thick with the sound of insects droning. I pulled in because I was running low on gas and lower on hope.
Inside, the clerk didn’t look up. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like angry wasps. I bought a Coke and a scratcher, even though I hadn’t believed in luck since I stopped believing in saints.
Three boys leaned against a pickup outside, all denim, boots, and empty eyes. The kind of boys who learned cruelty early and never stopped practicing. Boys who didn't know how to look at something without wanting to hurt it.
When I came back out, one of them spit near my foot.
“Hey sweetheart,” he said. "You look like you need a real man."
I didn’t answer. Just kept walking.
Another one grabbed my door before I could open it. “We’re talkin’ to you.”
My voice was calm, but I looked him in the eye. “Let go.”
He did. I got in. Slammed the door. Locked it. Their laughter followed me onto the highway.
✠ ✠ ✠
I didn’t notice them behind me until twenty miles later. Dust rising in the mirror, too fast to be a coincidence. My hands tightened on the wheel. I tried to pray. Don’t know why I bothered.
Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women— I felt the prayer catch in my throat.
I pressed the gas. They kept pace. The sky was a smear of red behind me. The road ahead was endless. The only thing that changed was the noise—the roar of their engine, the hiss of their tires.
When their truck rammed the back of my car, my first thought wasn’t fear. It was inevitability. Yet another fucking door I had to close. The second hit sent me off the road. Gravel screamed. I overcorrected. The wheel snapped in my grip. Everything flipped.
Sky. Ground. Sky. Ground.
Then stillness.
I tasted iron. My leg was pinned. The windshield was gone. The silence was so heavy I thought I might have gone deaf.
In the distance, tires peeled out. Laughter vanished down the road. They didn’t check to see if I was dead. Their mistake.
I pulled myself out of the wreckage, body shaking, vision doubling. My leg bled freely. My temples throbbed.
There were no lights. No cars. No signs. Just me and Texas, and the buzzards were already circling.
I remembered the stations of the cross again. Christ falling the first time. The second. The third.
✠ ✠ ✠
So I walked. Barefoot. Bleeding. Looking for a resurrection of my own.