‘You shouldn't have shot the dog.’ That single thought reverberated inside my head, knocking from side to side, smashing at the sides of my skull until I had to put my hands to my temples in a futile attempt to stop the pain. The man sitting successivo to me took a swig of his whiskey, the glass bottle knocking against his yellowed and rotten teeth. His other hand held onto the steering wheel, maneuvering the car down the winding and deserted stretch of highway. I leaned my head against the cool glass of the passenger side window, willing my head to stop pounding. From the radio, the soft strains of Aretha Franklin Canto "Ain't No Way" floated through the frigid air. The heater was broken, it had always been broken. Then again, who had ever needed a heater in Florida. I shivered as the cold darkness outside seemed to creep inside the car and avvolgere its arms around me. The warm sunshine of Florida was long gone. Tears welled in my eyes, but I struggled against letting them spill. He couldn't know how I felt.

As Aretha asked "how cold and cruel is a man?” I blinked away my tears. I tried to slow my breathing down and be as quiet as possible. My eyes focused in on the man's right hand. I couldn’t have cared less about his left hand; it was wrapped tightly around that bottle of Jack Daniels and I was sure it would let go until Jack was bone dry. It was what was casually gripped in his left hand, the same hand that was steering the car, which mattered to me. The gun was loaded, o so he had said. Of course, I had believed he was telling the truth. I had believed him when he held it to my head at the gas station and told me to sposta to the passenger seat. I had believed him when he got in and told me he would kill me if I didn't shut my dog up. My dog...loyal devoted Jesse, who now lay in the backseat of my car with a bullet in his head. Something caught in my throat; a mixture of sorrow and disgust. He'd lied to me, that bastard. He'd detto he'd kill ME if I didn't shut Jesse up. He'd lied. He'd lied and shot Jesse instead. I trembled again, but not from the cold. The tears trickling down my face were no longer tears of fear.

The car came to a stop. I looked inoltrare, avanti and watched as a train rumbled past in front of us. The train engineer had no idea, no idea that for the past twelve hours I had been a prisoner in my own car, held captive da some crazed and drunken madman. It was at that moment, as I watched the locomotive rumble past, that something snapped. Maybe it was being so close to people who could help, but I was longer in fear of this cold, cruel man who sat successivo too me. I reached over and grabbed the nearly empty whiskey bottle out of the man's hands. His reflexes were slow, impaired da the alcohol rushing through his blood. He had barely registered the sound of broken glass before blood began pouring down his face from the gash in his head. The gun slipped from his fingers onto the floor. He grabbed his head and looked over at me, disbelief and shock pooling up inside his eyes. I reached over, opened his door and with one fluid movement, pushed him outside onto the Frozen ground. With Aretha Franklin crooning about how "it ain't no way," I pulled myself into the driver's seat, being careful to avoid the gun that lay on the floor. I put the car in reverse and hit the gas. The car shot backwards and the lone figure of a man laying on the ground appeared in front of me, illuminated da the car's headlights. My foot pressed down on the brake, almost of its own accord. I glanced in the backseat at the unmoving figure of my sweet and beloved dog, who had never hurt anyone and who had only been barking to try and protect me. My hand mechanically put the car in drive. The train rumbled off into the distance and I was now all alone. Alone with him. I hit the gas pedal. As I felt the car connect with his body, only one thought appeared in my head. ‘You shouldn't have shot the dog.’