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I couldn't process the situation with my sisters screaming.

Mallory was screaming in utter fear, having collapsed backwards onto the door, and Maeve was screaming in pain, having been cut by a shard of glass. She was clutching her upper arm, blood oozing between her fingers. Many of the windows had shattered. All of the cabinets had opened up with everything flinging out at us. A book had hit me in the head, but other than that, I was fine.

The RV was on its side. I could see the sky and branches above through the shattered windows.

I staggered to my feet and stepped over the clutter, heading towards my younger sister. Her braids were missing her ribbons and her mascara was running from her tears. As I reached her, she stopped screaming and lunged at me in relief, remembering that she wasn't alone. Mallory squeezed me, alerting me of a bruise on my side.

"It's okay," I said, although I wasn't sure if that was a lie or not. "Let's get Maeve."

Together, we stumbled around furniture and made our way to Maeve who was near the refrigerator. Behind her, all of the contents from inside the fridge had spilled out. My frown deepened at the sight of my spilled apple cider. That wasn't important right now.

"I'm bleeding," Maeve breathed out, panicking. "Oh my God..."

Mallory dropped to her knees. "What happened?"

I spotted a kitchen rag near us and grabbed it, kneeling down next to my older sister. Maeve was in shock, so she didn't yell at me for coming near her. I was able to tie the kitchen rag around her injured upper arm, which was better than her hand. I heard Maeve sniffle and looked up, finally processing my order sister in tears. I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her cry.

"I don't know what happened," I answered, quietly. "I-I think we were attacked."

"Attacked?" Mallory repeated. "Was it a bear?"

"Enough with the bears," Maeve snapped, her bitchiness returning. She wiped underneath her eyes, now looking as if she had never cried at all. Her messy bun had fallen out, so she took the spare rubber band on her wrist and tied her hair back into a ponytail. "Whatever it is, it might still be here. We need to protect ourselves."

I nodded my head, then began to look around. I was able to find three steak knives that had flown from the drawers.

I handed Mallory a knife. "Use this."

Maeve took a knife from my hand and held it up, her fingers trembling. With hesitation, Mallory took the knife from me and looked at it with a weak expression. I gripped mine tightly, prepared to strike anything that came at us.

"Do you hear anything?" Mallory whispered, shakily.

"Shh," was Maeve's response. I watched as my older sister began to crawl towards the back of the bus. Her movements were slow and deliberate as to not make any sound. I opened my mouth to tell her to stay near us, but opted not to. She wouldn't listen to me. She never did. Mallory clung to me in fear when Maeve sprawled out onto her stomach and stuck her head out the shattered back window to take a look around.

A heavy silence hung in the air.

"Where's Dad?" Mallory asked me. That was the first question on my mind as well. "Dad would know what to do."

I wasn't so sure about that. "We're going to be --"

My words were interrupted by Maeve suddenly being snatched and dragged out of the RV. Mallory screamed, loud enough to pierce my left eardrum, and I was rushing forward with my knife ready.

I didn't hesitate.

I lunged out of the RV into full view, prepared to strike the animal that had taken my sister, but I froze at an unexpected sight.

People.

There were people. Not animals.

All of them were dressed similarly with questionable expressions. I didn't focus too much on them; instead, I searched for my sister.

Maeve stood near one of them, her steak knife clutched to her chest. She seemed confused as well, but she didn't speak. She didn't move a muscle. Judging by her stance, she wasn't prepared to hurt a person. It didn't matter to me, though. Human or animal, if they tried to hurt us, I was ready to hurt them. I gripped my knife tighter at my side and fixed my own stance to make myself seem more intimidating.

"I see you're not hurt," one of the men spoke up. He was a middle-aged man with an eyepatch over his left eye. More importantly, he held a gun in his hands -- all of them did. "We're not going to hurt you, girls."

My eyes narrowed. "Did you do this?"

"Did we flip your RV?" he replied, earning a few chuckles from the other men. It did seem ridiculous, but I had to make sure. "No, the animals we were hunting did."

"Bears?" Maeve croaked, finally saying something.

"Wolves."

"Wolves," I echoed, then took a look behind me at the flipped RV. I didn't know much about wildlife, but for some reason, I wasn't entirely convinced. "Wolves can do this?"

"Sure they can," the man said in confidence. "I'm just glad none of them nabbed you girls."

Maeve fumbled for words. "Our dad..."

"Your dad?" he repeated, just as Mallory poked her head out. All eyes turned to her as she crawled out and joined me, grabbing my arm. Tears were still streaming down her cheeks and she seemed just as alarmed as me at the sight of guns. "Ah, I see there are three of you! I'm assuming you're sisters?"

I pinched my lips together. I didn't want to give them too much information. Thankfully, my sisters remained quiet as well. Some of the other men shifted on their feet, the gravel crunching beneath their boots, and my spine stiffened. We couldn't do much against guns. We just needed to be prepared to run.

"You mentioned your dad," the man spoke. "Where is he? Is he still in the RV?" One of the men squatted down and looked inside, then shook his head. "Did he leave you girls by yourselves?"

"He's missing," Mallory answered, sniffling. "We don't know where we went."

Maeve moved closer to us. "Do wolves eat humans?"

"The wolves in this forest certainly might," he answered, not putting us at ease. Mallory sobbed into my sleeve. "Look, girls, the nearest town isn't for another five miles. As I'm sure you've realized, there is no service here. Our trucks are a little ways down. You can come with us and I'll drive you into town. You should be looked at by a doctor."

My gaze kept flickering to their guns. "We need to wait for our dad."

"We've been out here all morning, girls," he said, a regretful expression on his face. "The only people we've seen are you three. If your father was out here, we would've crossed him. I'm sure of it." He was only upsetting my younger sister more. I didn't like it. "And, I'm sure your father would rather have you girls with a doctor than stranded here in a tipped over RV."

None of this was right. Everything about this was strange.

"He's right," Maeve spoke up. "We should go with them."

I dropped my voice as I responded, "We don't know them, Maeve."

"I'm bleeding," she reminded me, gesturing towards her arm. The kitchen rag was red with blood. It wasn't going to do the job forever. She needed stitches. "If we can get some service, I can try calling Dad. I can tell him where we are and he can -- "

"What if he doesn't pick up?"

"Then we can ask for a search party," Maeve said, quietly. "We can't just sit here and wait. It's dangerous. It's going to get cold, too." Mallory pulled her face from my sleeve and looked at our older sister. My lips formed a straight line as Maeve touched the top of Mallory's head and added, "You agree with me, don't you, little sis?"

Maeve was only nice when she wanted something and right now, it was Mallory's approval. Two against one would always win.

Mallory nodded. "Yes."

I mentally cursed. Both of them seemed to have forgotten about stranger danger. I looked around at each of the men, noticing that there wasn't a single woman, then told them under my breath, "Fine, but we stick together. No one goes off alone, got it?"

"Obviously," Maeve muttered, rolling her eyes. I hated that she could still be a bitch in this situation. She turned around and looked at the men, speaking for us, "We will go with you. Thank you for your help."

"Of course, girls," the man said, touching his eyepatch. "We'll lead the way. Stick close."

I was relieved when the men didn't lead us through the trees, but down the gravel road. Mallory stuck close to me, holding my hand, while Maeve walked a few steps ahead. She kept glancing back at us, mainly to give me a stern look that said 'don't-try-anything.' I wasn't stupid enough to act abruptly when these men were carrying guns. They didn't seem all too concerned about the steak knives in our hands. They knew that they had the advantage.

Just then, one of the men jogged up to my side. He didn't seem much older than me with shaggy brown hair, caramel-colored eyes, and a splatter of freckles on his nose. When he flashed a grin, I knew that he was about to speak with me, "I'm Devon."

Mallory peeked at him under her lashes.

I remained vigilant. "Hi, Devon."

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" he questioned, still grinning. "Do you want me to guess?"

"You won't be able to guess my name," I told him. "My parents had a sense of humor when I was born."

He leaned closer. "Hope?"

"Hope?" I echoed. "Why that name?"

"I don't know."

"My name is Madrina," I said, hoping that I didn't regret sharing any information with him. "It means 'godmother' -- it's stupid and makes no sense, so everyone just calls me 'Mads."

"Nobody calls you that," Maeve sung her shoulder.

I glared at her back.

"You three must be sisters," Devon commented, having witnessed our short interaction. He would have been an idiot if he didn't realize that. Mallory was looking back and forth between us, but her gaze kept lingering on their guns and our knives. "I take it from the RV that you were traveling somewhere. Where were you heading?"

"Not sure," I lied to him. "Our dad was surprising us."

Neither of my sisters corrected me.

"It sounds like your father is a good man," the man with the eyepatch said from ahead. He slowed down his pace to join the conversation. I could tell that he was their leader. "You didn't see anything when he disappeared?"

"No," I answered. "We didn't hear anything, either."

Mallory spoke up, "There was no blood!"

It was obvious that she was trying to convince herself that our father hadn't been taken by an animal. I didn't feel the need to confirm or deny her words. As long as she stayed calm, I was fine with her making herself feel better about the situation however she needed. She could come up with the craziest possible idea regarding our father's disappearance and I wouldn't say anything.

"Did you see the wolves?" the man asked, his gaze different. I didn't like how he was looking at us. It was as if his future decisions depended on our answer.

Maeve answered for us, "We saw nothing."

The man nodded his head, dropping it.

Devon grinned at me again.

It wasn't long until we reached their trucks parked off to the side. At least they hadn't lied about that. The drivers hopped into the vehicles, but the rest of the men climbed into the beds of the trucks. I sputtered for words as Devon extended his hand towards us to help us up. It seemed dangerous to ride in the bed, but I wasn't in the position to be opinionated.

I allowed Devon to help me into the bed of the truck, then watched as he helped Mallory. She returned to my side quickly, taking a seat next to me, and Maeve sat on the other side. As long as the three of us were in the same vehicle, I wasn't too worried about the distance.

"You know, you don't need those knives anymore," Devon said to me, gesturing towards my steak knife. "We won't hurt you."

His words weren't comforting. "I'll hold onto it, thanks."

Mallory nudged my shoulder.

He cleared his throat and plopped down, just as the truck took off down the gravel road. The wind blew through our hair, carrying a scent that reminded me of how strange and dangerous the situation was.