Ozzie looked around and shuffled his feet clumsily the way someone would do with two left feet. He was unsure of what was happening or what he should do. The Monsters, Ozzie thought. They ARE monsters! They’re trying to eat us just like they said they would!

Isabella shrieked as loud as she could and rammed the cage violently, doing anything to get the men’s attention off of Ozzie. Her maternal force knocked some of the fence clips off and partially dislodged the top of the cage. Jesse got to his feet, grabbed his 2 x 4, walloped the side of the cage, and drove Isabella back. Ozzie couldn’t stand his mother being attacked, so he charged forward ten yards before fear stopped him cold.

With the shock of the bite subsided somewhat Terry said, “Looks like the little ’un wants some too. I’ll teach him a lesson myself.”

“We ain’t got no time for that,” Jesse shouted, but Terry was already off. Jesse let it go, figuring Terry had probably earned a little revenge of his own. Terry ran straight at Ozzie, screaming and wailing and trying to terrify him. It worked.

Terrified, Ozzie turned and bolted, running only fifteen yards back before he came to the corner of a tightly strung electric fence that was higher than he could ever jump. Ozzie turned right and sprinted along the back fence. Terry gave chase and stayed close, but Ozzie was fast. By now it had become entertaining for Jesse and Shane, who ran along just to see what happened. Ozzie concentrated on fleeing and not on where he was running. It wasn’t until the last few yards that Ozzie realized the danger he had put himself in. He skidded to a stop mere feet before the rear corner and looked back to see Terry closing fast. Jesse and Shane moved in, on each side of Terry, to block Ozzie’s path, forming a horseshoe in front of Ozzie with the fenced corner immediately behind him.

“Ha, ha, ha...got yourself in a pickle, don’t cha?” Terry’s mood had improved considerably. He eyed Ozzie as he slowly reached for his Bowie knife, taking a step closer in unison with Jesse and Shane as if they were tethered. Terry moved within six feet of Ozzie and waved the knife at him. Ozzie blinked and had something of a flashback when he saw the knife.

Terry’s patience expired. He stretched out like a baseball player diving head first into second base as he dove for Ozzie. Ozzie backed up until he was inches from the fence. Terry grabbed a leg and tried to hold on tight, but Ozzie squirmed from his grip and jumped two feet away. Terry got back to his feet, held the knife in his right hand and swiped it at Ozzie.

Ozzie stared at Terry’s hands, shuffled his feet and waited. Terry faked a swing of the knife and, instead, reached with his left hand to grab Ozzie by his head to pull him down. Ozzie panicked and reacted like a frightened dog, snapping and biting until he crunched through two of Terry’s fingers on his left hand, drawing a mouthful of blood. The knife fell from Terry’s hand to the ground and he stood straight up, screaming in agonizing pain.

With both sides blocked, Ozzie saw an opening to dive right between Terry’s legs and started for it. Jesse read Ozzie’s intentions and sprinted toward the same spot, hoping to block Ozzie’s exit, but he tripped on a root just before he dove. Instead of diving, he stumbled for a couple of steps before crashing into Terry’s knees, his arms tackling Terry as they draped around him for support. Terry was thrown forward and fell right onto the second wire of the high-voltage fence, his weight pressing it to the ground.

Later, Ozzie would try unsuccessfully to recollect what happened in the next eight seconds. The last thing he would be able to recall was being trapped in the corner paralyzed by fear. What Ozzie couldn’t remember was that, for a brief instant, Terry’s body created a three-foot high opening in the fence. The sound of the fence shocking Terry like a Louisiana mosquito zapper added to Ozzie’s terror and thrust his body into motion. As if guided by a mysterious force (probably raw fear), Ozzie jumped and landed squarely on Terry’s back as he lay across the fence and vaulted onto the other side, rolling in the leaves as he landed.

Shane sprinted to Terry’s aid, grabbing his feet and yanking him off the fence and taking a strong shock in the process.

“JESUS!” Shane shouted as he tried to shake the pain out of his hands.

Terry rolled on the ground in excruciating pain, semi-conscious with a large part of an ear missing, two crushed and broken fingers and skin crawling with electricity. Jesse stood up just as Ozzie got to his feet on the other side. For a fleeting second, he and Ozzie regarded one another, confused, as each tried to get his bearings. The perspective was as it should be, a fence separating captor and prisoner, but the roles were reversed. Ozzie scampered down the fence line back in the direction of his home, calling his mother. Jesse realized the gravity of the situation and the personal repercussions if Blake found out he was the one that let Ozzie get away.

“GODDAMIT!” Jesse shouted. “Shit, he’s out!”

There was no way through the electric fence, so Jesse ran toward the entrance with Shane in close pursuit. He swung open the gate and forcefully kicked Isabella out to the ground. Shane added a kick for good measure for all the trouble her family had caused.

“Leave him alone!” Isabella screamed in the language of her Spanish ancestors as she grimaced with pain. She managed to get to her feet and hobble to the back of the fence where Ozzie stood on the other side. Jesse got to the shut off switch, slammed the handle down and watched the light go from red to green.

“RUN, Ozzie, just RUN!” Isabella instructed Ozzie.

“Mom, NO!” Ozzie replied. “NO! I want to stay with you!”

Ozzie and Isabella stood face-to-face, inches from one another, but unable to touch for the first time in their lives. In that moment, Isabella realized how lucky she had been to be imprisoned all this time with Ozzie. Now they endured the worst kind of imprisonment either had ever suffered, the pain of being so close but denied from being together. With the fence off, Jesse and Shane had made their way back in and were coming up behind Isabella. She pushed her own fears aside.

“Listen, Ozzie,” Isabella continued. “We don’t have much time. Just RUN. Get as far away from here as you can. As far away from these people as you can, and never turn back. They killed your father and they want to hurt you, Ozzie!” Ozzie had only a second to read the fear in his mother’s eyes before Jesse’s rapidly approaching head loomed over hers. He saw the pure evil, the vicious hatred in the black depths of his eyes. Isabella turned and ran back to Felipe, hoping both to comfort him and to free Ozzie by doing the most gut-wrenching thing she had ever done, turn her back on him.

Sprinting down the fence line, Ozzie searched for a way in, having no way of knowing that the fence had been turned off. He looked back to see that the men were now on his side of the fence and chasing him. Racing down the back line, he continued past his encampment and along the back side of adjacent paddocks. The commotion from Ozzie’s paddock had brought everyone out. Faces that had been there all along, that Ozzie had rarely seen, watched him run freely in the woods with two men chasing and yelling.

Ozzie could find no way back in. He stopped at the top of the ring of encampments for an instant when he saw a prisoner with bright red hair. In his entire life, Ozzie had never seen such a thing. Everyone he had ever seen had black hair. Unaware that Ozzie was being pursued, red-headed Tammy approached her side of the fence to introduce herself as Ozzie stared into her chestnut brown eyes.

“There he is!” Jesse shouted. The scream broke Ozzie’s gaze and he jerked his head around to see the men running his way. Realizing he couldn’t get past the men to his mother, he turned his head and looked into the thick, unfamiliar brush and trees that covered a steep mountainside. He desperately wanted to be back safely inside the fence with Isabella, but fear propelled him in the opposite direction.