I kick, connecting with his groin, and as he yells out in pain I slip away. He yells after me but already knows that it’s useless. The moment I hear him answer the phone, I know I can escape. But I don’t stop. I’m not about to risk it. That was the most terrifying experience of my life and I don’t ever want to go through it again. My heart pounds, my stomach churns, my legs ache, but I keep going. I see Carter’s home, but I race passed it. I’m pretty sure this asshole knows where Carter lives which is why he’s here, so I need to just go.
I put my head down and I race, turning around corners all the time to try and get lost. I remember Carter doing this the first time around, and it helped. We did lose this guy temporarily. Even temporarily will help me right now. Until Carter gets here. He’s on his way, he should be here any moment. To save my freaking life.
“Hey, come back!”
Oh shit. He’s coming. He’s fast. He’s chasing after me, even after picking up the phone and talking to someone else, he’s found me. This diving and darting around corners, hasn’t saved me. And it’s getting worse, because I’m not really on the main road now so Carter isn’t going to be able to find me. I’m also getting tired, I peeked too early, I raced away too quick, and now my lungs hurt, my chest aches, my whole body is on fire. I don’t think my knees can hold out much longer, this is going to end in disaster.
I need to do something drastic, and I need to do it quick.
“Help!” I cry out, the sound bursting from my chest. Tearing a giant hole in the agonizing raggedness that I’m already struggling through. “Help me, someone, help me, please.”
“Shut up, bitch!” He’s closer now, I can tell by his yell, and somehow, he doesn’t sound out of breath at all. “Stop trying to fight this because it won’t get you anywhere. I’m here, ready to tear you apart.”
The phone call was supposed to help. It should have been the thing that saved me. Instead, all it’s done is give me a burst of hope that’s now been violently dashed away. The calm I felt when I was almost dying before has long gone and I know for sure that I won’t be able to get that back.
Now, I’m still going to die, and it will be terrible.
“Carter,” I scream, as one last moment of hope. “Carter, help me. Carter, where are you?”
There’s a moment when I think I see the shadow of another person, someone who could save me, but the speck is gone before I can get there. My vision has blurred from the exhaustion so it could have just been an illusion anyway. Yet. It’s heart breaking to lose it, I feel the edges of my life slipping away around me. It’s dreadful.
Fuck, what’s happening?
The axis that the world is balancing on tilts and shifts. I feel everything falling, there is an uncontrollably hollow sensation in my stomach as I lose my footing, my place on the planet, my identity… everything slips and falls off me as I tumble really hard. Despite all the fighting, I’ve lost, and there isn’t a damn thing that I can do about it.
The world pin holes, I lose my vision to a spot as my body slams violently against the hard concrete. My head follows, banging the ground with such force that I’m sure I must have knocked my brain to the side. As the blackness takes me, I want to cry, but I don’t have any tears left in me. The fight is lost; the war is over. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now, but that’s out of my control. I’ll just have to wait and see what terrors await me… if I live long enough to find out…
31
Carter
I race into the bakery, hoping and praying desperately that I will just find her there, eating, drinking and waiting for me. I keep trying to tell myself that her cell phone just ran out of battery and that it isn’t anything to worry about. But as my eyes desperately flicker around the place and she’s nowhere to be seen, I know. I don’t know what to do, but things aren’t good. Something bad has happened to Raelyn, and it’s all my fault.
“Fuck.” I run outside and look both ways. There is no one around, especially not her. This is dreadful. “Raelyn!” There’s no point in being quiet about this. I don’t care what other people think, I just need to find her. “Raelyn, where are you? Raelyn, please answer me if you’re about.” I get strange looks, but I don’t care.
She might be at my house; my addled desperate brain tells me. Maybe she went back for something.
I don’t have anything else to go on, so I run with that thought, heading back in the direction of mine…
“Holy shit…” I almost fall over it, that’s how I notice it. “Is that…?”
I reach down and pick it up tentatively. Deep down, I already know what this is, but I have to have it confirmed. It isn’t working though, it’s actually been broken, so I can’t be one hundred percent sure… but I know. This is Raelyn’s cell phone. She really is in danger. They have got to her. I relaxed because I knew it wasn’t the big boys, but Lee did warn me, he said that these guys were dangerous, and I didn’t listen.
“Oh my God.” Sick bile go up in my throat. “Oh my God, oh my God.”
They’ve won. They outwitted me. Whoever this petty gang is, they are smarter than I gave them credit for.
“Fucking hell. What do I…? How do I…?” I don’t even know what question to ask first. “Shit.”
I run wildly. I don’t even know where I’m going, I just run. My eyes dart everywhere just searching for her, whatever state she’s in I need to find her. Especially if she’s hurt. I can’t stand this. Images of her as the guy with a knife in her chest almost consumes me. I can already feel is swallowing me up whole. Hurting me all over.
“This is my fault,” I murmur as I run. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have… done any of this.”
I don’t know exactly where it went wrong, but I know that it’s my fault. I’m the one who definitely did something wrong. If I don’t put a stop to this soon, that guilt is going to eat me up whole. Running without any aim isn’t really helping me. All I’m really doing is making myself exhausted and more frantic. I need to take stock and work out what action I can take to make this work, to save Raelyn.
“Lee,” I gasp out, knowing that I need him right now. “I need to call Lee.”
My heart thunders in my chest as the phone rings. This moment of standing still is too much; it feels like a massive waste of time. But I don’t know what the hell else to do either.