14. Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Ashley
M y feet sink into the snow, the deep tracks Aaron and I leave as he guides us to a wooded area with a map to our travels, while cold air turns hot with the adrenaline shooting through me. Aaron pulls me into the center of a cluster of trees and takes my gun, shoving it in my coat pocket, pulling me close, his hand on my head, lips at my ear as he whispers, “Move fast and say nothing.”
He pulls back to look at me, a question in his brown eyes, that damn blood on his face foreboding. I don’t know how I know Aaron isn’t hurt, but I know. That blood isn’t his, and I thank God right now for that fact. I nod my agreement. It’s enough for him because he doesn’t look for more. He takes my hand and starts guiding me toward the back of the cabin, stepping in his existing footsteps, at least I think they’re his. I really hope they’re his. Or maybe, I think, these are the footprints of whoever he killed on his way to pick me up again. All I can do now is run, ready myself to fight, and pray the vehicle we’re getting out of here in is nearby. Not that I know what vehicle that might be as I was drugged when I arrived, which isn’t really a thought that suits me well right now.
We charge forward, and I have no idea why, but as we approach the back of the cabin, my heart lurches, a sixth sense setting my adrenaline pumping. Aaron must feel it, too, as he grabs me, shoves me behind him, and the next thing I know, he’s throwing a punch at another man. One punch, a second punch, and then he’s twisting the man around, holding him from behind, and oh God, he snaps his neck and drops him to the ground. I’m still trying to process what just happened when he pulls his gun, leans around the cabin, scans, and then grabs my hand again, and pulls me forward.
This time we run and run hard, and there’s no obvious vehicle for our escape. We run for the wide range of woods, and I’m officially freaking out. How are we going to survive in the woods? Are we so desperate we have no other option? And my God, he just killed someone in front of me, snapping his neck. I shove that thought out of my mind. I shove everything out of my mind but surviving. We enter the woods, and Aaron doesn’t stop. He pulls me even with him, seeming to assess where I’m at and how I am, but he doesn’t speak and neither do I. We’re going to die today. I feel it in my blood, and I can barely breathe. I don’t want to die. I push harder, my hand sliding into my coat pocket, around my not forgotten gun.
And so I run.
We run.
Through snow and trees, through obstacles left and right, but there are no men with guns, and in that, there is survival.
We run for what feels like miles, and then finally, there’s a truck in a clearing: our ride, our escape. We aren’t going to die. We’re going to live. I can’t feel my feet, but it doesn’t matter. I look at Aaron, and I can see relief in his face. He believes that we’re going to live, too. I feel hope. I feel happiness. I can almost feel my feet just from the joy of it.
We clear the trees, and all that joy escapes me as two men step into our path. No three. Oh God. We’re dead. They charge at us, and I pull my gun, but even as I aim to shoot, I feel a thundering force to my head, and that’s it: everything goes dark.
I blink awake into darkness to the sound of a voice and a swaying sensation. A radio. A vehicle. I’m in the backseat lying down , I think. A storm of pain in my head. I groan from the pain and squeeze my eyes shut, listening as the radio says, “Tomorrow is sunny and warmer, at least for the mid-afternoon hours—”
Sunny and warmer ?
What happened to the snow?
Wait. The blizzard was over, but something feels off. I tell myself to get up and move, but I can’t seem to do it. My head hurts too intensely. I squeeze my eyes shut, and darkness claims me again.
I gasp and sit up to find myself in a bedroom, a dim light splayed over white walls and thick navy blue curtains to my right. Where am I? I glance down and find that I’m in a red silk gown. Back when Aaron was Noah, he loved me in red and that thought is enough to jolt me back into reality. The cabin. The blood. The men who attacked us.
My hands goes to my throat. My God. Where’s Aaron? And who brought me here? I swallow hard, fighting the well of fear in my mind that Aaron is dead. That’s when I hear the sound coming from a door to my right and behind me. Water running? A shower? I want to believe that it’s Aaron, but I have no memory of anything beyond the cabin and this, I think, is a suite in a hotel. I throw away the blankets and stand up, rushing around the room in hopes of finding my real clothes, but there’s nothing but what I’m wearing. At least not in the bedroom.
I glance toward the bathroom. I desperately just want to walk into that room and confirm he’s alive to the point it almost hurts, but if I go in there and it’s not him, I need my gun, which is in my coat pocket. Or it was. By the off chance that it’s still there, I have to find it. I can’t find my way back to Aaron, if we’re apart, without it.
I rush down a short hallway to bring a living area into view and confirm, yes, there’s a hotel room door. Somehow, I got from a cabin to a hotel, a fancy one at that, and I don’t even remember how. I don’t want to know what that means, but I’m pretty sure the kind of drugs I’d be freaked out to take by choice are to thank for my confusion. I also don’t want to think about what a red silk gown and a stranger means. I refuse to go there. That will not help me mentally survive this.
I spy several shopping bags by the front door and rush over to them. To my surprise, not only are there women’s clothes in the bags, but they’re my size. That says Aaron, or really Noah to me, but I just can’t be sure. What I don’t find is my gun. For now, I need clothes on my body to allow me to run if necessary. I quickly pull out jeans and drag them on, before I pull off my gown and slip on a black bra and a T-shirt. A pair of sneakers is next.
I debate running right now, going downstairs and calling backup to see if it’s Aaron in the room, but I have no money and no gun. I rush to a desk and open the drawer, and bingo, there’s my gun, lying next to another one. I grab mine, and since the shower is still running, I decide I have to risk it all and go back into the bedroom. I need money. Whoever is in the shower has a wallet, most likely in the bathroom. With the cold comfort of my weapon, I hurry down the hallway, and as my father used to say “now or never.” I don’t let myself linger. That shower will end any minute.
I walk into the bathroom and find a pair of jeans on the floor. With no wallet on the counter to be seen, I decide to take the jeans and run. I rush and grab them, and take off for the door. I’m about to exit when a deep, male voice says, “I liked you better in the red gown.”
I whirl around to find a man who is tall, sinewy-muscled, dripping wet, and naked standing in the open shower. And this man, this man is not Aaron.