18
“Dad, if you can hear me now, tell me what to do.” My thighs ached as I climbed higher up the hill, and I stopped momentarily when I reached a clearing, a patch of wild grass, looking out at the sea of lights from campus.
I had my bag and tools I stole from the basement, which I could use as weapons, but I had to get close to them to make an impact.
Throwing a spanner in the dark, with trees in the way, would be a waste of time and energy.
I thought I distracted them when I threw a rotten piece of wood into a nettle bush, hoping they would jump in there and get pricked, but sadly, they didn’t.
There were three of them with flashlights and possibly my gun, knowledge of the forest and surrounding area, whereas I had a spanner, a crescent, and legs that weren’t used to running, and this terrain was uphill.
There was no way I could outrun them, so I had to lose them.
It sounded simple, but it wasn’t. The prick had taken my phone, so I couldn’t call for help.
However, I could try to trace a path back to campus and scream.
Safety seemed close, but with three men pursuing me, it was much further away than it looked.
I caught a quick flash light that lit up a portion of the forest, as if they were flicking it off and on, and I caught my breath, checked my body, wiped the tears from my cheeks, then ran further up the rise, which turned to hard rocks underfoot, making it harder for mt shoe to grip.
My chest was tight, breathing hitched, thigh muscles, jaw clenched in fury, but adrenaline and rage kept me going.
“Look what you did, Dad,” I hissed, as my hands found a solid piece of rock to cling to, so I could propel myself upward. “Fuck you. You left me with this shit. Fuck you.”
A bird call cut through the air, and I knew it was one of the Warwicks, so I ignored it and kept going. Now and again, the breeze changed direction, and thudding music from the frat houses waved in and out, giving me the impression that I was heading in the right direction.
“Run rabbit, run,” I heard Nicolae’s taunting voice, followed by sniggers and whomping noises, which only spurred me on even more.
The upside to running in the dark is that I felt close to death because if the grim reaper decided it was my time, I wouldn’t see him coming.
The downside is that my eyes played tricks on me, and it was difficult to measure space and sound.
But there were moments when I felt more alive than I had ever felt in my entire life, my lungs opened up, and the pain in my muscles dissipated, and it felt as though I was running above the ground.
I upset the firstborn son by calling the police and throwing tools at his smug, handsome face. Oh boy, I’d do anything for the opportunity to scratch that face, permanently leaving the scars of my clawed fingernails. Like a pattern of my grief indented on his fucked-up face.
“Nicolae Warwick, the devil’s spawn,” I whispered into the night air. Tattooing his name on my brain. My head spun with everything these fuckwits had done to me since I arrived at Castlehill – the stalking and spying, drugging and kidnapping, and now this. Fuck you.
"The hillside leveled out onto a flat piece of land, where the soft grass felt therapeutic against my legs.
I paused to calm my rapidly beating heart and gazed up at the night sky—a carpet of twinkling stars and a crescent moon.
A sense of peace came over me, but it lasted only a moment before being stifled by loneliness.
I was so utterly alone. Not even my father’s spirit felt close, and I couldn’t call Mila or the campus police for help.
All I had was me. There were trees up ahead, and behind me, I could hear sarcastic laughter, the Warwicks rejoicing in their chase, but what were they going to do once they caught me?
I ran toward the trees, and my feet were relieved to be running on flat land, then my shoe caught on a stone, and I went flying, landing on the grass as something hard jabbed the right side of my ribs.
I had no time to think, pulled myself up to my feet, and kept going.
As I ran, my ribs felt bruised, making it slightly difficult to breathe.
My side cramped up, forcing me to stop again to catch my breath.
Once the pain eased, I stepped into the tree canopy and was steeped in darkness, where it was difficult to see much further than a couple of feet.
This slowed me down substantially, so when I spotted a fallen log, I climbed behind it and lay down, hidden amongst ferns and rotten wood, and waited for them to arrive, hoping like hell they wouldn’t check.
And once they passed, I’d run back down where I came, take the same path back down to campus.
That was the plan. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best I had because I was running out of gas.
I lay on my back, arms crossed over my chest to be as flat as possible, so none of my body sticks up above the log.
They had flashlights and seemed to be moving quickly, so I was betting on them moving through this area quickly, too.
My chest rose and fell as I stared up at the night sky through small open shapes between the trees, listening intently for sound.
I closed my eyes and imagined being in my bed at home in our house, and thought of Mom when she was alive and happy and vibrant, then everything changed from a single visit to the doctor and a single diagnosis.
Rage coiled through my body, thinking about the betrayal and Leslie sitting in my house, sitting at my father’s desk, running the business, and I’m lying here on damp earth, afraid the Warwicks will find me.
Except I wasn’t afraid. It wasn’t fear I was experiencing right now, it was anger and despair. I’d hit a wall and stopped caring because I had nothing left.
A murmur of hushed voices as a flash of light beamed into the cluster of trees, and I held my breath. “I think we’re going the wrong way,” Lev stated. “I reckon she took the back route back down.”
“We’ll head through this patch of bush and turn back if there’s no sign of her,” Nicolae ordered in his domineering tone.
Their crashing footsteps were so close as I stayed deadly still, daring not to make a sound while listening for their steps and voices to grow quieter.
“I’m getting hungry,” Ezrah announced, and I heard a brushing of fabric as if he was taking his bag off his back and searching for something in his bag. Then I heard crackling paper, probably a protein bar, and then he said something that I didn’t hear properly.
Thudding footsteps and flashing lights finally grew distant as I lifted my head slightly above the log and cast my eye, searching for movement and sound in the dark. When I heard Ezrah’s distinctive laughter in the distance, up ahead, I rose to my feet and ran back down the way I came.
I was running on the tips of my toes, avoiding touching foliage and branches for fear that even the slightest sound would attract their attention.
I came back out into the clearing, open spaces were the most dangerous, but I was confident that they were too far away I the wrong direction to see me.
But I was concerned about the steep rocky ridge that followed, as climbing up in the dark was a completely different ball game than climbing down.
I searched in the dark for another way down, but this was it. I spotted the large boulder, which seemed different from this angle, and started my arduous journey downhill, controlling my breathing and squinting to scrutinize the spot I was about to place my shoe on.
Another loud whoop cut into the night air, and again it was far off in the distance, but I wondered if they had gone far enough and had turned back, which meant they were back on my tail.
My speed was too slow trying to chart the ground in the dark, and there was no cover for several feet. I jumped down from a ledge, but I misjudged the distance and landed with a solid thud, twisted my ankle, and fell to the ground.
But even a swollen ankle didn’t stop me as I rose to my feet and tried to descend the next few feet.
My foot twisted again, and I landed on my ass.
Behind me, I could hear their voices and flashes of light, and I pulled myself back onto my feet and limped down onto the next rock, biting my lip to ease the pain.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks as I misjudged my step again and fell for the third time.
Again, their voices grew closer as I found a narrow space under an overhanging rock and slid under.
I could hear distant voices, but I couldn’t gauge how far away they were while under the rock.
But the tone alone told me they were deciphering where to go next and were beginning to grow bored, and one voice, I think Ezrah’s, sounded bored.
They had lost me, and it stopped being fun when they couldn’t see their prey, so all I had to do was remain quiet until they passed and then somehow make my way back down the hill.
Skidding footsteps thudded above me, and someone jumped down, his boots only a foot away from my face. Then a second man jumped down, followed by the third. So close.
But they didn’t keep walking as I expected them to; instead, they stood nearby as flashlights were pointed into the trees down the ridge, while they discussed where they thought I might be.
In my mind, I screamed, “Move on. You can have your little shitty meeting further down the ridge.”
There was a pause where they fell quiet, then a face appeared before me. His face, the face of the devil, “Hello, wabbit.”