Chapter 7 Lily
Oh God.
Oh God.
Don’t stop running.
Whatever I do, I can’t stop.
My lungs are burning and the tree branches are leaving scrapes on my face, my arms, and fatigue plagues every one of my limbs. I won’t let them catch me. I can’t let them catch me.
The forest ends and I stumble to a stop, my breath wheezing in and out of my lungs.
I had run into the forest to get away from my abductors, following the same tree line I used to cut through on my walk home from the corner store, the one that skirts the edge of the old Rickson land everyone in town knows better than to trespass on.
I hadn’t planned on ending up here. My feet just knew the way. Then I see something in the distance.
A house?
The place where they tried to abduct me seems so far away now, so I expected to be running for another couple of hours until I got anywhere.
Perhaps I should keep going. Get farther away.
When they come looking for me, they’ll probably check the closest houses, won’t they?
Or have I traveled far enough? I’m not sure and I have no time to decide what to do. I can’t let them catch me.
Time is precious. My lungs burn, each breath scraping raw down my throat, and my legs feel like they belong to someone else entirely, someone who hasn’t been running full tilt through underbrush in the dark for what feels like miles.
Blood trickles warm down one shin where a branch caught me.
I don’t stop to check how bad it is. Stopping means thinking, and thinking means remembering the weight of that man’s hand around my wrist, and I can’t afford either right now.
The back door of the house flies open. A shotgun muzzle eases out through the opening and points square between my eyes. I almost laugh, I really do. This seems so fitting. Now I will die trying to get help.
Out of a frying pan, into the fire.
A floorboard creaks and the door edges wider, revealing the man holding the weapon.
Even in my exhausted, panicky state, I recognize that he’s a force of nature.
In a sweat stained black T shirt, he looks like he’s been working out, well maintained muscles stretching the sleeves, as the light reflects off him from the front porch.
Looking closer I see that I recognize him. Oh my God, I know who that is.
Noah
His blue gray eyes are meaner and fiercer than any I’ve ever seen.
They look down the barrel of the gun, taking my measure.
When he’s determined I’m not fatally harmed, he straightens slowly, lowering the weapon.
“What are you doing here?” he rasps. His eyes roaming over my body and then shifting to our surroundings, possibly looking for threats. I think I lost them.
There’s something practiced in the way he does it, the sweep of the tree line, the half step that puts himself between me and the open yard without seeming to think about it at all.
Not the reaction of a mechanic who’s never held anything more dangerous than a torque wrench.
The reaction of a man who’s done this exact calculation before, more than once, in circumstances I’m too rattled to wonder about yet.
One sweep of those sniper’s eyes and he’s picked me apart. Looking into the depth of my soul.
“Did you run here or something?”
I open my mouth to respond, though I have no idea what I’m going to say and I find I can’t speak. There’s no saliva in my mouth. My throat is coated in dust, Oh lord, I’m so tired. The adrenaline is beginning to drain out of me and now my limbs are shaking, preparing to give out. And they do.
Am I safe?
I turn and look back, hiccupping a sob.
Please. Please don’t let them find me.
When I turn back around, he’s less than a foot away and I suck in a shocked breath, stumbling backwards.
I go down but he catches me and slowly lowers me to the grass, frowning something fierce at my pitiful condition.
His eyes sweep over me once more, his eyes softening.
His finger brushes my right cheek. The caress is so intimate and yet so normal, like he has the right to do that.
Like he has been doing it for so long. That makes me feel so safe in his arms.
“Noah” I croak
Right before the blackness claims me, I hear him whisper that I’m safe. His hands enveloping me. He cradles my head in the crook of his shoulders. His murmuring of reassurance resonating in me.