The Cloud Catcher

Prologue

The reverberation of a gunshot woke Verena Ferrara from a dream where she’d been floating upon a cottony cloud, her freckle-dusted cheeks warmed by glorious tendrils of sunshine as her fingertips lightly touched a mountaintop.

The wrenching sound ripped through the chilly air like a jagged knife, slicing through the peaceful stillness of her sleep, jolting her back to reality.

With her little heart racing, she sat up in bed with all her senses sharpening.

Had she really heard it? Maybe it had been part of her dream?

But then another gunshot shattered the fleeting silence, the echoing boom closer this time.

She threw off her covers, fled her bed and scurried across the carpeted floor on her hands and knees, towards her closet.

As quietly as she could, she eased herself inside and carefully closed the door behind her.

Wrapped in concealing darkness, with her knees pulled to her chest, she dared not blink as she peered through the slats.

She’d stoically told Papi he needed to stop working for the bad men, but he’d never listened, just told her she shouldn’t know such things, and that he didn’t have a choice.

Her mother had agreed with him. She always did.

Trying to slow her rapid breaths, to somehow quieten them, she recalled his chilling words.

Hide, my girl, but if that doesn’t work, and they find you, make sure you fight as hard as you can, then if you can get away, you make sure you run, fast, far, far away …

Her stern father had continuously filled her with a deep-seated fear. One she carried in her stomach every single day. A fear her mother told her might be the one and only thing to save her, if God forbid, the worst happened.

And it had …

Heart-wrenching screams carried from her parents’ bedroom, then her mother’s begging echoed her father’s agonising cries. Sobbing softly, she fought not to cover her ears as a booming voice roared the kind of words she wasn’t allowed to say, then two more successive gunshots rang out.

‘Please, God, no …’ she whispered, tasting her salty tears on her lips.

Hurried, heavy footfalls resonated down the hallway, sending shivers down her spine.

Grabbing a small pocketknife from the little tackle box her father had given her just the week before for her tenth birthday, she clutched the lifeline in her trembling hand as the suffocating darkness threatened to consume her.

In a way, she wished it would. The bedroom door creaked open, and she held her breath, waiting for the inevitable moment when the bad man would find her hiding spot.

The scent of his cologne filled the room, coupled with stale cigarette smoke.

Praying with all her might, she remained stock still, her eyes fixed on the silhouette that loomed in the doorway as her heart pounded in her chest, each beat reverberating in her ears.

Glaring towards her bed, the man took a slow, deliberate step into the room, his shadow stretching across the floor and towards her hiding place.

Biting her bottom lip, she clutched the handle of the pocketknife tighter, her fingers quivering with a mixture of fear and determination.

‘Come out, come out, wherever you are, Verena.’ The man’s voice was like ice. ‘I know you’re here, so there’s no use hiding from me.’

She stayed silent, willing herself to be invisible, to somehow blend into the darkness.

He chuckled darkly. ‘You can’t hide from me forever, little girl,’ he taunted, taking another step closer. ‘I’m not leaving here until I find you.’

In that moment, something inside her shifted.

The fear that gripped her transformed into a fierce resolve.

She may be a little girl, but she knew she had to be brave.

For herself, and for her parents — if they were still alive.

With a deep breath, she pushed herself up from her hiding spot and shot out of the closet, the pocketknife clenched tightly in her hand.

The towering man’s eyes widened as she stood before him, small and shaky but filled with a steely determination.

‘You can’t hurt me,’ she said, her voice barely above a whisper but laced with a newfound strength. ‘I won’t let you.’

The man’s lips curled into a sneer, his mocking amusement quickly turning into annoyance at her defiance.

He took a menacing step towards her, reaching out to grab her arm, but she reacted swiftly.

With a courage she didn’t know she possessed, she lunged forward and plunged the knife into the man’s inner thigh.

A guttural cry escaped his lips as he stumbled back, clutching at the blood-gushing wound.

Wide-eyed, watching him collapsing into a heap, she felt her heart race even faster as he writhed on the floor, just like the worms Papi had taught her to put on the end of a hook.

She needed to run.

Now.

Before the bad man grabbed hold of her.

Because if he did, she knew she’d die.

Swivelling, she bolted out of the bedroom, her heart punching against her chest as she plotted her escape.

She could hear his pain-laced cries reaching for her as she raced through the house, not daring to look back.

The hallway seemed endless as she fumbled along blindly, still clutching the pocketknife tightly.

Then time seemed to slow, hover, screech to a stop, as she reached her parents’ doorway, and the stomach-punching sight before her was right out of the horror films she wasn’t allowed to watch but sneakily did.

Mama and Papi lay on the floor, their bodies lifeless and limp, their open eyes hauntingly vacant.

A pool of blood spread around them like a macabre painting, the crimson life forces draining from them and trickling towards her, as if some malevolent force wanted to take her too.

Her entire world shattered into a million bloody shards as her breath hitched in her throat and her vision blurred with unshed tears.

Grabbing hold of the doorframe, she fought not to fall to her knees, because she knew she’d never be able to get back up.

As she stared into what nightmares were made of, the realisation of the danger she was still in sunk even deeper into her bones.

There was no time to mourn, no time to dwell on the terror of her situation.

With a shuddering breath, she forced herself to move away.

As her bare feet pounded the staircase and carried her towards the front door, she agonisingly understood that the life she had known was gone. And just like Papi had told her, she needed to run as far away as she could, if she wanted to live.