AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I should be two blocks away by now, I know I should. But I’m not. I’m . . . back on Main Street.
Right where I started.
"Wake up, Eve," Nana Jo says again, her tone as close to yelling as it gets.
I walk to the middle of Main Street, my anger sparking to life, tangling with fear and producing a devastating cocktail. "I am awake," I yell into the stale air.
Anger licks at my heels as I turn around and start running again. This time I take a different side street, one that I know will lead me back to the Reaper compound—to them.
Two streets and a left turn later, I’m back in the middle of Main Street again. Desperation claws at my throat and my sinuses sting with frustration. I brace my hands on my thighs, bending over and gulping in oxygen. The air feels different somehow, thin and laced with staticky ozone. It reminds me of the one time Cora and I thought we were going to be the kind of people who hiked on the weekends. We tried a trail up the mountain, only we barely made it fifty feet before neither one of us could catch our breath.
“What do you want?” I ask. The hot breeze pushes discarded plastic bags and crumpled pieces of paper around the deserted street.
I stand up, lacing my fingers and setting them on the top of my head. I turn on the ball of my foot, looking for any signs of life. "What do you want from me?" I yell this time, giving into my quickly rising emotions.
The acidic smell doubles, cloying my sinuses as I breathe it in. It takes me a moment to place it, but then I realize—it’s the telltale scent of a looming lightning storm.
Before I can take a step toward shelter, an ear-splitting crack of thunder echoes around me. The sky lights up with bright flashes of lightning.
And then everything goes black once more.
Consciousness arrives with the power of a cannon, overwhelming and almost painful. I suck in a huge breath, curling forward into a sitting position instantly. My heart thunders inside my ears, and it takes me a second to realize that it's not my heart. It's actual thunder.
I blink, my vision clearing immediately as dreamlike memories superimpose themselves onto my vision. But I’m not in the middle of Main Street Rosewood.
I'm in a car.
Fuck. I'm still inside the car.
I have to go—now.
My hearing doesn’t seem like it’s working normal, amplifying my own breaths wheezing inside my chest instead of clueing me into the noises around me. I absently shove my hair off of my face, my hand coming away streaked in blood.
Like a domino reaction, I feel the throbbing along my brow bone a moment later. I do a quick check-in with myself, wiggling my fingers and toes just like I did before I decided to attempt strangulation. And thankfully, my luck holds when I’m able to move the rest of my body without any serious pain. Relief threatens to weigh my shoulders down, but I don’t let it. I’m not out of the woods yet. I can’t believe my half-assed, crazy plan worked.
Kind of.
I still have to get the hell out of here.
I send a heartfelt thank you and love you so much to Nana Jo for looking out for me. Because that’s the only possible reason that I’m walking away from this relatively unscathed. We crashed into a ditch, and it seems like we rolled onto the roof. You can’t convince me she didn’t intervene and keep me safe.
I take a deep breath and extract myself from behind the rear passenger seat. I spare the driver a single glance, just to see if he’s there. I resist the urge to check his pulse or look at his chest to see if it’s moving. I already know I can’t win a physical fight against him, I already tried and failed at that. The best thing I can do now is run, find somewhere safe, and call my men.
I scramble out of the broken rear passenger window on my hands and knees, my palms and clothes scraping against the sharp shards of glass. I take a moment to catch my breath before pushing myself up and onto my feet, ignoring the stinging cuts on my skin.
There’s a building in the distance, maybe a mile or so away.
My only hope now is to reach it and find help or use someone’s phone to call for help. I focus on reaching my destination and ignore the burning pain in my lungs as I dash across the farm field, dodging growing corn stalks and my shoes sinking into the earth with each step.
13
EVANGELINE
I’m riding my adrenaline high as I sprint the final few feet across the slippery field. My throat burns and I think my eyes are watering, though it’s hard to tell with the rain.
My chest heaves with exertion and cold rain sluices down my face. I hesitate at the edge of the field, staring at the building in front of me.
The gas station stood like a sentinel, its bright spotlights cutting through the overcast and illuminating the cracked blacktop with a hazy glow. The six gas pumps stood underneath the overhang, their age evident but still maintained with care. It wasn’t vintage, more like, this place wasn’t frequented often.
