Page 139 of Until Joy

I didn't wait to hear any more. I took off running into the trees. Behind me, I could hear her shouting my name, her voice getting more and more frantic. Luckily, I didn’t hear her getting closer, which had to mean she hadn’t realized I’d headed for the woods.

I stopped and leaned against a tree. I was done for. That sprint had taken all I had. I really was sick from the fake vomiting and the headache and that fucking medicine.

“Joy!”

Shit!

Where had she come from? She sounded close.

I started to run again.

“Joy. You weren’t sick, were you? It was all an act.”

Shit!

“You made a fool out of me.”

Shit!

I stopped running again, my side hurt and I couldn’t run. God, I was having trouble seeing. My lungs were burning and my legs felt like jelly, I needed to push forward. I had to keep moving. But I⁠—

The gunshot cracked through the air like thunder.

What the fuck?!

I hit the ground instinctively, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Glenda had a gun?

Of course she had a gun. How could I have been so stupid?

“I don't want to hurt you!” Her voice carried through the trees, closer than I'd expected. “But I can't let you leave! We belong together!”

Another shot rang out, and I heard the bullet hit a tree somewhere to my right.

I army-crawled forward through the undergrowth, trying to put as much distance as possible between myself and the sound of her voice. Every few seconds I heard her crashing through the woods behind me, getting closer.

I hit my head against a tree trunk and fell backward.

Motherfucker!

Tears sprang up and I blinked to clear my vision.

I hurt all over.

“Joy! You need to come back to me, right now.”

I felt the third gunshot before I heard it, or did I hear it before I felt it? It didn’t matter as the bullet that hit my shoulder launched me sideways into a tree limb, and I hit my head again. It should have hurt, but I was too panicked to let pain stop me. I had to keep going.

I dove face forward with one arm in front of me into a bunch of ferns, doing my best to hide.

I heard her getting closer.

So close.

“You are not going to get away from me. We were meant to be together. It’s our destiny. Even if we have to die. We will be together.”

This was not how I was going to die. Not in the middle of nowhere, hunted by a delusional woman with a gun.