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I did it a third time, and this time I held it for longer. I stood in the pitch black in a tunnel under a hospital and I didn’t move a single muscle for what felt like a full minute.

Once more there seemed to be nothing behind me, and I had to ask myself if it wasn’t just my imagination. Because wasn’t that what was supposed to happen when fear took hold? Wasn’t it common for you to start hearing things? I mean it wasn’t like I could start seeing things down here, so I guess there was that, I thought wryly.

But then I stopped for a fourth time, and this was when whoever was following me wasn’t quick enough to stop at the same time. Because two more steps came out of the dark behind me after I had already stopped.

Two of them.

Two that I knew weren’t a fucking echo!

“Shit,” I muttered on a whisper as my whole body turned to ice. And the answer gave my hands a new reason to shake, because I heard the predator behind me…

“I can hear your heart beating, little bird.”

40

A CAGE HE OWNS

ANNA

Imade a small yelp the second I heard it and nothing in this world could have stopped it. His voice came out of that blackness behind me, like some sort of sinister purr. A voice that was much closer than it had any right to be, and it went through me like a blade.

“Those frantic little breaths of yours.” He almost hummed before mocking,

“You’re not very good at this.”

I started moving. Faster this time with both hands on the wall now, stumbling along in panicked steps.

“Why are you running from me, little one?” he asked and I would have scoffed at this had I not been too terrified. I just needed to get out of here! I needed to beat him to the end and run as fast as I could before he had a chance to catch up with me.

“Oh, Anna… my frightened little nurse, do you really think you can get away from me that easily?” he said, in a tone that was more taunting than anything else.

But I didn’t respond. I just kept going. The gravel was screaming under my feet as there was no point pretending anymore. No point trying to hide the fact that I was clearly in here trying to get away from him. And what did he do the second he heard my panicked footsteps…

He laughed.

Somewhere back there in the dark behind me the sound came. A low and genuinely amused laughter that was the single most frightening sound I have ever heard in my life.

“Do you really believe you can outrun me?” His voice followed me down that tunnel like it was something with hands. “After everything. After two months. After I crossed state lines and put myself in a cell for you… do you really think you can escape me?”

“Leave me alone!” I finally shouted behind me, my rattled cry echoed off the damp walls.

“Never,” he growled as if the word came through half gritted teeth.

“You have made me chase you, Anna.” Closer his voice came and I wanted to scream and damn my own body for being so slow. Because he was closing the distance between us far faster than I could open it.

“Do you have any idea what that does to a man like me?” he seethed this time and the sound of his anger being directed at me for the first time made me want to stop, sink down to the floor and cover my head with my hands.

But I didn’t do that. Because I didn’t know how to give up and if I did, I would have most likely been dead a long time ago. So, I kept pushing and I would keep doing this until my body physically gave out on me. And my reward was straight up ahead, like a beacon of hope leading me forward.

Finally, a change in the black oblivion I had been navigating my way through like a lost soul searching for life. Not light exactly, but less dark than everything else, a faint gray shape where the tunnel had to end.

The door. That’s the door.

This hopeful sight was enough to get another burst out of me, as I started running quicker this time, as I could almost taste the fresh air of freedom. I ran with my hands out in front of me, my muscles burning and my lungs on fire. And yet, behind me he started to laugh again.

“There she is,” he observed as if pleased that the hunt wasn’t yet over. And yet he wasn’t running. That was the thing that scared me the most. I was running for my life and he wasn’t running at all… like he didn’t need to.

He didn’t need to run. His stride was long enough to do it for him.