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The teen had fallen when the tree had crashed, yet now he was up and running once more. But the gap was now closing.
Calling on reserves she wasn’t sure she possessed anymore, she propelled forward like she had been shot out of a mortar. She leapt and hit him in the back of the legs. He sprawled forward into the dirt while Michelle pitched sideways and then rose, her lungs searing, her breath coming in gulps. She bent over, but kept her gaze on him, her gun ready, because she could see he still had his, although she wasn’t worried about him firing it.
He turned over, his butt in the dirt, his knees bent to his chest.
“Who the hell are you? Why are you chasing me?”
“Why are you running around with a gun in the middle of a storm?” she countered.
He looked very young, maybe fifteen. The way his auburn hair was plastered to his freckled face it looked blood red.
“Just leave me alone,” he cried out.
He rose and Michelle straightened. They were barely three feet apart. At five-foot-ten Michelle was at least three inches taller than he was, although his long legs and size twelve feet promised that he would probably zip right through the six-foot mark before he was done growing.
She glanced at his gun and confirmed what she had seen earlier in the headlights.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Are you going to shoot me?” he responded fearfully.
“No. Are you going to shoot me?” She already knew the answer to that. He couldn’t shoot her even if he’d wanted to.
He started to back up. “Just please leave me alone.”
“I’m trying to help you. My partner and I almost hit you back there.”
“Your partner?”
Michelle decided a lie was better than the truth right now. “I’m a cop.”
“A cop?” He looked at her suspiciously. “Let me see some ID.”
She put her hand inside her jacket and withdrew her PI license. In the dark she hoped it would look legit enough. She flashed it.
“Now will you tell me what this is about? Maybe I can help you.”
He looked down, his thin chest rising and falling quickly with each of his uneven breaths.
“Nobody can help me.”
“That’s a big statement to make. Things can’t be that bad.”
His lips started trembling. “Look, I… I need to get back home.”
“Is that where you ran away from?”
He nodded.
“And where you got the gun?”
“It belonged to my dad.”
Michelle pulled her wet hair out of her eyes. “We can give you a ride there. Just tell us where it is.”
“No, I’ll walk. It’s not far.”
“That’s not a good idea. Not in a storm like this. You might get hit by a car or have a tree fall on you, both of which have already almost happened. What’s your name?”
