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Chapter One
Salem
I’m running.
My breath comes in heavy pants as I force my legs to move faster. My arms pump hard as hair flies wildly around my face. I look quickly behind me, trying to see how close he is but I can barely see three feet in front of me. It’s a crescent moon tonight and not a lot of light is filtering in through the treetops.
I hear footsteps thudding behind me and run faster through the woods, dodging bushes and trees as I go. I jump over a fallen tree branch, hitting the ground and stumbling. I fall down and my hands and knees sink into the cold mud. I push myself up to keep going but the mud is thicker than I expected and I lose my shoes as I try to scramble out of it. I can hear him crashing through the woods after me and he’s close. There’s no time to waste so I leave the shoes and take off barefoot.
I’m not sure which direction I’m running in anymore but I pray I’m going the right way. My house was in the middle of nowhere and I was never allowed to leave the grounds but I used to walk along the fence when I was younger and I know where the low spots are; where I’ll be able to jump over. I’ve been waiting for this day, plotting and planning, for months now. That was when I learned that my father wasn’t going to let me leave when I turned 18. I had been naïve to think that he would. He wouldn’t even let me go into town with him, so I should have known that he wouldn’t just let me go.
I’ve been trapped in that house my whole life. My mother died in child birth with me and it’s been just me and my father ever since. He’s been strict and suffocating my whole life but when I was younger, I didn’t know any better. As I got older, I realized how lonely I was. I wanted friends, a social life, maybe a boyfriend. I begged and pleaded with my father to stop homeschooling me and to let me go to school in town but he always said no.
I grew up in an old farmhouse that’s seen better days. The house is two stories with a sagging roof and porch. The house is falling apart and in need of a ton of repairs and the barn located a couple of yards away from the back door is in even worse condition. Our house is settled smack dab in the middle of a couple acres with nothing around for miles. It used to be a working farm but after my mother’s death, my father must have let everything drop.
Instead, his focus was solely on me. You’d think that would be a good thing. A loving father doting on his only daughter, but it’s not like that. For one thing, he’s not that loving. He’s strict and overbearing and he has made sure to get drunk and tell me every day that I killed my mother. It doesn’t matter that I had no control over what happened, that I was literally being born. My father just could never see past my mother’s death to me.
I’m smart, all I had to do around the house was read after all, but that also means that I’m smart enough to know that I’m naïve about a lot of stuff. I don’t understand how the real-world works, not really, and I’m desperate to learn about it. To make connections. I’m terrible in social situations and I’ve only had one friend my entire life. The boy I used to walk the fence with.
Campbell McConnely. I met him when I was just a girl. I had been six and wandering along the fence in the woods marking our property from the farm next door when I had run into him. He was older, ten at the time, and the most handsome boy that I had ever seen. He had wandered along his side of the fence with me and we had talked for hours, until I had to go back home. He had met me the next day and the next, until it became our thing. We would meet every day at 5pm and walk the fence until it got too dark to see.
He was my first and only friend but he was also so much more. He was my closest confidante, the person I could tell all of my secrets too. He was my first crush and when I was sixteen, he became my first kiss. He was the first and only person I ever said I love you too. I used to picture us growing up and getting married. He had postponed college, opting to wait until I graduated and we could go together. Everything was on track until my father caught us one night a year ago. We had been standing at the fence, holding hands, when he had come through the trees and spotted us. My father had lost it and Campbell had tried to explain that we loved each other, that he would never hurt me but my father just dragged me away. From that day forward, I wasn’t allowed out of the yard, I wasn’t allowed out of my father’s sight.
As soon as I knew that he was going to keep me trapped there indefinitely, I knew that I needed to figure out a way to escape. I’ve been trying to remember the layouts and best path to take for weeks now. Since I’m only allowed out in the yard and my father won’t let me out of his sight, I couldn’t go too close to the woods to really look around. I’m only allowed one hour of outside time and I had to make it count so I would jog the perimeter, over and over again, straining my eyes to see as far into the woods as I could.
I’ve got everything planned and I’ve been working to make sure that I’m successful. I’ve been running more, trying to build up my endurance and I’ve kept a little duffle bag tucked away with some of my clothes in it. Dresses, because that’s the only thing my father lets me wear. Everything was ready to go. I just needed to wait until I could leave.
Today was my birthday. Eighteen and legally allowed to be on my own. I had waited until my father had gone to bed with a bottle of his favorite booze before I pulled up a loose floorboard and crawled out. My father had to move me down to the first floor when some of the stairs started to go and I’m lucky that he did. Not just because I would have fallen through the stairs by now, but because I was able to find a way out of this house. There are bars on the windows and all of the floorboards creak, so I never would have made it out of this house any other way. Not without waking my father up.
He had heard me anyways and I had heard him as he jumped out of bed, already calling my name. My duffle bag had snagged on a nail and by the time I had torn it free, he was coming out of his bedroom. I had taken off running towards the north but now I only had a short head start. I’m faster than him though and I’m hoping that it will be enough to get away.
I keep running north through the woods, my bare feet slapping as they hit a random mud puddle or twig. I sprint through the woods, ignoring the stabbing pain in my feet from stepping on rocks or other debris. I can feel the mud as it squishes between my toes and I can already tell that it’s covering most of my legs. My thin dress flits around my thighs as my legs push harder. I can feel my heartbeat pounding in my chest, can hear it thumping in my ears. I see a light in the distance and I head in that direction, willing him not to catch me before I can find help. Before I can find my guardian angel.
Chapter Two
Campbell
I wipe my hands off on my jeans as I watch the new foal stand on shaky legs and totter over to his mother. I rest my arms on the stall door, watching the new family as they nuzzle each other. My mare, Delilah, finally went into labor this afternoon and it’s been a long few hours helping her deliver her foal. Both mom and son are here and healthy though now and it’s time for me to make my way to bed. I need to be up early as usual to help my men take care of things around here.
I pat the stall door, taking one last look at them before I pick up a stray halter, hanging it on a hook outside another stall as I pass. I close up the barn and turn to head up to my house, stopping to stare into the woods and wonder about my girl as usual. I stop and listen closer. I could have sworn I heard a sound coming from the woods. I pause, my body turning towards where I thought the sound was coming from. I hear it again and this time it’s closer. I take a step closer to the woods and that’s when she runs out.
My princess. Salem.
I’m struck and my whole body freezes, eyes locked on the little girl as she spots me and starts to run right towards me. This can’t be happening. I must be so sleep deprived that I’m starting to hallucinate things. I watch as Salem runs closer and I see the terrified look on her face. That snaps me out of it and I run towards her, eyes already scanning the trees behind her for the danger.
We reach each other and I open my arms. She runs right into them and I wrap my body around hers, trying to shield her from whatever she was running from.
“Don’t let him get me.” She whimpers into my chest.
“Who?” I ask, panicked eyes still scanning the trees.
“My father. Please. Please don’t let him get me.”
Having her in wrapped around me, finally, feels like a dream but she’s trembling, shaking in my arms and I need to get her inside, somewhere where I can protect her. I look down and notice her feet are muddy and dirty. My stomach drops at seeing my girl, my princess, like this. I look up into her face and see tears falling from her pale blue eyes. I reach up, brushing her tears away when I hear a branch snap close by. My princess’s eyes widen and she tenses in my arms. I bend down and scoop her up into my arms, taking off for the house.
I make it to the porch and swing the door open, kicking it closed with my foot and turning to lock it. I peek out the window and I can see a dark figure standing by the trees, looking left and right. He’s not going to find what he’s looking for. I tighten my grip on my princess and look down at her in my arms.
“Salem?” I ask, still not believing that she’s really here.
