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When I’m far enough away, I take some breaths and slow to a walk, trudging onwards to continue picking my way across a pathway of dirt and grass. The house. Nothing else matters than getting to that at the moment. I’ll deal with whatever is going on with Gray at another time, or perhaps never if this is his idea of the truth. Me is the important thing now. Getting me away from this place and back to the land of sanity and realism. He was right to a degree, things seem clearer now, less murky, even if the thought of him still batters around inside me constantly. Maybe the pills were altering me, changing what I saw or thought, how I behaved. I liked them, though. Liked the way they helped me evolve, grow.
Half the field passes me by before I look up and notice a fence rounding the grounds. It’s wire, almost seamlessly blending against the sky behind it. High, too. I glance up and down the fence line, looking for an opening. Nothing. It just looks like an endless run of barrier in both directions. And then I hear something behind me. I turn to look at it and find a man running, white clothes cutting a fast pace through the dark ground beneath him to get to me. I can hear the thudding from here, his feet slamming on the ground in chase.
Thud, thud, thud. Thud, thud, thud.
It’s not my thud, though.
Not Gray’s either.
And I am not going back there.
My legs take off, thighs and calves burning under the exertion to get me away from him. There’s nowhere to go. All there is is this fence line keeping me trapped behind borders, away from the rest of the world. I sprint, though. I sprint with everything I’ve got, chasing the wire down in hope of an opening somewhere, and run for my life. The head wind doesn’t help. It pounds against me, tiring what is already exhausted before I’ve managed to get far enough away or put enough distance between us.
But there … there. I can see it in my line of sight, a gateway, tarmac road.
I’m not fast enough.
Something catches hold of my arm, hauling me back towards it no matter how much I struggle. I twist, turn, slam my foot down in the hope of hitting his, and then send my hands flying at his face, but still the arms seem to have me in a vice like grip. Each touch from him seems practised, making me howl and scream, as he pulls me into a position I can’t get out of. One of my arms twists up behind me, his own going up to my chest to hold me still, and then something puts pressure on the back of my knees.
I hit the ground hard, shins and ankles cracking under the weight of him smothering me into place.
“Calm down,” he says, his breath ragged.
No. I’m not calming down. I am fighting and running and getting the hell away from wherever this is. I tug again, using all my strength to get out of the hold I’m in, and push forward again to get to my feet. My ankle is grabbed, sending me straight back down to the ground, and then he’s over my back and sitting on me to keep me still.
“Asshole,” spits out of me.
My hand whirls round, body still winding and snaking under him to get out, and I grab hold of his ear. He curses and pushes down on me harder, digging his hand into the back of my neck to hold me still. Fuck him. My ass rises, bumping him up off me for a few seconds, and I try again to get out only to be met with a slap so hard on the back of my head I slump forward.
My head’s squashed into the dirt, face ground into it, as more curses come out of his mouth, and then the weight begins easing slightly, irrespective of both my hands being grabbed and pulled up behind me.
“Still being rebellious, I see,” Gray’s voice says from somewhere.
The chuckle at the end of it, and the part shock of him at all, makes my head spin towards him ready to rip a few curse words of my own, until I see him sitting on the other side of the fence.
On a horse. A horse?
Where did a horse come from?
I gape, unable to articulate what any of that bizarre vision means to me, or why I can’t talk, and take the look of him in. Casual, black jeans and a brown jacket, heavy boots more reminiscent of Malachi than him. The whole sight is off. No suit. No sharpness other than the usual arrogance cutting his jaw like glass and his dark eyes staring back.
He arches a brow at me and walks the horse a little closer, covering ground slowly until he’s up against the wire. “Let her go, Ridley,” he says.
The weight leaves me instantly, both my hands released. “Are you escaping, Mrs Tanner?” I glance passed him, looking through the wire at the light dust behind him from another horse that’s disappearing. “You can get up if you like.”
“Fuck off,” snaps out of me.
“As eloquent as ever,” he drawls, his eyes watching me carefully, as he blows out some smoke..
The horse paws the ground under him, as I pull myself upright, and a flurry of more dust kicks up because of it. “Can I ask where you’re escaping to?”
“Anywhere. Away from there. It’s …” I don’t know what it is. My head turns back slowly to look at it, a sneer settling as I remember all those words and those women and whatever it was that kicked off. “It’s not for me.”
“Possibly not. But it is where my meds are. You needed them.” He chuckles as the horse moves around impatiently again, not bothered in the slightest about the massive animal he’s sitting on. “You look better.” Better than what?
My brow furrows, an insecurity sweeping over me under his scrutiny. I don’t know why. I should be furious about him locking me up in that place, and still very furious about the way he treated me. Maybe it’s these clothes and this area, this wire between us even.
“I didn’t realise I was ever not better,” mumbles from my lips, as I eye the Ridley person getting closer. “Tell him to leave me alone.”
