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“Always. I’ll never stop while there’s breath in my lungs and my heart beats,” I promise, just as the sky lights up and rain comes down harder than before. It’s like the universe is angry with us for our promise we made to each other.
“Shit. Let’s get out of here,” he says, doing his jeans back up. There’s no rescuing his shirt though, and it flaps wildly as the wind picks up and rain lashes at his skin.
I grab my shorts, which are hanging from one leg, and shove the other through before sliding down the bonnet, landing with a squelch and dragging them up my legs, which is nigh on impossible given how saturated they are. I finally get them up as Rick calls out that he’s going to grab the hamper, which he dropped when he started chasing me.
The rain starts to slow, the wind drops and the clouds brighten, casting an eerie silence over the woods.
I’m just about to open the car door when a flock of birds scatter, fleeing into the sky with a screech and clap of wings that startles me.
Shaking my head and laughing at my jumpiness, I clutch the handle, but I don’t get the chance to pull it. My body lurches as something hits me in the neck, and I spin round, hand coming to my neck to feel a small dart there. My vision sways, and my legs weaken as whatever I’ve just been shot with begins to take hold.
Pushing the blurriness away, I let out a cry barely above a whisper. Trying again and knowing if I don’t do something, I’ll be gone, I use every ounce of strength I have left to force a gut-wrenching scream from my lips at the same time as two men emerge from the tree line.
Taking a breath, I call out again, “Ricccc….” My yell trails off as my legs give out, and my throat closes as paralysis grips me.
“Get her and let’s get out of here before he comes back,” one says, as the other slings me over his shoulder, and I bounce like a rag doll as he repositions me before jogging back to the trees. I watch, unable to move, as the car gets further and further away before disappearing altogether as we cut between two large trees.
I can hear the guy ahead as he tramps over the undergrowth, snapping twigs under foot.
In the distance, I hear the faint yell of my name, and I know it’s Rick.
“Jess! Jess! I’m coming, JJ!”
I can see and hear everything, and it’s like I’m trapped in my own body with no way out.
It’s the most helpless feeling I’ve ever had. Even being held down while another violated me didn’t feel this helpless because I fought, I struggled with my whole body, but this time, my body has deserted me.
I can still hear Rick calling me, and inside I’m crying with desperation to call back to him. Suddenly, I’m dumped in the back of a van, and as the doors close, Rick’s voice fades away.
Thirty-Seven
Rick
I’m soaked to the bone and there’s a chill there too, but it can’t touch the warmth that’s currently strumming through my veins thanks to one woman.
One woman that burst into my life in a spray of blood and full of fight.
One woman who has broken down my walls and surreptitiously burrowed under my skin, replaced the blood that flows through my veins and now holds my heart in her iron fist.
If I were a girl, I’d be skipping as I hurry to get the hamper I dropped when Jess pushed me in the lake.
I wasn’t surprised those three little words tried to make their way out of my mouth just now. If I’m honest, they’ve been on the tip of my tongue on more than one occasion in the last week.
I am surprised at how easy they were to say considering I always believed that I’d never say them to another woman again. Especially not to another woman who couldn’t be more opposite from Sam. They are a complete contrast to one another; black and white, Heaven and Hell, day and night, light and dark. And that’s it. Sam spoke to a Rick before he was a battle scared and tormented soul, and Jess speaks to the Rick I have become.
Jess is reconnecting the old pieces of me—the happy, loving and carefree me—and stitching them together with the new jaded, harder, angrier and broken pieces of me.
Leaning down to pick up the hamper, which is wedged between the first and second steppingstones, I look up as a flock of birds take flight from the trees to the left, flying over my head. As my hand wraps around the handle of the hamper, an ear-splitting scream reverberates all around and is quickly followed by a terrified shout of my name, which cuts off as quick as it came.
Jess.
My feet pound the ground as I call out to her, but there’s no reply. My heart almost damn near stops as a fear I’ve not felt in a long time seizes me.
“Jess! Jess! I’m coming, JJ!” I yell, hoping she can hear me.
Before I even reach the car, I know she’s gone. Reaching the passenger side, I scan the floor and discover two sets of footprints in the freshly wet ground leading into the trees to my right.
Quickly opening the door, I snatch my phone from where I left it sitting in the hands-free cradle and slam the door closed before sprinting into the trees.
