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Then my body tenses, and as if we’ve trained for this, both of us move atexactlythe same moment. The man lunges for me as I whirl around and take off into the woods, knowing I won’t make it to the open side of the barn, or be able to yell loudly enough that someone realizes this isn’t part of the show.
I’m not a runner. At least, I wasn’t until this moment as my feet eat up the distance between me and the thicker, older trees of the forest that borders most sides of Hollow Bridge. I barely stop to look where I’m going as I run, trying to ignore the way my heart quickly starts to protest me doing any kind of rigorous physical activity.
I should’ve tried harder in gym class, clearly, but who in the world can predict that they’ll be running from a murderer a few years after high school?
“Fuck,” I pant, looking behind me to see how close the man is. Not as close as I’d feared, but he’s still in sight. Which means there’s no way I can stop.
Not unless I can break his line of sight.
I dodge behind a big oak tree, heading for the deeper, darker parts of the woods that can hopefully conceal me better than the open clearings. A root trips me and I nearly go down, instead only getting whipped in the face by branches that make my eyes tear up at the burning sting on my cold skin.
Ignore it,I tell myself, swiping away tears as I duck behind another, larger tree. There’s a ditch near it that I quietly scramble into, tucking myself into the hollow that’s partially covered by the huge roots of the old tree. If I can just stay here and be quiet. If I can just stay out of sight, he should go on by.
It’s hard to gulp air silently into my burning lungs, but I do my level fucking best to try. One of my hands clenches, twisting my hoodie tightly in my fingers as I lean back against the side of the ditch and justbreathe.
Footsteps crashing through the leaves meet my ears and I tense more, if that’s possible. Iforcemy breathing to calm down until I’m sucking in silent breaths through my nose and letting out air slowly from my mouth. My chest hurts less and less with every breath, and I open my eyes just enough to see out in the darkness ahead of me, though I’m too afraid to move to see where the killer is.
I can’t let him find me.
For once in my life, my preference for darker clothes is doing me a favor. My shoes, leggings, and hoodie are all black, and thankfully zipped up over my bright red shirt. If I’m still and quiet, I don’t think anyone can see me.
The footsteps sound again, slower this time, and finally I see the man come into view, hands at his sides as he searches the area for any sign of me. He even looksupinto trees, which surprises me. In the movies, killers never look up. Belatedly, I think that it was a good idea not to climb a tree. Not that the possibility had even occurred to me, truth be told.
He searches a few more places, thankfully never once looking toward my sheltered ditch, and then walks further off into the woods, the crunching of his steps in the leaves fading until finally,finally, all I can hear are the sounds of the surrounding woods. Wind gusts past my ears, and I swear the night gets colder the longer I sit here. I shiver in my hoodie, wishing not for the first time that I could dress like I know what temperatures and forecasts actually mean.
“Fuck,” I whisper after a few more moments, my muscles screaming in protest at the running I’d done. Still trying to ignore it, however, I reach into my pocket and fish out my phone, noting with relief it’s not broken or even a little bit cracked.
But I also have no service. The light flares from the screen, nearly blinding me, and I have to squint my eyes against it as I hurriedly turn the brightness down to its lowest setting. “Come on,” I whisper, begging it to find even a single bar now that it’s not in the pocket of my leggings and smooshed against the dirt. “Please,please—”
A sound grabs my attention and I whip around to scan the small clearing, eyes wide as I curse the brightness of my phone that’s now made me night blind. There’s no way he’s come back without me noticing. No way he’s seen my phone when he’s nowhere near me.
Right?
I’m still looking when the first gentle tug comes on my phone. It’s not a demand, but a request, and the gentle casualness of it doesn’t set off my alarm bells…at first.
Until I remember there should be no one here tugging onanythingof mine.
When I turn back to my hiding place and my phone, it’s so quick that I’m surprised I don’t get whiplash from the action.
It’s him.
Somehow, though, I don’t understand how he could be here when he was just walking in the other direction with no sign of being anywhere near me or knowing where I am. But I can’t deny the bright white of his mask, or the black hood that obscures his hair.
I shriek. Weakly at first, until he grabs my phone more tightly and yanks it out of my hand, his other coming toward my throat.
But I don’t give him the chance to stab me or snap my neck. I give up the losing battle for custody of my phone and throw myself out of the ditch, landing on my hands and knees that scream from the abuse before finally scrambling to my feet.
When I take off running again, however, it’s a short-lived journey. The masked man slams into me from behind, both of us skidding in the leaves, until he can roll me over onto my back.
I kick up at him, still shrieking, trying to do anything to not let him capture both of my hands. I can’t let him trap me, otherwise I won’t get another chance to run.
He’ll kill me.
It’s the fear of my certain death that pumps adrenaline through my veins. Terror at knowing what comes next as my mind oh so helpfully provides me with graphic images of the knife stabbing into me over and over again, like it had with Evan.
It’ll hurt.
And I’lldie.
