Page 23 of Twisted Empire

“Really?” I cocked my head to the side. “Last time I tried to escape, it took me around three hours to get to it.”

“You probably headed directly south. The road curves around, so if we cut across southwest, we hit the road way quicker.”

“Oh.”

“Ready to go again?”

Adrenaline burst through my veins, making me feel invincible. I tightened the shoulder straps of the little bag I was carrying on my back and nodded. “Let’s do it.”

We ran in silence for what felt like forever. Elias was stronger and fitter than me, but I followed his grueling path through the woods without complaint. My clothes and hair soon clung to my skin, slick with perspiration, and a metallic taste filled my mouth.

By the time we reached the road, I was exhausted. My lungs felt like they would burst and my throat was as dry as a desert.

“Don’t worry, we’re nearly at the car,” Elias said, halting by the tree line to give me a chance to catch my breath.

I nodded, the tension draining from my body as my breathing turned normal again. “Okay. I can go again.”

“We’ll just walk now. Keep an eye out for headlights. They might be looking for us already.”

He led me a few hundred yards up the tree line, and then he peered out and checked the road, making sure it was clear. “This way,” he said a moment later, beckoning for me to follow.

In the bright moonlight, I could see dark skid marks on the road, veering off to the opposite side where more trees rose into the cool night sky. We crossed over, and Elias led me into a large clearing. “Here it is.”

When I caught sight of the dark red car, all the breath went out of my lungs again. The front half was smashed up against a wide tree trunk. The bumper had been totally crushed, the hood was mangled, the windscreen was cracked, and one of the front windows was shattered. Glass littered the leafy ground, and a burnt chemical smell permeated the air.

“What the hell happened?” I asked, my eyes wide as saucers. There was a hard lump of fear in my throat.

“I crashed it on purpose earlier this morning, before I went to get Mellie. Not an easy task, believe me.”

“Why? We can’t drive it in this condition.”

Elias chuckled. “Exactly. This is the decoy car.” He held out one hand. “Pass me your bag.”

I did as he said. He walked around and tossed it through the open front window of the passenger side. “Wait, that’s all I have!” I said.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got everything you could possibly need in the other car,” he replied in a soothing tone. “We need to make it seem as if we were in this one. It’ll look like in our haste to escape, we wound up skidding off the road and crashing into those trees, forcing us to try and make it on foot. I have a history of crashing cars, as you know, so it’s not exactly unbelievable that this might’ve happened to us.”

“Oh.” He’d thought of everything.

He surveyed the damaged car, a satisfied gleam in his eyes. “I crashed it this way to make it look like we were heading north. That should throw them off our scent for a while.”

“So we’re heading south?”

He nodded. “For now.”

He reached into a pocket, and I gasped as he pulled out a cell.

“Elias! Is that your phone?”

“Yup.”

“Can’t they track that?” My eyes widened fearfully.

“I turned off location services. Once the society realizes I’m involved with your escape, they can probably get some sort of super-hacker to figure out where it is without it switched on, but that’ll take hours. So we’re safe for now, and I’m leaving it here, anyway.” He dropped the phone right in the driver’s seat. “More evidence that we were in this car.”

I let out a huge breath. “You’re too smart for your own good,” I said with a relieved smile.

He winked and took my hand. “Let’s go.”

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