Page 72 of Catching Fire

In her favor, even the low branches had been high overhead. But she'd played volleyball in high school. Though she wasn’t tall, her leap was still solid. Normally, it was a move she wouldn't have been able to pull off, but the terror of the situation had fueled her into not only grabbing the branch, but muscling her way up onto it. Once she was on the first branch, she’d been easily able to climb higher and higher. She’d climbed almost to the top of the tree.

Then, she’d hugged the trunk and curled into a ball, letting the needles of the fir obscure her. Though Sanders had quickly shone the light upward once, it had been merely a glance. And, while the other trees were starting to go bare, this pine had been her salvation.

If he'd seen her, he hadn't let on.

Now the daylight had come. She could see the house from where she sat. She had missed it when Sanders came out in the early light and began searching for her again. She’d dozed off and on and at one point had opened her eyes to see him coming along the back tree line as he searched for her. This time he looked at the ground periodically, maybe hoping to see signs of where she’d run the night before.

If he looked up even once, he would see her in all her pink glory.

Her already dry throat clenched the closer he got, and she hugged the tree tighter, confident he’d find an obvious trail from the night before. Her only thought had been escape, not covering her tracks. When he caught the mess she’d left as she looked around and then jumped to grab the branch, he would surely look up.

She’d clung tightly and prayed.

She’d held her breath.

He’d searched almost directly beneath her, and then he’d left.

She could only hope that she was covered enough that he hadn’t seen her. That if he looked back, he wouldn’t see a shock of pale pink up in the tree. At least the daylight was her friend. She’d sat motionless for who knew how long, until he went back to the house. Until he emerged, got in the car and drove away.

Now, she counted to sixty again.

As she hit her sixtieth sixty, she decided that an hour had passed—or at least close enough to it—since the car had left.

Counting was her only method of tracking the passage of time. And she was quite certain she was way off. But if it had been forty minutes, that was good enough. And if it had been an hour and a half, well, that too should be sufficient.

The problem was, it was now time to climb down the tree. And that meant untying her feet from the shell. She thought about taking off the jacket and putting the top back on underneath, but she teetered on the branch just a little.

She was only sitting, not yet moving and she wasn’t stable at even that. She didn’t have the energy to do all the maneuvering it took, and time was more of the essence. She tucked the silk into her waistband, her fingers sticking to it, covered in sap. The shell itself was dirty on the inside from everything that had clung to her feet. Every part of her was a mess. She probably had sap in her hair.

No, she was certain she did.

Seline had leaned against the tree during the night to get what sleep she could. She had sap and bark and fir needles and who knew what else stuck to her. But with a deep breath, she hugged the trunk now and threw her leg over the branch that had held her all night. Slowly, she lowered herself until her toes felt the next one beneath her. Though her feet were still cold, the silk of her sleeveless top had saved her.

With her hands on the branches near her waist, she slowly lowered herself, reaching one foot down and then another. Firs were at least excellent for climbing—if you could jump up to the bottom branch. And thank God, because she could not have navigated a more complex system.

When she reached the lowest branch. She looked around carefully, knowing she was still a beacon in her pale pink suit. But when she saw nothing, Seline swung down, dangling until she couldn’t hold on any longer. She hit the ground with a thud and a sting that shot all the way up to her thighs.

But there was no time to nurse injuries. She walked three steps to the edge of the trees, and still saw no one.

This,she thought, was when her plan truly became dangerous. She didn't know if his home was wired with sensors or cameras. She hadn't checked. But last night when he searched for her, Sanders hadn't seemed to know which direction she’d run in. His search had been haphazard, circling the entire perimeter of the large property. Which meant that he hadn't watched a video to see where she had run.

Given the time she’d had to cover the last of the distance to the tree line once the car had pulled into the drive, he’d done exactly as she'd hoped. He’d unlocked the door at the kitchen and wandered into the house before he discovered she was missing.

Seline had to believe now that her luck would hold. It was her only hope. If she was right—and she wasn't missing any full days of time—she’d now been gone for almost twenty-four hours.

She had a short while to do what she could and there was nothing she could do about the luck part of it.

She simply had to pray that hers, as bad as it had been, held.

Once again, she closed her eyes for a moment, but knew she couldn't hold out that way. The days were much warmer than the nights, and that was in her favor. Her feet were still bare, but she took a moment and pulled the shell from her waist and began ripping it at the seams.

Tearing out the high quality stitches took more strength than she felt she had, but she got it done. When she had two separate scraps, she managed to tie them around her feet. The thin fabric wasn't much protection, but the warmth was good and it would keep things from poking into her skin. Lord knew, she’d pulled pine needles and small rocks out of her feet last night. But now, when nothing moved, she took her first tentative steps back toward the house.

Chapter Forty-Seven

“Are you okay?”

The words came from Sebastian, who should have been on shift today.

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