Page 199 of Deliverance

Adrenaline is making my heart pound so fast in my chest that my ears are ringing. The ground is cold and hard, and eventually, when all property lights illuminating the winding road dim, the soles of my feet are the first to register pain.

It feels almost as if the path I’m following is made of glass shards.

The air around me is freezing and I tear past rows of tall trees, without any sense of direction.

Truth is, I don’t care where I run as long as it’s away from Rhys.

The distant pounding of boots in the snow somewhere behind me tells me that I’m not rid of him yet.

He shouts something, but the wind rips his words into pieces and only odd sounds that have no meaning reach me as I continue my escape. My eyes adjust to the darkness and it becomes obvious that I’m not seeing just your local crop of trees edging some small country town where I can knock on a door and beg for help.

I’m in a forest with thousands of trunks, massive and grim, stretching ahead of me, and there’s no way to know where I am or where I’m going.

I have no phone. No boots. Not even socks. My only protection from the weather is a light dress.

Desperation claws at my insides, and in return, my fingers wrap around the handle of the knife I’m holding.

You have a weapon, Drew. Don’t give up just yet.

So I keep pushing my legs. One in front of the other. One in front of the other.

Then the land disappears. One minute it’s there, solid and certain, and the next it’s just emptiness. I fly into a void where up and down don’t seem to exist. My heart’s racing with the speed of light. I fall forward, landing on my chest, my lungs straining against my ribs. The knife plummets into the snow somewhere nearby. I hearthwackwhen it lands.

“No…no…no…I need you.” I throw my arm out—the one that still listens to me, and run my palm over the frigid, crusted surface.

My senses are tangled and the pain from the impact with the ground is starting to spread through my right leg. My shoulder and neck are completely busted. My sense of wrongness is almost physical and it reminds me of the way I felt after the miscarriage.

Hollow.

Worthless.

Defective.

“Where the fuck are you?” I whisper, knowing that silverware usually doesn’t talk, but hearing a human voice right now, even if it’s my own and sounds scared, seems imperative.

Somewhere in the distance, the tree branches begin to whisper, then crack. The heavy footfalls are quickly gaining on me now. Closer and closer with each passing second.

Sucking in a labored breath, I roll over, my right leg dragging after me like a useless appendage.

I’m not facing him with my back like a coward.

A single snowflake lands on my forehead.

Get up, Drew.

But all the fight is slowly going out of me, dribbling into the ruthless ground. I feel like I’m suspended between the earth and the sky. There’s flat surface beneath me, yet my shoulders weigh more than they normally would. As I turn my head to the side to survey my surroundings, I notice the trees are protruding from the ground at a weird angle.

And then it hits me. I’m splayed out on the side of a hill, its incline dangerously steep. One wrong move and I’ll slide even lower. And maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I had the knife.

Carefully forcing myself to sit upright and propping my upper body with the elbow that sustained fewer injuries, I sweep the snow around me, my fingers numb and hardly functioning.

“Stupid bitch,” Rhys says from several feet above.

My heart lurches. I have to tilt my head far backward to be able to see his silhouette, dark and massive against the impenetrable backdrop of the forest, lingering on the edge of the hill, right near the drop.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, staring past the small puffs coming out of my mouth.

Rhys doesn’t give me a response. He steps forward, his boots and his jeans rustling against the snow as he slides down the slope.

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