Page 40 of Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

For some bizarre reason I’d been scared for Michael. Then it hits me, in that instant.My Gage. What if Michael just shot my Gage?

He’ll be angry. Michael will take it out on me and there’ll be no one close enough to rescue me. And my Gage. The tears come so fast and furious, they’re blinding. I frantically wipe them away with my hand while searching around for an escape.

The obvious choice would be the window, but what are the chances he would have left them unlocked?

Although… hehadleft the front door unlocked. I sneak as quickly as I can back into the bedroom and quietly shut the door. Turning to the closet, I pull a sundress off the hanger and roll it up to wedge beneath the door. It should provide me a little extra escape time.

There’s movement in the house. Time is running out.

I walk back over to the window and pull the curtain open, lifting the shade there. The window has a latch. When I try it, the damn thing unlocks with a soft clicking sound. Michael really thought keeping my shoes would keep me here.

A screen becomes the last barrier between me and freedom. There’s a white plastic spring mechanism situated at the bottom of the wire mesh I have to pull on with each thumb simultaneously to release it.

Holy crap, it worked.

Freedom!

Almost. I spill my body down over the sill, walking my hands down the exterior wall until I’m in a handstand, with my hands on the hard earth. A tuck and roll, then I take off in a crouched run toward the forest. Michael carried the keys to the SUV on him. There’s a second vehicle blocking it off anyway. I waste precious seconds to look inside the second vehicle. No keys.

That would’ve been too easy.

And so I run. My heart pounding so frantically, I swear there’s an outline pushing against my T-shirt. Once I hit the base of the woods, the ground goes from hard, dry, and compact soil to soft, squishy mud, where the sun hasn’t penetrated enough to dry it out after the last rain.

It’s icy cold against my feet, especially squishing up between my toes.

A loud crash sounds from behind me, back toward the house.

I keep running along the path Michael took me down yesterday. My feet keep slipping out from underneath me. Although I don’t fall, all the little slides slow me down.

Movement. I hear movement behind me, a twig snap, the soft squelch of mud. It could be anything. It could be the wind, an animal. My mind… or it could be him.

Him.

No way can I outrun him. Not in my current state. I’m surprised I can hear anything else, what with paying such close attention to the soft noises coming behind me and the blood rushing to my ears.

But I hear it. The low buzz from a wasp nest. I know I’m close, which means I have to leave the path to follow the buzz. I stumble over a branch, scraping my knees and the palms of my hands, palms I throw out to brace me for impact. Both knees and palms bleed. A small consequence if it means not spilling larger amounts from a bullet.

The branch I can use. It’s a little harder, little heavier than I anticipated, and it’s sunk partially in mud. I bend down and yank as if my life depends on it, because it does. Pulling with all my might. Pulling so hard, I stumble backward, falling on my ass. But I dislodge the branch and pick it up, carrying it along the back of my shoulders in order to be able to carry it. I’m not far.

Soft twig snapping from behind reminds me he’s close, too. Reminds me to get my butt moving faster.

Pay dirt. I see the hive swelled in the armpit of a birch tree, right where the trunk and a thick branch come together. When the next twig snap becomes too close for comfort, I move the branch from my shoulders to hold it a little less than halfway from the middle and take a mighty swing. All the while remembering what Gage and Raif taught me years ago.

“Don’t forget to follow through,” Raif barks from the pitcher’s position. Not a mound. We’re just jerking around at a local park.

I blink, not understanding what he means. “Follow through?” I ask.

“How’d you hit fifteen and not understand a follow through? We go to games all the time.”

“How’d you reach seventeen, already such an ass?” I counter. “I don’t go to the games for the games.”

My brother grumbles while Gage behind me barks out a laugh. I know what he’s thinking—he thinks I mean for the players. No. I always go for Gage. To get to sit so close to him, to feel his excited hugs when the Cubs score.

“Here.” He startles me out of my zone. “This is follow through.” Gage then wraps his body around mine from behind, repositioning my hands on the bat. Each one of his placed just above and just below mine. “Now,” he says, “when you swing, keep swinging. Wrap the bat around us.”

Together, we swing the bat once with no pitch so he can show me exactly what he means. The second swing, we crack that ball. It flies.

I pick up the branch and swing, totally missing the target. The momentum practically moves me in a complete circle.

Concentrate, Liv. That swing costs me valuable time. I pick up the branch again and swing once more, this time connecting with the hive. A flurry of angry wasps swarm about, looking for someone to hurt. I drop the branch and run for my life opposite the wasps and my tracker, leading farther away from the path. Farther into uncharted territory. At least uncharted by me.

There’s a loud “Fuck!” from where I’d been moments before. The asshole ran into the wasp frenzy. Serves him right.

I am going to escape. I am going to survive this.

God, if I would only spend as much time paying attention to where I’m running as I did celebrating in my head.

The thin birch branch, which I don’t see because I’m not paying attention, hangs low. I see it too late to avoid the branch attack as it cuts across my neck, cutting off my windpipe, and I fall to my scabbing knees, clutching at my throat. Not even able to cough. But alert enough to hear, “Fucking bitch” behind me and feel something blunt hit the back of my head.

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