Page 7 of Wed to the Devil

Olivia grabs her cell phone off her desk and starts to text her mother. “I am like ninety nine point nine percent sure. You can also take my car. I have to be back here in a few hours, but in the morning, but that doesn't stop you from going. And depending on how long you decide to stay out there, I can join you on Friday evening.”

I feel a little bit sick, a wave of nausea washing over me. I pull out the office chair from Olivia's desk and sit down, trying to breathe deeply.

It's nice that my best friend has some place for me to run to. But the very fact that I am already running away from the man I married onlyearlier today is almost enough to make me want to throw up. The deception… The lies… How Dare fucked me and then looked me in the eye and promised that there were no secrets between us…

I grip the desk and try to breathe in deeply through my nose and exhale slowly through my mouth.

Olivia perks a brow, peering at me over her cell phone. “You okay?”

I shake my head. “I am very much not okay. I can't believe that I fell for Dare's lies. He just completely blindsided me. And I was willing to be his pretty little wife. Honestly, I blame myself as much as Dare. I knew he was a snake when I met him. But I never thought he would turn his fangs on me.”

She frowns deeply and then puts her cell phone away in her pocket. “My mom says that no one is staying at the cabin. So we are all good there. I think you'll need to stop at a convenience store on the way there for firewood. But other than that, the house is clean and ready for guests.”

Nodding my head, I swallow. I try to push the idea of Dare out of my head. Right now, I have to focus on what's right in front of me. I can't be worried about how angry he will be when he finds me gone.

If he hasn't already, that is.

Olivia grabs a coat and slides it around my shoulders, then urges me to follow her. She passes me her keys, pointing out the key to the cabin as we walk down the echoing halls of the science building.

“What am I going to do for clothes?” I ask aloud. Not really addressing Olivia, more just wondering.

“Well you can have whatever I have in my go bag.” Olivia pushes the door open and I step out into the icy night air. She hustles me down to the back of the building, where I see a mostly empty parking lot. Her car is at the back of the lot and I walk across the newly paved parking lot. “What do you mean go bag?” I ask.

She eyes me skeptically as we approach her car. “You don’t have a go bag? What about if there is an emergency?” She reaches over to my hand and grabs a key, popping the trunk of her car. We walk up to the trunk and she opens it further, lifting a duffel bag from the car. She unzips it and shows me the contents. It looks like a few clothes, a bag of toiletries, and a big heavy blanket. She lifts the blanket and shows me that there is a box of protein bars underneath and a few bottles of water.

My brows rise and I look at her with some surprise. “Prepared for anything, huh?”

Olivia shrugs and gestures around us. “For emergencies, just like this one.” She presses the keys into my hand again and jerks her chin toward the driver side door. “Let me give you the address of the cabin. You need to get it now while you still have cell service, because there isn't much when you get up into the mountains. The same thing goes for food and groceries and anything else you get in the convenience store. You need to get it like twenty miles from the cabin, because when you get closer, there is just nothing out there. And don't forget the firewood.”

I give her a hard hug, surprising her a little. She hugs me back and then lets go. Olivia moves to open the driver side door and looks at me expectantly. “Get moving. If I know anything about the Morgans, I know that they have unlimited resources. And when Dare figures out that you're gone, he will undoubtedly use those resources to find you. The sooner you go, the sooner you'll be out of the range of his reach.”

“Thank you, Olivia.” I give her a small, sad smile. “I will drive back into the range of cell phone service Friday morning just to check and see if you left me any messages. Okay?”

She gives my hand a squeeze and then steps back. “Okay. Everything that I hear, I will send along via texts. Just be safe, okay?”

“Thank you, Olive.”

She gives me the same reserved smile. “Of course, Leah. I would do anything for you. That's what sisters are for.” Nodding, I gather myself up and start the car. I close the door and back out of the parking space. Olivia waves to me once, standing in the parking lot. I wave back at her and then drive away.

* * *

It's almosttwo AM by the time I turn down the bumping, gravel road in the pitch black darkness. There are tall pine trees on either side of me, covered in a thick blanket of snow. About twenty minutes ago, the snow started to fall, obscuring the view from the windows. It started off a light snowfall but has increased until now, when I'm driving five miles an hour, the brights on the car flashing, bouncing wildly off the newly fallen banks of snow that have fallen on the ground as far as the eye can see. I'm determined to make it to the cabin itself. But at this point, I have both hands clenching the wheel, leaning forward to peer out the window as I go.

I squint and try to get closer to the windshield. It's only a little about six inches from my face at this point so I'm not sure how to see the road any better. My GPS on my phone tells me that I have arrived but I just keep crawling forward until the cabin seems to appear right before my very eyes, solidifying in the burgeoning snowstorm. I slam on the brakes and my heart jumps into my throat. Putting the car in park, I unclench my hands from the steering wheel. As I shake out the tension that has been building in my fingers, I look at the cabin.

I can make out the front porch just fine, a window beside the rustic front door. But I can't see the lines of the roof. There's too much snow in the air to gauge the true size. I remember this cabin being pretty small when I stayed here last but I just suck in a deep breath and blow it out.

Taking the keys out of the ignition and turning off the car's lights, I open the door into a blast of freezing cold air and immediate dampness as snowflakes hit my bare skin. I grab the keys and my cell phone and drop them in my pocket, then try to head around the back of the car, opening the trunk and wrestling the gray gym bag free. I run towards the porch, my teeth starting to chatter already. I pile the gym bag by the door and go back to the trunk for several stacks of firewood and two small paper bags of groceries.

It takes me three more trips to wrestle the firewood and groceries onto the porch and close the car trunk. It is blindingly cold, my fingers feel numb and I scrape my whole right hand up on the rough raw logs. It's everything I can do to manage to fish the keys out of my pocket and find the front door key.

To my relief, the door opens without much fuss. It creaks open and I drag my bag inside first, then the groceries, then the wood. I barely get a glance at the little two room cottage cabin before I close the door and lock it. Beginning to shake all over, I wrap my arms around myself and look around the room. Here directly in front of me is a small sitting area with a couch and the wood burning stove. There is a small kitchen, a tiny bathroom, and a closed-door that I remember leading into a bedroom. The place has been jazzed up, all the windows cheerfully decorated in red gingham, the couch a basic gray corduroy but relatively new and clean. There is a huge pile of blankets and sheets and pillows on the couch.

Blowing on my hands, I decide that the first order of business is to start a fire in the wood burning stove. It takes me a couple of minutes and a lot of discarded newspapers from a box labeled fire starters. But I manage to get the fire going and I leave the door open wide, enjoying the heat that it immediately brings to the room. I hold my fingers out and the fire warms them quickly. Sliding my gaze around the room, I try to decide what to do next.

Outside, the heavy snowstorm becomes a downright blizzard. I can't see anything at all and the entire world just looks like a blank white screen. That's definitely not a good sign. Or maybe it is… If I find it difficult to get my car out of the road and back to Harwicke, Dare will certainly have trouble finding me.

Wishing that I were wearing a pair of comfy sweats instead of this fancy dress, I spend the next few minutes putting the firewood in a pile by the stove and putting away my meager groceries. I realize that most of the power in the tiny cabin isn't on. But that is easily enough remedied because there is a large sticky note over an electrical box with a set of switches. When I slip them on, the whole cabin lights up at one time. That's good to know. Especially because I was just wondering about using the tiny bathroom and thinking how cold it was going to be in there. I turn the tiny heat lamp on in the bathroom for a minute and then go check out the bedroom. It's barely more than a tiny room, a double sized bed built into the far wall and a bookshelf full of aging paperbacks stuffed in it.

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