When Stephen finally stops the car, I recognize where we are. It’s the same spot where I parked earlier. Next to the part of the forest where my parents died.
I’ve come full circle.
After getting out of the car, he walks to my side and opens the door. His gun is in his hand, and it’s pointed right at my chest.
“Get out.”
I don’t have much choice. It’s surprisingly hard to climb out of a car when you can’t use your hands to push off.
“Now walk ahead of me.” He motions with his gun toward the forest.
Imagining how the bullet will bury itself between my shoulder blades, I don’t move. “You don’t want to do this.”
“I may not want to, but I have to.” He regards me with dead eyes. “It’s too late, don’t you see? It was too late the minute I accidentally shot Terry all those years ago. Everything was set in motion then. Naomi dying. Nora’s heart giving out. And this.”
It’s now or never. Moving faster than a thought, I lean back and brace my shoulders against the frame of the car. I kick my booted foot straight out in front of me. The hard plastic goes up between his legs with every ounce of strength I can muster. He makes a sound that starts as a grunt and ends as a scream, and staggers back.
I dart past him. Suddenly, it feels as if I’m being clotheslined. He’s grabbed Nora’s necklace. It digs into my throat, and then with a sharp pop, it snaps. He tumbles to the ground behind me, groaning.
I run as fast as I can, a crazy, staggering dash made uneven because of the boot. With my hands cuffed in front of me, I can’t pump my arms but have to move them in tandem. Still, fear gives me wings.
As I run, that doubling thing happens again, the past and the present overlaid. Only this time it’s not a person but a place. Now I remember being little and afraid and trying to run away. Run away from a killer. The same man who will soon gather himself, get to his feet, and chase me.
Last time, he caught me. Will he do the same this time? Because I know there is no hope that he will spare me now.
My ankle protests at every step. My feet slide on the dead pine needles. Branches claw my face, poke at my eyes. Every step betrays me with a snapping twig, a stone that clacks against another. Even my own body betrays me, panting and moaning. I’m making so much noise. Is it better to be slower and quieter or to put more distance between us?
As if in answer, a bullet sings through the air past me. The sound spurs me to an even greater burst of speed.
If I can lose him, maybe I can circle back to the road, hide in the bushes, and flag down a passing car. Or move from tree to tree and follow the road back into town.
Behind me, I hear a faint thud and cry. It sounds like he fell. Tripped on a stone or a root, the way I did when we were last here. My own balance is compromised by the handcuffs and the boot. Pretty soon, I’ll fall, too. I imagine him catching up, standing over me, and pulling the trigger.
I decide to seize this moment to hide and then pray he comes blundering past. On my left, the ground rises. It’s covered with dry grasses, low bushes, and tall pine trees. There’s no real cover. On my right, it slopes down to a thicker tangle of more bushes and blackberry vines, deep enough to hide me. I don’t want to leave telltale broken canes, so I fall to my knees and tunnel into the base of a huge blackberry bush, ignoring how the thorns tattoo my face and arms with my own blood. Finally, I’m in as deep as I can get. In the shadowed darkness, I breathe shallowly. My heart is so loud that surely he’ll hear it, too. Sweat traces a path down my spine.
And then I hear him, muttering and cursing. “Which way? Which way? Where did she go? You can’t let her get away.” He’s no more than fifteen feet from me.
I close my eyes. I don’t want to watch my own death come for me. I’m breathing so lightly my chest doesn’t even rise a millimeter.