Marie stepped closer. Her forehead wrinkled. “You’re very pale. You should sit down.”
I swallowed. “Yeah, you’re right. Just for a little while… it won’t hurt, I suppose.” I staggered over to a large tree and slid down until I was leaning against the base of the tree.
She walked over to me and knelt down. “Don’t worry. Rest. I’ll keep watch.”
My eyes felt heavy. “Okay. Thanks.”
Marie touched my shoulder and squeezed it. “Just rest,” she repeated, staring into my eyes. “Sleep.”
“Yeah. Okay,” I whispered, falling asleep.
Chapter Five
I opened my eyes. It was dark and all I could hear were crickets chirping in the shadows and leaves blowing in the trees.
As I blinked and stared in confusion, everything came rushing back. Martin, the barn, Gloria’s body in the loft, escaping from the rooftop with Marie.
“Marie,” I croaked, my throat sore.
She didn’t answer.
I stood up and shivered. The temperature had to have fallen by at least twenty degrees.
“Marie?” I whispered loudly, brushing at a small spider on my sleeve.
Where in the hell was Marie?
Something moved in the bushes ahead of me and I froze. I stared at it for a few seconds, holding my breath.
Probably a squirrel or small animal, I told myself.
Hoping that I was just being paranoid and Marie had also fallen asleep somewhere nearby, I began searching for her.
“Marie,” I called out again, my voice echoing in the night.
The moon was full but the darkness made it hard to see much of anything. I called out for her a couple more times as I walked around, but she didn’t answer. After a while, I began to wonder if she’d decided to abandon me, or worse – she’d wandered gotten lost.
Just then, the sound of twigs snapping made me jump. I whipped around, but found myself alone.
I released my breath and told myself to calm down. It was a forest and there were small animals everywhere. I began walking again, praying that I was headed in the right direction, whichever that was.
“Emily….”
Alarmed, I stopped and looked around, unsure if I’d imagined the voice. A gust of wind blew my hair and I brushed off the sound, blaming it on the wind and my overactive imagination.
Shivering, I shoved my hands into my sweatshirt pockets and began walking through the woods again. After a few steps, however, something made me look up into the trees. A pair of reddish-orange eyes stared back down at me and I gasped in horror.
That was not an owl.
Terrified, I began to run.
“Emily…”
This time there was no doubt in my mind that someone or something was calling my name. The voice was eerie, with an almost feminine quality.
I pushed myself forward, the blood rushing to my ears as the voice called my name again, this time followed by mocking laughter.
“You can’t escape…”
Scared to death, I choked back a sob and kept running, my legs moving faster than I’d have ever thought possible. Soon my eyes filled with tears, making it harder for me to see, and before I could blink them away, I tripped over something on the ground and flew forward onto my knees.
“Emily…”
I scrambled back onto my feet, trying to ignore the throbbing in my left knee, but the hot intensity of the pain was overwhelming.
“How did that feel?”
I turned around to find Martin staring at me, his eyes like hot cinders. He stepped towards me. “Funny how we keep meeting at night.”
I backed away from him. “Don’t you fucking come near me!”
“Such foul language,” he said with a chuckle.
“I mean it, Martin. I’m not afraid of you, and I’m certainly not going to let you take me back to that barn.”
He sighed. “Come on now. You disobeyed, Emily. Now you have to learn to deal with the consequences.”
“Look, you can’t just kidnap someone and expect them not to try and escape.”
He didn’t say anything, just stared at me quietly. Expecting me to obey him.
Fuck it.
I turned around and started limping away. Twenty steps later, I found him blocking my path.
How had he gotten in front of me?
“Surprise,” he said, grinning smugly. “See, you can’t possibly escape. So why even bother running? I mean… limping.”
Sick of his arrogance, I clenched my fists and decided that I wasn’t going to go down without a fight. “So now what?” I hollered. “You’re going to teach me a lesson by killing me?”
His eyes glittered in the darkness. “If it were left to me, I wouldn’t, but...”
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” I interrupted. They were beginning to glow an eerie reddish-orange color.