Hands locked, we run through the woods as fast as we can, away from the community, away from … a cult.
I never thought I would be able to escape, that I’d be in this position right now and running for my life. I tried so many times and never succeeded … and then suddenly, it happened. There was a chance, a moment in time, and I took it and fled.
With her selfless act, my mother created an opening for me. With her sacrifice, she distracted the guards and allowed me to climb over the fence and rush off into the unknown. But anywhere is better than that place, and I can’t ever thank her enough for what she’s done.
Tears stream down my face, but I force myself to stop feeling any emotions. If she’s gone, I can’t let her death be in vain. I don’t know where I am, but as long as I’m going in the opposite direction of the fence, I’m going the right way. I will never, ever turn back willingly.
Emmy abruptly stops and almost pulls me down with her.
I forgot she was here with me, running alongside me as though she has something to run from.
She grew up there and loves the place, yet she wanted to come with me … like some kind of fun day out.
She’s gasping for air. “Wait. I need a second to breathe.”
“We can’t,” I say, trying to jerk her along. “They’ll notice we’re missing soon.”
She places her hands on her knees, panting. “Just … one … second.”
I frantically look around the forest to see if anyone’s there. Even though the fence is already long out of sight, I can’t help but feel as though I’m watched wherever I go. What if someone saw us jump over? What if someone’s behind us right now?
“C’mon!” I say through gritted teeth.
“Okay, okay!” she says begrudgingly.
Why am I even waiting for her? She has no reason to run. No one’s trying to ruin her life by forcing her to live a life she didn’t want. No one pulled her out of her world and stuck her into a cult only to be forced to marry a man just so she could birth his babies.
She thinks it’s normal, which is why I don’t understand why she wants to come with me. And why I should even care.
WOOF! WOOF!
My eyes and ears perk up. The sudden sound of howls and barks has me on edge.
“Wolves?”
Emmy’s eyes widen as she leans up. “Hounds,” she mutters, lips tremoring.
I spin on my heels and run. Hounds are a game-changer. If they let them loose, there’s no way we can escape.
“Wait for me!” Emmy yells, chasing me.
“Be quiet!” I whisper-yell back at her over my shoulder.
Fallen branches poke into my legs while running, but the slight sting is forgettable compared to the pain I’ve had to endure in that community. In the wilderness, I feel alive, and nothing energizes me more than the smell of freedom.
Emmy has trouble keeping up, but she won’t stop tailing me. I never said she should come, but she invited herself the minute she threatened to expose my escape plan to the elders. But they know now, so she has no power against me anymore.
For a moment, I stop and spin on my heels. “Stop following me.”
“What? No, I wanna come with you.”
The hounds bark again. We both flinch and lower ourselves so as not to be seen.
“They already know I fled,” I hiss. “I don’t have to take you anywhere.”
“But I—”
“Leave!” I hiss.
Tears well up in her eyes, and it almost, almost hurts to see her cry because of something I said. But she’s one of them, so I shouldn’t feel sorry for her.
“Go back home. You belong there.” I point where we came from, toward the sound of the hounds.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “I want to see your world.”
I grab her by her white dress. “I’m not gonna take on a charity project! Don’t you understand? This is life or death.”
She seems shaken by my words and unable to reply, so I let her go. “You’ll only cause me more problems.”
“I promise, I won’t,” she says, right as I spin around.
I sigh to myself, and say, “Whatever. Suit yourself.”
I can’t stop her from doing what she wants even though I wish for nothing more. But I have no power to stop her, and I don’t want to resort to violence. She wants to thrust herself into her own grave? Fine by me.
“I’m not going to protect you when shit hits the fan,” I reply.
She pauses and frowns. “The what?”
Of course, she wouldn’t know what that phrase means. I roll my eyes. The minute I got beyond that fence, it was like my past self flooded back in, along with all the words I was forbidden from using in that community.
“Nothing. Just stay out of my way,” I growl, and I run off.
I don’t want to think about it or her, or any of the things I left behind there in that hellhole. I just want to go home … if I still have one.
Noah said he’d given my notice at work and gotten me vacated from the apartment. Did he mean it, or was it only a threat to keep me quiet? What if I did lose everything I ever knew? Where will I go now?
Well, anyplace is better than here. The forest is cold and merciless at night, so we won’t stand a chance if we stay here.
I glance over my shoulder, and sure enough, she’s still on my trail. She just won’t give up. If I wasn’t so hell-bent on getting away from people like her, I would think it’s courageous. But I don’t. I think she’s trying to get herself killed. And why? Wasn’t she happy there in the community? She always told me she was … even said I should smile more.
The mere thought makes me want to give her an earful.
Not now, Natalie. Focus on getting out of here.
First, I need to get back to a normal city. Or a town. Or anything, really, as long as it has normal people in it, with normal clothes, and normal behavior.
WOOF!
The hounds sound like they’re getting closer. I can’t lose any time.
I rush through the leaves and jump over big rocks, ignoring the pain. My lungs suck in the oxygen as my muscles work hard to get me across this rough landscape. There are no roads or familiar tracks in sight, just miles and miles of forest, puddles, and rocks.
“There! A stream,” Emmy says, pointing in the distance.
I nod and run toward it with her right on my feet. The water is deep, but not too deep that we could possibly drown in it. If we wade through it, maybe we can go upstream and ditch the trackers. It could work.
Emmy leans over to touch the water down below and immediately retracts her hand. “It’s cold.”
“Take off your dress,” I growl as I do the same.
“What?”
“You wanted to come with me? You do what I say!”
She reluctantly peels off her dress.
“Throw it as far away as you can,” I say.
When she does, I throw mine in the opposite direction. Hopefully, it’ll confuse the hounds long enough for us to get away.
“Get in,” I say, and I jump in first. The frigid water causes my body to erupt into a shivering mess covered in goose bumps, but I ignore it.
Emmy’s not doing what I say. “C’mon!”
If she stays, she’ll get caught, and then she might point them in my direction out of spite. I can’t take that risk.
“But—”
I hold out my hand. “This is the only way.”
She bites her lip but then takes the plunge, grasping my hand as the cold water overcomes her. She slaps her hand in front of her mouth to prevent a squeal from coming out.
“Let’s go,” I say, and I immediately start wading against the current.
“But why are we going this way?” she asks.
“To confuse the dogs. If we go up far enough, they won’t be able to tell which way we went.”
“Oh …” Her voice sounds jittery, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the cold or because of the adrenaline shooting through her veins.
I can feel it flow through mine; it’s the only thing keeping me going while I’m suffocating underneath the weight of my experience. But I won’t allow a single inch of that emotional turmoil to burst through to the surface. Not now.
“How far?” she asks.
“Stop complaining,” I reply.
“Will we have clothes there?”
“Stop! Stop asking me! I don’t know!” I yell.
I slip up for one second and glance over my shoulder … and a few flashy lights come into contact with my eyes.
It’s them.
“Run!” I yell at Emmy.
Terror seeps into her eyes as the realization probably hits her that this is the choice she made, and that there’s no way back. Even if she did stop in her tracks, got caught, and went back willingly, they’d probably put her in the suffering hut for ages … or kill her on the spot.
“You want to come? Then run through the water as fast as you can!” I yell, trying to get her to move.
She nods a few times and keeps going, pushing against the waves behind me. I face the full brunt of their force, and it’s hard to stay upright, but sheer will keeps me from going under. I refuse to let this be where I fall. I fucking refuse to die out here in the cold, wet dirt.
I am free, and I will live my life … goddammit.
With a power I’ve never felt before, I push through the chest-high water, one foot in front of the other, not once stopping to look behind me. Even though the hounds are getting closer, it won’t stop me from trying to reach the other side.
Emmy suddenly squeals.
Glancing over my shoulder, I see she’s tripped over a rock and sunk underneath the water. When I stop and reach for her, she’s already being swooshed back.
For a few seconds, I contemplate leaving her and getting the fuck out of here. She’s only going to drag me down with her, and I will not lose my life or my body to these people again.
But what kind of a person would I be if I left someone out here, all alone in the cold water … to die?
That isn’t me. That never was me, and I refuse to become that person. Because that person is what I left behind in that community. That’s where all the monsters live. And I’m not a fucking monster.
So I take a big gulp of air and go under. I swim as fast as I can, taking air in short bursts to see if I can find her. She’s right there, slamming into the rocks on the edge with her mouth barely above water.
I have to help her.
I swim as well as I can with the little energy I have until I reach her, and I grab her hand as tightly as I can. Her eyes are filled with panic as the water sloshes over us while I attempt to grab something, anything, to keep us from being swallowed by the river.
Finally, a big tree root sticking up from the ground comes within reach, and I grasp it with everything I have.
“Fuck!” I growl as I struggle to hold on.
“Natalie!” Emmy gasps, clasping onto me for dear life.
I fight to get us up. “Grab the rocks!”
Her nails scratch along the surface of one of the big rocks just beside the tree, and she manages to grasp a part of a stump to hold. A weight is lifted off my shoulders as I pull myself and her up out of the water.
We’re not far from the place we entered, but it’s enough.
Emmy’s on all fours, coughing and heaving. I extend my hand. “C’mon.”
She swallows and grabs my hand. “I—”
“Don’t talk. Run,” I say, and I drag her along with me until we’re running again.
Even though we’re only wearing underwear, it’s not nearly as cold as the water was. I hope it was enough to thwart the hounds and their handlers.
They’re getting closer than ever, and it puts me on edge.
“There!” Emmy points at something in the distance. “What … is that?”
I look up and block the sun’s rays with my hand. Embedded into the ground lies a long, metallic, wooden trail. Exhilaration bursts out. “A railroad!”
“A what?”
“You’ll see,” I answer.
I run off with Emmy still on my tail. The guards are still chasing us, I can hear them, so I push myself to use every last drop of adrenaline coursing through my veins.
When I reach the tracks, I stop and look around. There’s a clearing on two sides of the track, but not a train or station in sight. However, all tracks end somewhere … and that somewhere is definitely a town or a city. But which way do I go?
“What is this …?” Emmy mutters, staring at the wooden planks embedded into the soil.
“Train tracks,” I explain.
“What do they do?”
“We gotta follow them. See if we can find a station or a train to hop on,” I say, and I choose the northern route.
I don’t know where we are or where we’re going, but as long as it’s the opposite of where we came from, I’m good. It’s almost nightfall, and we can’t stay out for much longer without losing to the cold. The spare fuel our bodies are running on won’t last us long. We gotta find clean clothes and shelter. It’s the only way to escape them.
And if I know Noah well enough, he won’t stop until he’s found me.
But I won’t give up that easily.
In the distance, I spot some lights. “Look,” I say, pointing at them. “There are some houses up there.”
Emmy’s panting like crazy, and she doesn’t even reply. She must be out of breath, but there’s no time to lose.
“C’mon,” I say as we hurry toward the lights.
The closer we get, the more the hounds bark behind us, and it’s making me sweat. The tracks we’re following lead to a station not too far ahead, and there’s a train there waiting to depart.
My heart swells, and courage fills my veins. “The train! Yes! We can make it,” I yell at Emmy.
I run as fast as I can, as fast as the wind and my legs will take me, along the tracks and up onto the stone path. The conductor is about to make the signal. The front doors are closing.
I glance over my shoulder. From the left side of the forest, two hounds emerge.
My eyes widen. Emmy’s head turns, and a squeal follows.
“Natalie!” she squeals.
I jump onto the train and enter just in time, but I stick my head out to take a look. Emmy’s right there, running as fast as she can, but she can’t keep up. The hounds are right behind her, and they’ve almost caught up. I wait inside the train with an extended hand, reaching for her.
“Grab my hand!” I yell.
“I can’t!” she yells.
“Yes, you can!” I yell back.
I won’t allow her to give up, not when she’s given me so much trouble already. “JUMP!”
She makes the jump, and one of the hounds nips at her feet.
Our hands lock. I pull her inside right before the hounds grab her. The door closes.
A hound jumps against the door, bumping into the glass.
I jolt back, afraid it might burst through the windows.
Emmy’s hand is entwined with mine, my heart racing as the train begins to move.
The hound outside howls with excitement and defeat as more join. Five in total.
But they can’t come in here, so we’re safe.
Still, I hold my breath, unable to shake the feeling of dread.
I peer outside through the glass. Their handlers step out of the forest with grimaces on their faces and lights and axes in their hands.
We’ve escaped, and they know.
They watch the train leave and eventually turn around and go back into the forest. Back to the community, I presume.
Emmy’s face turns dark, and she swallows hard, as do I, and for some reason, our hands clutch even tighter. As though the mutually shared panic and despair have brought us closer together somehow.
