It works. He smiles at me, as if I’m not ripped apart from his teeth. My body is broken. My soul ruined in four and a half hours and seventeen bites. “You and me.”
If this doesn’t work, I’ll be plunging over that cliff with him. The thought doesn’t terrify me nearly as much as staying here, in this meadow. With him. “Yeah.”
“Tell me you love me.”
“I love you.” I test my balance as the world around me tilts dangerously.
Keep it together.
I force one foot in front of the other. He paces ahead of me, impatient. “Hurry up.”
My head swims. “Coming.”
Steady.
He’s ahead of me, but only just. A few inches separate us as we cross the meadow until we’re standing on the very precipice of that cliff. Brett’s hair whips in the wind. My own hair sticks to me, congealed and clumped.
I can’t. He’s too strong. Too heavy.
Try. Don’t give up.
I only have a second. A single second to act, as Brett Rivers turns with a smile on his face, his hand reaching for mine.
My own hands fly up, slamming into his chest. And I shove him back with every single bit of the strength I’ve kept inside me for those hours. Strength I didn’t even know I had until he tried to beat it out of me and I refused to give it to him.
Eyes wide with shock link with mine. Brett topples backward, his mouth opening—
I don’t look. Don’t wait.
Irun.
I spin, and I run. Through the meadow, my breathing labored and gasping as my feet fly over my shredded flannel shirt, stumbling over my shoes, my jeans. The blankets, rumpled and dirty, and the tipped lanterns, broken glass cutting into my feet.
And I don’t stop.
Into the woods, in a straight fucking line, the way that Max taught me.
If you’re ever being chased, he said,run straight.And don’t stop.
I dodge around trees, my feet moving until I fall, knees cutting open on the harsh ground.
It’s dark.
But I don’t stop, even then. I keep going, crawling, listening, as my head buzzes.
There are other predators in these woods. But I’d take them a hundred times over than face Brett again.
So I keep running.
For a long time. Long enough that I start to lose my own mind, slipping into dreams and nightmares. I scream for them, over and over again, begging, but they don’t come.
Nobody comes.
And when they do, when concerned faces hover over me and drip water into my mouth, I’m already past saving.
All I can do is scream from the pain. It burns, licks every part of my body with fire.
There’s poison in my blood, they tell me. With serious faces, and clipboards, and medication that feels endless as they pump it into me.
