Not if.
When.
“I won’t go easy on you.”
It’s wrong, so very wrong, how my body answers those words. I should be quaking, terrified, running already. Instead, my blood warms, heat rises, enough to make me aware of every inch of myself.
I want to fight it. Deny it. Argue but it’s pointless.
Carrson steps closer and the whip slips loose, unspooling at his feet like a snake and I can tell, this was planned. Since the moment we walked out of that room.
“Ready,” he says.
He raises the whip, high over his head.
“Set—”
His smile deepens.
“Go.”
I run.
Not fast enough. I know it immediately. My body lags behind the decision, one step too slow, so I pump my arms harder, will my feet to move quicker. The ground is uneven beneath my boots, roots breaking through the soil, branches snagging at my sleeves.
Behind me there’s nothing. No footsteps or voice. No sound of pursuit. The forest presses in, the air thicker here, the light dimmer. Every sound I make tells him where I am, the snap of twigs, the stomp of my feet, the frantic way my arms flail.
My lungs expand and I feel it as my legs burn, a breathless, terrible kind of freedom.
A laugh almost bubbles up. He’s letting me go. Leaving space. Giving me hope.
All so he can take it away later.
A crack splits the air behind me. I flinch hard, stumblingmid-step.
A reminder.
He’s closer now. I should be afraid of this, of him. Iamafraid, but it tangles with something else.
I startle and yelp when I hear it from my left, the crack of his whip.
He’s closer than I thought. Hunting me.
The forest is smaller with him in it. I listen hard as I sprint through the undergrowth, searching for him with my ears. I swerve to the right. My toe hits a rock and I almost go down. I pinwheel my arms, struggling to stay upright.
I tell myself to go faster, but instead I slow a little.
I know the terrain. I could turn left, double back, disappear into the trees.
But I don’t.
Movement to my right. A blur between the trees.
I barely have time to react before something catches around my ankle.
The ground disappears.
I hit hard, sprawling in the dirt. Pain flares through my side, but I barely notice it, scrambling immediately, kicking, twisting, trying to free myself as the whip tightens like a leash.
