Читать книгу Before He Harms - Блейк Пирс - Страница 3

She was nearly slipping with each step, her feet sliding in her open-toed sandals as she ran through the damp field. It was night now, and there were little wisps of mist covering the ground from where the afternoon’s drizzle of rain had passed through. It didn’t seem like much, but she couldn’t help but wonder if that little bit of moisture in the bottom of her sandals was going to be responsible for her death.

They had found her. She had no idea how, but they had.

The only chance she had of getting through this night alive was getting to Amy. The way she figured it, she had about another two miles of running. If she could make it through this stupid wet field, Amy’s neighborhood was two miles away.

Irritated with the slipping and sliding, she stopped long enough to take the sandals off. If she’d had more time to prepare, she would have put on her sneakers but it had all happened so fast…

She held the sandals in her right hand and continued to run. It was a bit easier, though her tender feet started to complain instantly about the hard earth beneath the grass. She looked past the pain and ran as hard as she could. She had to get to Amy.

She glanced back behind her and saw only the staggered shape of the forest—trees rising and falling in the darkness like some strange graph. If there was someone following her, she could not see them. She wasn’t naïve enough to think they weren’t on to her, though. Certainly someone was looking for her, making sure she told no one.

The field came to an abrupt stop and suddenly, she found herself leaping across a ditch and onto a two-lane road. When she landed on the road, she skidded a bit, the tar biting into her heels. She looked to her right and saw the glow of streetlights in the distance. Amy would be there, somewhere in the midst of all of that glowing. This knowledge had her legs pumping even though they were screaming in pain from the several miles she had already run through the forest and the fields to get here.

She ran down the road, figuring there was at least half a mile between her and those glowing lights. She thought of her cell phone, lost somewhere back in the forest, and thought of how easy it would be to just call. She could have cried at the frustration.

As she ran, she did allow herself to cry. She ran and wept and dug deep into her lungs for her next breath.

Somehow, she came to the neighborhood. Her legs felt like jelly and she was so out of breath that she saw little black fireworks in her field of vision. But that was okay, because she was here now. She’d get to Amy. Amy would know what to do. She wasn’t sure if it was even worth trying to contact the police, but that might not matter. All she needed to do was to get in touch with Amy. The thought of it was a relief.

She nearly started calling Amy’s name as she neared her house. Just four or five more houses down and she’d be safe. The streetlights were rather dim thanks to the mist from the recent rain and the entire neighborhood looked like something out of a horror movie, but Amy’s house was up there somewhere like a lighthouse.

She was putting so much focus on the shape of the houses that she did not hear the purring engine behind her. When she finally heard the car, she looked over her shoulder. When she saw it screaming toward her with its headlights off, she tried dashing hard to the right, but it did little good.

The car struck her hard on the right side. Everything went numb for a moment as she did half a cartwheel three feet in the air. But the pain all came racing on in a fury when she struck the pavement. Her head rocked off of the road and the world went mostly black.

This was why she was unable to see the face of the figure that parked the car in the middle of the street, got out, and pulled a knife on her.

She knew the person was slitting her throat, but the pain in her head and back blissfully masked that one particular pain.

The life went rushing out of her as the killer walked back to their car.

He and the car were both gone as she took her last breath on the rain-slicked road.