It all had worked because the basement was the only area of the entire building not surveyed by cameras. Of course it was only a matter of time before someone watched the security tape and saw her entering the stairwell. Eventually, they would find the window with its faulty latch and figure out how she’d escaped.
Too bad, Crysta.
Now, her breath was coming in short bursts, her lungs burning.
She wondered how much time she had before they came after her.
An hour?
Two?
“In your dreams,” she whispered.
He was probably already tracking her, following her. Using the damned dogs.
Her insides curdled at the thought of barking, snarling hounds.
Faster. Move it, Lauren!!! Ignore the pain. It’s just the cold and the incline. Don’t slow down!
Upward she raced, through the dark forest until at last the dense woods gave way to a clearing, a field of snow rimmed with trees.
Breathing hard, she turned off her flashlight and kept to the shadows, easing around the edge of the forest. Her nerves were strung tight, her heart a drum.
Snap!
She whirled around, facing the sound and the undergrowth rustled. Oh, no!
A shadow moved, then scurried away, a rabbit or some other small animal… “Oh, Lord.” She sank against the coarse bark of a conifer and gathered her wits.
She thought about the leader and her heart twinged just a little. She remembered flirting with him; at first it was a ruse, but later… oh, God, later she’d nearly lost her heart to the sexy man with his own personal code of ethics; his mission.
Don’t even go there. You used him. He used you. You’re even.
But she couldn’t deny the tiny bit of regret that slid through her mind.
Maybe he’ll let you go.
He cares for you. You know that.
Pushing herself to run even more swiftly, she nearly laughed out loud. What an idiot! She gave herself a swift mental kick for being foolish, one of those love-lorn teenagers who believe anything, even fairy tales. Love had nothing to do with what was happening now. He couldn’t let her go.
She knew too damned much.
The jump-drive in her backpack was testament to that.
Besides, he was a monster, pure evil, his heart as black as sin.
She was gasping for breath by the time she reached the caves. Flicking on her tiny flashlight again, she knelt, then crawled inside, all the while praying she didn’t come across a hibernating bear or snake or whatever.
She’d been to these caves twice before. In both instances she had been left in the forest to fend for herself. Once because of some kind of archaic cleansing touching-God-and-nature exercise that hadn’t taken. The second time she’d been left here, punished, for stating her opinion about Reverend Lynch’s sermon on faith versus fact. Her arguments had been vehement, to the point of “disrespect” or “sacrilege” and she’d been sent to the forest in order that she see the wickedness of her ways.
It was all such BS!
Her breathing and heartbeat finally began to slow as she crawled forward, past the charred logs near the entrance that were testament to a long-ago campfire, the smell of smokey ash lingering in the air, the walls of the cave blackened by smoke. She slid deeper into the space between the rocks, forced to her knees and then onto her stomach as she inched under the wide shelf that was barely a foot off the ground. Squeezing through, she found herself in a much larger cavern with a ceiling that soared twenty feet or more where a colony of bats slept and stalactites dangled like the long teeth of some enormous creature.
Her skin crawled and she chided herself for the eerie sensation that brought the hairs at the back of her neck to attention. Quickly, she headed along one rough wall where the cracks in the rocks were wide enough to pass through.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!