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“Alright, come on. We’ll pack a bag of food for your journey,” the pair sprints to a kitchen. “You wait here, if anybody comes, give me a signal,” Travis hurries into the kitchen, and the young me is alone with her thoughts.
I watch her wait for a few minutes, quietly humming to herself, until her head jerks to the side. There are footsteps. And they are getting closer. “Travis,” she mutters under her breath as she runs into the kitchen.
“Travis,” she whispers urgently into the void of the kitchen. “Travis, where are you? We need to go.” When he doesn’t reply, she raises her voice slightly, “We need to go NOW!” The footsteps are coming closer still and the look on the girl’s face grows rapidly more panicked.
“Hello, Travis,” a woman’s voice stops the girl dead. It’s the unforgettable voice of Rebecca Hunter. “Out late, again, are you?” Rebecca’s vicious tone makes the girl instantly back away from the direction of the voice. I don’t need to remember how I felt at this moment to understand what she’s feeling. The fear in her eyes as she hugs the wall behind her. She has a piece of her shirt covering her scratch to stop the bleeding, to leave no evidence of her being there. But the shirt is thin, and the blood easily seeps through and drenches her hands. “It seems to me that you have been found at the scene of a crime. That little brat-”
“Don’t Rebecca. Don’t say that about her.” Travis declares angrily. “You can’t blame her for whatever trauma she reminds you of. Just because you have been through pain, doesn’t mean that you need to put her through it too.” I hear the thud of skin-to-skin contact. Anger pulses through me. She just hit him. And all he was doing was trying to defend me.
“Tell me, Travis, where is the girl? I know that you helped her escape. Where is she?” Rebecca glares around ruthlessly, searching for the girl everywhere. “You realise how much power I have, don’t you Travis? I can give you anything you want. Eternal glory. Eternal pain. Now which would you prefer?”
“I don’t want glory. And I don’t want to see Emerson in pain ever again. Put me through hell, but I swear that I will never let you hurt her again.” The young girl stands, hands still defensively against the wall, in a complete sense of shock.
“Do you forget who the house belongs to that your wife and kids are living in? Do you forget who hires the nurses to keep your dear wife alive while she’s begging for breath?” Rebecca’s face twists into a cruel smile. “Don’t forget that, otherwise next time the nurse has to operate on your wife, her hand might just slip.” She says the last three words slowly, accentuating every last syllable so that he would feel the full effect of them stabbing into him.
And by the look of horror on his face, her words worked a charm. Rebecca has the upper hand now and there is nothing that Travis can do to stop her from hurting his family. His family is now on the line and although he likes me, he loves his family more, and nothing would ever be able to make him compromise his family. “You didn’t think that I forgot about your children, did you? How old is the boy? He would be 11, and the girl only 6. Am I right? It would be a real shame if something accidently happened to them.” Rebecca tries to look as innocent as possible, smiling sweetly and lacing her fingers together.
“You wouldn’t dare?” Travis says, his voice hoarse. It is supposed to sound like a threat, but it comes out as a question.
“For the sake of the children, let’s say that you don’t want to test that theory. Now, I will repeat myself one more time. Where is the girl?” Rebecca puts her face so close to Travis’ that they are almost touching. It may have seemed weird to just anyone, but I know better. It is strategic. She can see every place that his eyes go, so he can’t do any signalling with his eyes. He has only one option, and I can’t really blame him. If I were in his shoes, I would have done the exact same thing.
“Well-” Travis hangs his head and exclaims almost too loudly. “She should be heading down the stairs round about now. She’s leaving for good.” He drops his head low in shame, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry Emerson.” After Travis has finished talking, the young girl bolts out of the room without looking back. The cut is still bleeding heavily but the girl seems to have given up on it.
Rebecca heads for the stairs, tripping every few steps over her heels. She grunts in agony as she takes off the heels and throws the shoes behind her in a blur. The girl sprints down the stairs like she has done it a billion times.
A distant memory takes me back to the weeks leading up to this moment. I remember the adrenaline of practising running up and down those stairs for hours on end. It occurs to me that I have been training a long time for this moment.
Rebecca is right on the young girl’s heels, and she is heaving desperately but surprisingly not giving up. I can tell that she certainly hadn’t trained for this as I had. Her chest seems to be burning and her eyes are ablaze with determination. Rebecca must know that the outcome wouldn’t be good for her if she stopped running. She must have desperately needed me, otherwise, her eyes wouldn’t have been such a vivid fiery red. Anger. Speed. Determination. Her foundation is running from the amount of sweat that is making its way down her designer clothes. Despite the tight, well-presented clothing, she runs with technique and professionalism. Like every other thing about her.
The girl, on the other hand, runs as if it is her only chance of freedom, the only chance of escape. Which really, it probably was. Rebecca yells something angrily in between gasps, but the girl is running so fast that she doesn’t hear, or she does but doesn’t care.
Before long, the girl reaches the bottom of the stairwell and hides under the stairs before Rebecca has the chance to see her. Rebecca keeps running forward, probably in the direction of the front door, while the girl heads over to a side door and pushes it open. It’s a bathroom, and there are toilet stalls lining the wall. She runs over to the furthest one and pushes open the door. There isn’t a toilet though, there is a manhole cover in the place where the toilet should have been. The young me opens it up and climbs the ladder down.
As soon as her feet hit the ground, she sprints forwards. The air is so thick with the smell of waste that I can almost smell it, even in my not-physically-there state. It’s dark, but the girl seems to know where she is going. It’s almost like she planned this.
Whatever she is running down grows lighter and I can see moss covering the curved sides of the walls. This is the moment, I tell myself. This is the moment that I finally break free. Her face lights up as she sees a figure in the distance. “Hey-” she stops whatever she was about to say when the figure turns around. Her smile drops. It is obviously not the person she was expecting.
“Hugo?” She asks like she knows the person. His features can’t be made out in the dim light, but he seems young. Not too much older than the girl. “How did you know?”
“The walls talk, Emerson. In a house as small as mine, you hear everything.” His expression is cold and void of emotion.
“Please, Hugo.” The girl begs. “I need to get home to my family.”
“And I need to protect mine.” He snaps. “If I let you escape, you know what is going to happen. Dad is soft where I cannot be. I have all of the tough spirit that he lacks. I understand what sacrifice means.”
“So that’s what I am,” the girl counters. “a sacrifice.” Her fists are clenched, prepared for a fight but the boy is ready.
He approaches her, and before she even has the chance to move, he tasers her and she falls limply to the ground.
“Yes,” he whispers in the cold chill air, “and I would do it a thousand times over if it meant I was safe from them.”’
Chapter 10 - Jasper Cunningham
Ithought my parents were the only people who could completely undo me with a single look. Then I met Emerson.
There is something about her eyes as they meet my own while I’m walking out the door of my father’s office, that seem to hold the weight of the entire world in them. All of the pain, the mistrust, the skepticism of the world is hidden behind that smile. And I want nothing more than to get lost in it.
I’d be lying if I said that she hasn’t been constantly on my mind these past few days. I don’t want her to be there, and I know that with my parent’s being who they are, there is no way that anything could come from this…but I just can’t help it.
