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Walking around Primrose Hill is hardly hiking.
Okay, so occasionally I had hiked. It didn't matter because I didn't have any other options. I glanced down at the shrubs dubiously, and they seemed to glance back saying, Come on in, the water is fine, though they looked thorny. I placed a hand over my mouth, closed my eyes, and jumped.
The fall, though short, had this free-fall effect for a millisecond, making me think that I was flying.
But that brush was quick to meet me. Oh, God. Something stuck at the back of my heel, and I winced, pulling out a tiny little branch before rolling onto the ground.
Again, I waited for some kind of alarm or something, but I heard no noise. My heel was going to be annoying, but not too bad. All I had to do was run across that garden, and I could stay close to the hedges. Then there was the field, and I could cross the road and enter the woods. Not bad. I could do this.
I clasped my hands and prayed. Dear God, if you are there, yes, I would still like bigger boobs and a smaller arse, and I want to survive this. Please, God, please.
My prayers thrown up, I ran like hell.
My heart hammered all the way. I kept expecting Reginald with a shotgun behind me. I could almost hear the crack of the bullet.
But nothing like that happened. There were no dogs. No thundering footsteps behind me. Nothing.
But that didn't slow me down.
The grass was wetter than I expected, so my feet wouldn't stay dry for long, and I would have to eventually stop and swap my socks out. But I could do that when I got to the woods.
I made it through the garden and waited, looking over my shoulder to see if Reginald was following or if Drake was home and had discovered me gone. But nothing. I was going to get out of here.
It was just through the meadow, into the woods, and I would be home free. Easy.
With another deep breath, I got up and ran.
With every stride forward, I kept thinking about the way my mother had said that I would never amount to anything, that no one was ever going to look after me the way that she had. All the times that she had lied to me and made me sick, taken me to the hospital, when all along she was the one making me ill. The anger, the hurt, and the disappointment fueled me, and I ran faster than I ever had in my life.
The year after I had gone to live with Gran, the doctors were shocked by my miraculous recovery. I danced and played sports for the first time, only to discover I was bad at most of them. But God, did I enjoy at least trying. I had never been given an opportunity before.
And with every step, I ran farther and farther away from that little girl who was kept in the dark because she was too sick to do anything. Because her mother didn't love her… or loved her too much.
Halfway through the meadow, I saw several cars driving along the main road. They were still about a quarter of a mile away, so I didn't worry about them. Those weren't the ones I was trying to flag anyway. I needed to get into the woods and further along the road, and then I would stop someone when I had cover and could see who was coming. It'd be just my fucking luck to stop Drake as he was coming back from whatever errand he was running, and that would just be damn fucking fantastic.
I was almost through the meadow when suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. The prickle of awareness I always felt when he was near, like my body was honed to his. Along the main road, a car slowly drove back and forth. Going back toward the house, then away from the house. Suddenly, it stopped and the tires screeched. Then I stopped and stared. I didn't need to be closer. Didn’t need to see the make and model of the car. I just knew. That was Drake.
Holy. Fuck.
Bitch, move.
I didn't need to be told twice. I booked it into the woods. He still had to catch up to me. I didn't know how far I was going to get, but I needed to get as far as I could. Maybe if I could get up into a tree, he wouldn't find me.
Run, honey, run.
I was reminded of a parable my grandmother told me. She loved to tell me and Willow African parables that she'd heard from her mother. Our favorite was always the one about the lion and the gazelle.
The basic idea was that every day a lion woke up knowing he had to be faster than the slowest gazelle or he would starve. And every morning, a gazelle woke up, knowing he had to be faster than the fastest lion, or he would be eaten. And when the sun came up, no matter if you were lion or gazelle, you had better be running. That's what this felt like.
For fuck's sake, I needed the odds to be in my favor. So I bore down and ran faster, knowing that Drake was coming for me.
20
Drake
What. The. Fuck.
There was no fucking way.
