Rebel

8|

"Why didn't we know he had this whore with him?" The second man walked over to Julie, shook his head. " This is a new one, very young, she can't be older."
Annabelle's vision grayed. Huddled in the dark, she stared at Liam. There was hardly any blood, she noted. If it was  real, wouldn't there be more blood? But the terror spiked when she saw Sergei come in. They'd kill him too. The man would shoot him. She had to help. She had to___

       "What have you done?"
  " What I was ordered to do."
"Your orders were to break his arms and do it tomorrow night."
  " The orders changed. Our informant got us word. Liam went to bed with the cops"

Annabelle watched in horror as Sergei kicked the dead Liam, once, twice, three times.
One of them she thought. He was one of them.
Sergei stopped, pushed his hair, then saw Julie's body. "Ah! Was this really necessary?"
   "She saw us. We were told his whore left him with another man"
" It was this one's bad luck he was looking for fresh meat. Where's the other?"
   "Other?"
The beautiful dark eyes went to ice. " There were two. This one and another—short, pretty"
  "Yegor"
With a nod, the big man drew a knife and started up the stairs. Sergei gestured, and, following orders, Ilya moved towards the kitchen and Sergei walked to the terrace doors.
"Ann," he murmured. "It's alright, Ann, I'll take care of you."
He slid a knife out of his boot, held it behind his back, flipped on the outside lights.
He saw her shoes, scanned the terrace, rushed to the rail.
  " There's no one here" Ilya told him from the doorway.
"There was. Find her!!"

She ran blindly,eyes wide and gazed, breath ripping out of her lungs in sobs and gasps. She couldn't release the scream clawing at her throat. They might hear. If they heard, if they caught her, they'd kill her...like Julie.

She fought her instinct to run for the streets. there could be more of them. more like Sergei. how could she know the car she flagged down wasn't one of them? How could she know if she beat her fists on the door of a house, one of them wouldn't answer?

She had to run, get away as far and as fast as she could. she had to hide.

If there was a fence, she climbed it, if there was a hedge, she pushed and fought her way through. when the ground scraped and tore her bare feet, she choked back the cries of pain. she hid from the moonlight, scrabbling like a mole for the dark places.

A dog barked madly as she raced across someone's yard.

Don't let them hear, don't let them come. Don't look back!