Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

2 ~ R u s t y

                 

Present day ~ May 3, 2011

5 Months later

I run.

I run like I've never run before. Like this is my last chance at life. Like the devil is chasing me.

Maybe he is.  

The world rushes up towards me as I lose my balance. My face slams into the rough ground, the metallic bite of blood filling my mouth. I cough, struggling to pull myself back up, struggling to breathe. It's all happening too fast. My knees are tired and scraped up from the rocks. My palms are burning from the cold. My head is fuzzy from not sleeping.

I can't move fast enough to hold them off.

I'm not ready for this, I was never ready. Just a few months ago, I was a regular girl, a teenager in high school, dreading midterms. Five months ago, I became a criminal, a partner to him. I became an orphan. Five months ago, I ran away from my old life. I ran away when I knew this would happen. I ran away because I was stupid enough to think I could keep running.

I'm not ready.

I pull myself to my feet. I can't tell which way I came from, or which way I should go. The footsteps, the yells, they're all around me. They're closing in, strangling me. I turn around. I turn again. Which way do I run? Which way are they coming from?

"I see her!"

"Over here!"

"The cops are coming! Hurry!"

I hold back a scream when a claw traps my arm, when fingers pull me backward. I smell tobacco breath from behind me, feel the warmth of an arm closing around my neck. The man who grabbed me cages me in a locked grip, and I can't move my arms.

They've found me.

I kick backward and tear away from the cop as hard as I can, sinking my teeth into the hand that holds me in place. Twisting, clawing, crying out in pain as the sirens get closer. The man fights back, grabbing for me, catching my ankle so I fall face first to the ground once more.

All I can make out as I look back up at the figure standing above me is the glint of a rifle and a shadow of a face. Brows down. Eyes piercing.

"Don't move. You're under arrest."

Freeze. That's what happens with everything around me. It all pauses for one moment as I gape into the wrong end of a gun, and not for the first time. Surely not for the last. The sirens fade and the shouts and calls muffle together into one solid, white noise. Just for one moment. Just in my head.

I don't move. I don't breathe.

I can't.

Then it all breaks through. The voices are getting closer, the sirens louder. The wind is picking up and the rain hits my face at an angle on its journey to the ground.

I look all around me, the darkness shrinking in and the trees standing over me like an army of guards. Like a jungle of skyscrapers that curl in around the tears falling from the sky. The woods aren't just trees and snow anymore. They're a battlefield of my losing fight.

For that last second, I wonder if I should just give in.

But then I can't help it. I run.

The shots rip from the gun as I roll to the side, kicking up a wave of mud as I sprint into the trees. I hear the cop sprinting behind me.

I hear all of them.

"Get her!"

"She's getting away, damn it!"

I twist and turn each way, hoping to god that they can't see past the maze of branches and moss. My breath is almost gone now, the pain in my legs and arms dragging me down the farther I run. I hear footsteps behind me. I don't stop now.

Somewhere in the distance, I lose the sirens. They are pulling away, losing direction. They don't know where to find me.

Five months and they thought they lost me. They thought they lost their best chance at catching him. Five months before they found me, and now I can't help but wonder how long I'll have before they close in on me again.