Wrongfully Claimed

Chapter Twenty-One

                         Aurora

Aurora was unsure of how long she'd been on the road, running since she made her escape from Ryder. All she knew was if she didn't have something to eat or drink soon, she wasn't going to see it through the rest of the night.

Both Physically and mentally she was a complete train wreck. Her body was sore and her muscles had been burning so much that it hurt her every time she moved them.

The black night skies and thick gloomy clouds, shaded over the luminous crescent moon shining above her, told her that she still had a long journey ahead of her and she had come too far to back out now.

But even still, Aurora realized that she couldn't keep going around in circles either. It was pointless carrying on if no one was coming to her aid.

At this point, she was deeply torn between taking a rest, yet her body was forever telling her to keep moving forward, forever persuading her to keep pushing on.

However, it wasn't long before the exhaustion had ultimately won out in the end, and Aurora was forced to have to take a break from all the running. She couldn't think straight; it hurt when she breathed. It was as if her brain was running on five per cent battery.

She found a nice, quiet place under a shaded willow tree, not too far away from the highway, secluded and situated in a place Ryder wouldn't think to find her.

Slumping against the tree in a crouched position on the ground, Aurora then brought her knees to her chest, rocking herself back and forth. She sat huddled in the corner for what felt like a lifetime, feverishly moaning, languishing there in the cold, the harder the icy cool wind stabbed at her skin.

The rain started to erupt from the sky, and now Aurora was forced to contend with battling through these freezing conditions, along with the wet, cold rain mercilessly beating down on her, forcing her to seek shelter elsewhere.

She was burning up badly and she had been running a sky-high fever. She was in desperate need of medical attention, but she knew her chances at this stage of getting help were pretty bleak until someone discovered her and took her to a hospital.

She started to become worried she would be exposed to the cold for too long, and it would lead to her getting hypothermia where she wouldn't have the energy left to continue, and Ryder would find her.

She imagined he was probably banking on this to happen and was still out there somewhere searching for her.

Her mind was spinning at the thought of Ryder catching up to her and making her pay for wanting a life without him.

Panic began to rise in her chest when she realized she was all alone and the chances of anyone finding her were slim if she didn't push herself harder.

It was then that it dawned on Aurora that sitting there, feeling sorry for herself, worrying about all the Ifs buts, and maybes wasn't going to achieve anything. The chances of Ryder finding her were a daunting reality if she let her guard down and didn't fight her way to safety.

She'd made it too far for her just to give up like this. She would eventually do her head in if she continued driving herself mad thinking about what Ryder could do if he caught up to her.

She had to get the hell up and keep marching on. Help wasn't magically going to fall out of the sky and into her lap. And so she picked herself up and forged ahead, sprinting down the long windy road.

She paid no heed to the constant enervation crippling her body and the stabbing pain in her lower abdomen, reminding her that the life she could be carrying inside her wasn't going to see her through this night. But it wasn't long before her body gave in and said no more.