Haunted by the Past (Original)

Chapter 52

"Suspects on the run!" a deep, male voice bellowed from behind me.

Eli barely got me to my feet before he shoved my bag into my hands and pushed me towards the treeline. My ankle twinged in a way ankles should not twinge, but there was no time to stop and tend to it. The man behind me pointed his gun out the window and opened fire just as I ducked past a couple of oaks. A bullet hit into the trunk behind me, shattering its bark. Another whizzed past me into the distance. These were not shots aimed at slowing us down. These were kill shots.

"Keep running!" Eli snapped as he grabbed my forearm and pulled me along.

With every step through the dense, uneven forest, my ankle twinged more and more until twinging because less of a nuisance and more of a searing pain. However the fear of the bullets buzzing past outweighed listening to my body, though I knew I couldn't keep running forever.

Eventually we came across a short cliff leading down to a spring stream, and we dropped down, cowering with our backs to the cold, damp, mossy rock. I tried to listen out for our pursuers, but the longer we stayed there, the more the swelling agony became overwhelming.

"Eli," I winced. I didn't want to admit the pain I was in, or that I was stupid enough to roll my ankle on landing.

"Shh," he hushed me. "I know."

My eyes darted to him in confusion even though it was already pitch black outside and I could hardly see him in the shadows of the moonlight. Did he know I had sprained my ankle? Did he force me to run on it regardless? The bullets had been a bit of a motivator. Quietly I lamented that we couldn't get to the car. I already had enough of this running on foot business. Then again, would we have been able to escape them? I had never seen a high speed chase go well, but it was entirely possible they only aired the ones with dumb drivers on purpose. Even now though, what were our chances of escape?

It was difficult to say how long we waited there in the dark, anxiously. Even pulling out our phones was a risk neither one of us was willing to take. However as time went on, keeping focused became impossible with the swelling now pulsating, demanding my attention. I stared at the stream in front of us and daydreamed of putting my ankle into its cool water. I imagined it washing over the injury, taking the swelling along with it.

After a while, Eli took out his phone, covered the screen with his hood and typed something before turning the screen back off.

"What are we going to do?" I whispered. It wasn't like we could keep running and eventually I would be back at my house. This was nothing like the time we broke into the school.

"We wait," he was barely audible when he spoke.

Waiting hardly seemed like the thing to do with when you know there are men with guns looking for you, but he was right. If we tried to run with my ankle, I'd only slow him down and attract attention in his direction. It seemed we managed to get enough of a head start that they lost sight of us so it was better to take advantage of that and stay low as possible and hope that they pass us without notice.

At least that was the theory but waiting still drove me insane. Every branch, every leaf, every blade of grass that swayed with the gentle breeze caught my attention. Every croak, every hoot, every rustle made my heart skip a beat. The silence in between though was deafening. My throat tightened, my heart squeezed, my fingernails dug into the palms of my hand. A tremble started in my wrist – I quickly grabbed it in fear that it would be heard.

How long would we wait? How long until we knew it was safe again? Would we be out here all night and day? When would we know it was enough? Eli beside me was so calm and still that it was easy to forget he was there. He could wait there for days without issue. I on the other hand was ready to pull out my hair and it probably had only been an hour at best.