The Hunted

The Hunted: Chapter III

She got back to her apartment about an hour later. She had just closed and locked her door when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Taylor? Its Lieutenant Anthony.”

She felt her blood freeze. No, no, no. She shut her eyes tightly, suppressing the urge to hang up on him.

“Taylor? Are you there?”

“I.... yes. Yes, im here.” She felt the tears burning the back of her eyes.

“What im about to tell you isn’t police business, and I could lose my job for telling you, but I felt you should know. He escaped, Taylor. Randy Finlee is now a fugitive of the law.”

~

Murder someone in cold blood and then steal their car. That’s a sure-fire way to get into hell.

Though, he was probably going to hell also. Not for murdering someone in cold blood, but for taking human lives. Yeah, it was purely in self-defense.... but taking a life is taking a life.

Despite the fact that they were all going to hell, at least he wasn’t bastard enough to shoot someone from behind; a woman for that matter. Not that women were inferior or anything, in fact it was quite the opposite. Men are men, but you should always treat a woman with respect. Most people would question how you can respect someone when you’re taking their life.

In his opinion, if you have the balls to shoot someone with the intent of killing them, then you should have the balls to do it to their face. There was nothing worse then shooting someone from behind. Even murders/hit-men/assassins usually frown upon such methods of killing people.

Obviously these men didn’t have a problem shooting innocent women in the back of the head.

He sure as hell had a problem with it though, and he made a silent promise of retribution. Blood would be shed, and revenge would be sweet.

Maybe he was a cold bastard, but he most definitely wasn’t heartless.

He had bought this cabin a little over 3 months ago, and he’d only been here for three days. Now it was time to move on. New cities to explore; new properties to buy. When all this threat-to-his-life bullshit was done with, he’ll just go back and sell all his extra properties that he used over the last three years.

I guess having virtually endless amounts of money really helped a man stay alive.

~

She sat there on her floor staring at her wall for... she didn’t even know how long. Her eyes were dry and gritty and when she blinked she felt like someone had put sandpaper over her eyeballs. Her tears had long since dried up, and her heart-rate was back to normal.

The dark, helpless sorrow that evaded her body couldn’t be dried up as quickly as tears, though.

He had escaped. His face... his face was her terror personified. His eyes watched her in her dreams and haunted her in the hours of her wake. He was her personal devil; hell-bent on making her burn in her own personal hell even though, for her, judgement day had yet to come.

She could no longer live in the illusion of peace. He was free and she, yet again, was trapped.

She felt the sobs start to clog her throat, and she half wished that she would just choke on them and finally find eternal peace that was death. Those thoughts had barely entered her mind when a fierce flash of will took hold of her. The will to live.

He terrorized her in her dreams and she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of terrorizing her in her daylight hours of relief. Enough was enough. Lieutenant Anthony, Joe, had told her that he had an idea of someone who could protect her. Obviously the police couldn’t because she wasn’t even supposed to know that he’d escaped. She couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around the reasons why they hadn’t told her, and weren’t planning to.