Murder then what?

Chapter 3

Chapter 3:

The next couple of weeks nothing happened other than Maple ignoring me. Matthew must have told her about what happened and I honestly don't care! She will not marry him over my dead body! Work at the farm has been boring as always. I hear whispering though about Mr. Ryder's temper though. They say his son did something and his father won't forgive him. I have a feeling that I know what it is about and hopefully I am the only one who knows that I took the whip.

"Cyprus, did you hear?" Clarence comes running up to me.

"Clarence I am the last one to know stuff. I work out here in the woods that are completely isolated except for passing workers and animals." I give him a look and go back to my work.

"Mr. Ryder lost his whip! He is blaming Leighton who is blaming you! Some servants over heard that Mr. Ryder is going to make you his personal slave! Cyprus you have to get out of here!"

My face goes pure white and I stumble back and almost hit the ground, but lucky Clarence catches me. "This can't be happening!"

"Cyprus if you leave now you can maybe escape."

I catch my breath and walk a little ways away from Clarence to gather my thoughts.

"I can't do that to you. You will be the first person that they will question once they find out I am missing. I need to face this problem head on."

Clarence grabs my arm. "That is not all of it. I wasn't going to let you go alone. I was planning on going with you. Come on Cyprus this is our chance!" Clarence pleads with me to go with him.

"No, I have my family to think of Clarence. Do you not know how I came to work here with my dad? If I leave than they will go for Maple and Willow. "

"We can take them with us! We can still make it if we leave now!" Clarence grabs my arm and starts to lead back in the woods.

I pull free. "I said no Clarence and I am not changing my mind."

"Fine. Have it your way, but don't come crying to me."

I made a face. "When have you ever seen me cry?"

Clarence stops and thinks about. "Never."

"That's because I don't! I will never give Mr. Ryder the satisfaction of knowing that he broke me down."

"Well, just don't complain... actually, you barely do that either. You know what? I really don't care what you do." Clarence walks off leaving me to go back to my work.

At the end of the work day as I am leaving someone grabs my arm. I turn around and my hand makes contact with the man's face. I know I should turn and flee but some part of me is curious of who I hit. As the man gets but up and rubs his jaw, I see that I had punched Leighton.

He looks up at me, his eyes wide with shock and pain.

"Never thought that I would have the honor to punch Leighton," I say with amusement. "And let me let you in on a little secret. It felt amazing!" I smirk at him clearly glad that I have the upper hand in this agruement.

Drool starts flowing out of his mouth and for the first time since punching him I notice that his mouth is hanging wide open. "Can you close your mouth?"

He tries to speak, but it comes out as more grunts."Okay this could be really bad." I tell him. I walk closer to him to try help him, but he backs up. I laugh. "I am not going to punch you again, dont worry."

he just grunts agains.

"I am sorry, if I had known it was you I might not have hit that hard."

I remove his hand and take a look at what I had done. It was already swollen and turning purple. I slightly brush my hand across it and he winces. "Does that hurt?"