Blue Fire

Chapter Six - The Pain of the Game

SARA

I'd been walking for about an hour. It was dark, I was freezing but I wasn't turning around for the life of me. As I walked I thought about what had happened to me today. I'd been manhandled, kidnapped, indoctrinated into a cult, been served excellent coleslaw and heard that I have no self-respect from the man who kidnapped me. I didn't want to go back there. I'd rather scream my lungs out until the cops came. I'd rather give them my two grand and have them leave me be. It was absurd and fucking crazy and my new life was supposed to be ordinary, unremarkable, not this shit.

My phone was running out of juice so I stopped checking the time and shut it off after noting it was two AM. No one had my number, no one would call me. I only had it in the first place so work could call me. I should have just thrown it away because I didn't need it.

I was pretty sure I didn't have a job anymore anyways.

The road was dark, only a light here and there that actually worked and they were far between. On one side I had dense forest, on the other I had fields. I was hoping I was going in the right direction at all, but I knew that even if I was, it would take me some time to get to a hotel, or even a motel. But whatever. I was a wild child. I'd done shit like this before. Once in New Jersey I walked from a guy's house almost all the way to New York because I fucking wanted to. I was resilient, I could do this.

And yet I had this urge to cry over what he'd said.

I fought it the whole way, I fought crying because that was silly. But for once it was really difficult, and maybe that was because they'd fooled me.

I heard a noise far away and recognized it instantly because I'd been listening for it.

I darted towards the forest and went a few trees deep as a bike shot past a moment later. That taught me something about where I was, the noise travelled slowly. I waited until I couldn't hear anything at all before I emerged again. I climbed out of the growth and was almost back on the road when my foot stuck and I fell like a fucking house of cards.

I tried to catch myself but felt my wrist snap as it landed on the uphill of the ditch I was traversing. Then I felt my ankle get busted as it twisted with my body and I landed.

Pain shot through me instantly.

My entire arm burned from the one area that was affected. My foot wasn't free and I didn't know if I had it in me to pull it free right now since my body was screaming with pain and confusion from the ass I'd just eaten.

I took stock of my situation and started crying for real this time because I had no other choice. My wrist was definitely broken. I couldn't afford that at all and being a stripper had sure as fuck not gotten me health insurance. My ankle was maybe broken but that was debatable right now since the entire area was screaming with pain. I hadn't hit my head since I landed on the grass and I needed desperately to get the fuck out of here.

I tried to roll over on my back and get my bearings but my foot was stuck under a protruding root I hadn't seen in the darkness. I stayed still and breathed through the pain, tears spilling all over the place.

I breathed deep after a moment or two of psyching myself up for it before I tried to use my leg to get my foot out. Blinding pain assaulted me and I screamed it out into the night.

The issue with that was, as I heard through the white-noise of pain, that the bike was coming back this way.

I was visible. I was in need of help in a way I hadn't been before and I was close to passing the fuck out because of it. I didn't have the money to do this, to be this hurt, and yet I didn't want for whoever that was to find me.