My demons: Healing (book 3)

Ghost

Claire groaned in annoyance as she nearly lost balance on a particularly unsteady rock. She was on a move again and she wasn't sure whether or not that was a good thing. She wasn't even sure why she was still running. She knew there was nowhere to escape to, no place in which she would feel okay again. No place she would feel as at home as she felt in Sky's arms.

The blonde she had been longing for for so long leaned against the tree close to her, making Claire stop abruptly. "Why are you haunting me?" she asked pleadingly, her voice merely a whisper. "You left, now stay gone."

Sky laughed at her pitifully. "You said you wanted to kill me, Claire. Did you really expect me to stay after that? Letting you threaten my life?" she laughed again. 

Anger crashed over Claire like a great blood-red wave, dousing her nerves in water and shooting them full of electricity. She gritted her teeth, trying desperately to steady herself. 

This isn't real, she isn't real, she kept telling herself. 

She clutched her fists, drawing small amounts of blood underneath her nails. Her rage stopped as abruptly as it started, leaving a swallowing darkness, gaping empty space. She sighed in defeat, looking back at the blonde who was still watching her with hatred plastered all over her features. 

She was too tired for this, Claire thought. Her heart felt like it was being torn apart and her brain was just grey. She took another deep breath, her chest shaking as if the air couldn't quite displace the pain that had reclaimed its' position in her chest and lungs. 

Although she tried to stop them, the tears started to flow hard and wet, dampening her cheeks. Her whole body felt broken and torn through, both the inside and the out. "Please, Sky," she heard herself let out with a sob. "Leave me alone."

She broke into a run, moving off the well-worn path and deeper into the forest. With no real idea where to go next, she channelled all her energy towards getting away. She longed for unfamiliarity, a forest barren of memories. Somewhere that didn't remind her of Sky, somewhere her ghost wouldn't follow. 

The beautiful thing about being Claire O'Brien was definitely her ability to move silently even while running. She moved effortlessly across the forest ground, without causing even a snap of a branch. 

She focused her mind only to the movement of her feet as she stopped recognising the trees around her. She ran for nearly an hour, trying to outpace her ghosts. 

She came into a stop after, leaning against the tree to re-gather herself.

She swallowed the scream that threatened to burst free, instead sucking a hard breath in through her nose. There was no place for screaming in these woods if she wanted to live. 

She was being hunted. 

The forest was hauntingly empty as the sun fell, silhouetting the barbed mountain peaks against the horizon and casting colossal shadows across theearth. At least the birds hadn't abandoned her, their songs the terrestrial soundtrack to her melancholy. Claire sighed deeply and began finding a placewhere she would be staying the night.