Captive Bride - Alta Hensley Page 0,49
a care in the world.
Then the boy sees me. His expression turns from joy to confusion.
The girl sees me next, and her smile morphs to a look of fear. She sees the chain around our ankles and backs behind her partner for protection.
“Help us,” I call out as we approach. “Help.”
The male fully steps in front of the female as a shield, and though we are the ones asking for help, I can imagine what kind of sight we must be.
“You have to get us out of here,” I say, still hobbling up to them with Ember at my side. “There’s a crazy man here who’s kidnapped us. Call 911 now, but we need to get to your car. Now.”
“What the fuck?” the man says as he looks down and sees that Ember and I are both barefoot, nearly ankle deep in the snow that we keep sinking into with every step.
“Oh my God,” the woman says as her body visibly trembles. “You were kidnapped?”
“We don’t have time to talk. Where’s your car?”
The woman is pulling out her phone with wide eyes. She looks down at the screen and frowns. “There’s no signal.”
“We need to get out of here now,” I say, while the man nods in agreement.
He points to our right. “We’re down the hill some. The snow made it too hard for us to drive to the parking lot. We’re going to have to hike a bit to our Jeep.” He looks back at our feet. “You can’t make it barefoot.”
“Here,” the woman says, as she takes off her gloves. “Try to put these on your feet.”
She hands her gloves to Ember and bends down to help cover her feet. The man does the same with his gloves and gives them to me. Anything is better than nothing, and I’m grateful for the idea and the offer.
The woman then takes off her coat and gives it to Ember. “Don’t worry,” she says. “I have warm winter clothes on underneath.”
The man follows her and does the same, giving me his coat. “Come on,” he says. “Let’s get you both out of here.”
I see Ember look around with panic in her eyes. She’s searching for Richard, and I just pray we get out of here fast enough.
“Hurry,” I say as the four of us start running in the direction of the Jeep.
The gloves make it difficult to run, but the chain around Ember’s and my ankle make it near impossible. I decide to try to pick her up which causes the cuff around my ankle to dig into my flesh, but I ignore the pain. She clings to my shoulders to try to hold on as I plow through the snow with a mission to survive. I can nearly feel the breath of Richard behind me.
He’s coming.
I know he’s coming.
We just have to get out of the town and down the hill to the Jeep before he reaches us.
Run.
Run.
Run faster.
The couple are running in their snowshoes which allows them to be ahead of me, but they both keep turning and looking over their shoulders to make sure we’re close behind. The snowshoes carve a path for me which helps. I’m not sinking down nearly as much in the packed-down snow they create.
“We’re almost there,” the male says.
I’m afraid to look over my shoulder. I’m worried that if I do, I’ll see Richard charging forward with evil and vengeance in his eyes. He’ll kill me if he catches us. I have no doubt he will. He’ll kill me and he’ll torture Ember. He’ll also kill this innocent couple who are only trying to help us.
Run.
Run.
Ignore the cold.
Run.
Even if Richard doesn’t see us yet, it won’t be hard to track us. I can see blood coming from both my and Ember’s ankle. The metal cuff has nearly rubbed us both raw and down to the bone. Our path of blood we leave behind is our own personal bread crumb left for the witch who will boil our bodies alive if found.
Ember is silent.
She hasn’t said much since we left the schoolhouse. I want to soothe her. I want to comfort her in some way. I want to tell her everything will be all right, but I don’t want to lie. I have no idea if this escape attempt will be successful, and until we’re in the back seat of the Jeep heading down the road, I won’t issue a single word of reassurance. I know she’s scared… but I can only focus