Goddess of Pain - Katie May Page 0,7

me. Because, knowing Avery as well as I do, I wouldn’t put it past him. Actually, I’m surprised he’s allowing me to go off by myself in the first place. He must have something important to do before his morning classes.

Maybe he has a date?

For some reason, red flashes across my vision like errant fireworks at the thought, but I dismiss my reaction immediately. I don’t have a claim to Avery. We’re best friends, nothing more. We’ve always only ever been best friends.

Instead of focusing on my tumultuous emotions, I shove them in a steel box and lock it shut, burying it miles below the ground. No one, not even me, can access them ever again.

It’s still dark when I finally exit the apartment complex and do my usual pre-run stretches in the parking lot. I can’t remember the last time I put my body through strenuous activity. Weeks ago, most likely. Maybe even months. When I left home for college, I also left a part of my life behind—the part that spent her days in the gym, throwing punch after punch into the precariously hanging bag. It always made me feel like a pariah when I was younger. While most girls my age were signing up for the student senate or the volleyball team, I was training in hand-to-hand combat, as well as a variety of weapons. The only sport I ever did was cheerleading, and that was to increase my flexibility for…well…certain activities.

I start my pace at a slow jog, my feet pounding against the asphalt. There’s a route I like to run when my brothers come and visit me. Less than a mile from the apartment is a quaint park with a multitude of hiking trails. Some are harder to maneuver than others, but I love the challenge. At this time of morning, I’ll be lucky to see another person besides myself.

The rising sun illuminates the steel slide and rusty swing set in the park as I veer to the right, choosing one of the more difficult paths. This one will lead me up and down numerous hills before curving around the diminutive lake our town’s known for. It’s approximately fifteen miles, but I should be able to finish it within the hour if I go fast enough.

I pick up my pace as I enter the dense thicket of trees, their branches appearing almost malevolent and eerie in the reddish glow of the sun.

It almost feels as if the tension settling on my shoulders like an unbearably heavy weight is physically ebbing with every step I take. As my breaths saw in and out, I allow myself to momentarily forget about what just transpired. There’s nothing but me, the trees, and my erratic panting as I climb up a steep dirt hill.

I’m safe. No one can hurt me.

No one can—

A gunshot reverberates through the air, and I release a startled scream as I fall to the side, skinning my knees on a protruding rock. Terror pulses through me as I begin to crawl behind a fallen tree, my heart racing.

The gun sounds again, and bark shoots off from the branch.

“Fuck!” I hiss, wrenching my headphones from my ears and tossing them onto the ground. One glance at my phone confirms that I have no service, not that I’m surprised. I’m in the middle of fucking nowhere. How long have I been running? Seven miles? Eight? I haven’t even reached the lake yet.

I hear footsteps behind me, and I peek around the edge of the tree to see a broad-shouldered man huffing up the hill. He’s dressed entirely in black, practically blending into the shadows, and a facemask obscures his features from view. In his hand is a small, silver handgun.

Remaining silent, I wrap my hand around a rock, approximately the size of a baseball. Then, without preamble, I hurl it at the man’s head as hard as I can. As expected, he releases a startled curse as his free hand rubs at his cheek. I take his momentary lapse of concentration to jump to my feet and race through the woods as fast as I can fucking go.

I’m the wind. The rain.

The monster prowling through the forest.

I lose myself to the darkness currently shrouding the forest as the man fires off two more shots, each one sounding farther and farther away as I run like my life depends on it. Because it totally does. If he catches me, he’ll kill me. He’ll put a bullet straight through