Shawna ran, feeling the grit of the earthen track scrape her shoes. If he caught her, she wouldn’t be able to run away. Don’t think of that. Just run. Run. Run.
Her head was spinning. She felt weak with fear.
Keep going. Don’t look back. Her breath came in ragged gasps.
Keep going.
She could see the road now. It was a dark line, bisecting the space in front of her. Her feet hit the blacktop and it was smooth and level. No more skidding and stumbling. But where were the houses? Where were the people who could help her? This really was in the middle of nowhere, in the early, gray dawn.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
Her shouts made her throat hurt. She was so hoarse that she couldn’t get enough sound out. And she had a chilling feeling that there was nobody around to hear her anyway.
Instead, she needed to put some distance between herself and this creep. She decided to turn right.
Shawna ran, her breath rasping in her throat. The too-small shirt was constricting. Her chest felt tight. Her arms couldn’t move enough. Her feet slapped along the road. One-two, one-two. A memory came into her mind of her taunting another girl to run, just the same way, when Shawna had caught up with her after school.
That girl had been younger and weaker and she’d ended up crying. Shawna had laughed at her plight. She’d told herself that the strong survived and the weak deserved it. But now she was the weak one, and she was realizing just how scary it felt.
Behind her, she heard a growling noise.
Her heart accelerated. What was it? Was it an animal? For all she knew, something could be chasing her, or lurking in the woods.
But then reality cut through the haze of fear that was surrounding her. Of course it was no animal.
It was a car!
Shawna saw the glare of headlights in the gray predawn behind her. Someone was driving up behind her. She was safe. She could be saved now.
The car drew closer. A battered-looking pickup. It must belong to a local.
“Help me!” she yelled. “Help me!” She turned to the car and waved her arms. Relief flooded through her. She was safe, she could get out of this nightmare and away from this psycho who had grabbed her.
But to her surprise, the car didn’t pull up beside her and stop. Nor did it speed ahead and ignore her.
She felt the distance closing between her and the car, more slowly than she’d expected. But then it simply drove a couple of yards behind her.
Tracking her.
Stumbling, Shawna turned, gasping in concern, trying to see past the headlights, which were on high beam, past that battered hood, and inside the tinted windshield.
She couldn’t see enough, but she was starting to fear.
Gasping in a sob of air, she turned and stumbled on, glancing to the side, but the road was lined by two deep ditches. There were only sheer banks falling away to the left and right. There was no access point, no convenient path where she could dart out of the road, and in any case, it was light enough now that she couldn’t melt into the darkness.
She was starting to realize who was behind her, driving so patiently, so slowly. There was no one else it could be. With a coldness in her stomach, she understood that this was just another part of the hunt for him. That he’d always been confident he would find her.
Then she let out a scream as she heard him call out to her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m here, Shawna.”
His voice sounded gentle. It was so calm, so reassuring.
“Go away!” she screamed.
“Now, Shawna. It will be easier if you do this of your own free will,” he chided her. “Don’t make me have to get out and run after you. Because I will do that, if you feel like running for longer.”
Heaving for breath, Shawna wavered and stuttered to a stop. Her hands on her thighs, she struggled to catch her breath. He wasn’t going to give up, no matter what. And he’d proved before he could outrun her.