Girl on the Run

by Abigail Johnson

  My jaw is quivering. “You can’t just leave me like this. You haven’t told me anything. Why are we hiding? Who is chasing us? How do you know about stealing cars?”

  She keeps silent, checking the room again, drawing the curtains still further closed, looking everywhere but at me.

  “Please take me with you,” I say. But my pleading had no effect; it never does. Not when I’m begging to stay out an hour later or to get a ride with a friend whose car she hasn’t inspected. Her paranoia is making a scary kind of sense now, but it’s also contagious.

  “No, you’ll be safe here if you do what I say. Do you understand?”

  All I understand is that my mom has been lying to me my entire life. “If you leave, how am I supposed to be safe? I don’t know anything!”

  She stops when I practically scream that last word, turning to look at me for the first time in minutes. Her gaze lingers on the bandage on my head before lowering to the drops of blood on my shirt. Her fingers twitch at her side, and she’s taking a step toward me before she can stop herself. And then she’s holding me, stroking my head.

  “If there was any other way, I would take it. I made a mistake. When the time is right, I—not you—will be the one to pay for it.” She pulls back enough to meet my gaze without fully letting me go. “And if I didn’t think you were strong enough or smart enough for me to leave you…” She looks up and blinks her eyes dry before meeting mine again. “You have to be strong right now. We both do. I know you’re scared and confused, but every second counts. Tell me you understand that, Katelyn.” She shakes me a little when she says my name.

  The past few hours, I’ve been so busy drowning in my own fear that I didn’t consider hers, not really. She never seemed scared the way I was. She made each decision without seeming to agonize over it, and she acted quickly, efficiently. But this close to her now, when I can feel each tremble in her body and how cold her hands are on my shoulders, I know her fear is every bit as consuming as mine. It might be even more so, because she’s not just thinking of herself; she’s thinking of me.

  Always.

  Every move. Every rule. Every over-the-top paranoid act. She’s been protecting me, preparing me.

  For this.

  My head is throbbing too much to nod, but I say the truth she needs to hear. “I understand.”

  She squeezes my shoulders, and her chin quivers once before she forces down her emotion and stands. “The room is paid for, and you have enough food and water for at least a week, but this will all be over before then.” She keeps talking, repeating the rules she already told me, and I realize she doesn’t want to leave me any more than I want her to go.

  “Okay,” I say, cutting her off. “I’ll stay here, no interaction of any kind with anyone. I won’t—I won’t mess up this time.” I stare hard at the disposable phone, not trusting myself to look at her. “As soon as you’re gone, I’ll call Regina to cover for me at work, and I’m supposed to meet Carmel tomorrow to study for our history test on Monday, but—”

  “No, you can’t call anyone.” Her fingers dig into my shoulders. “Not anyone. They found us from a photo. A photo. Don’t think for a minute that they aren’t watching everyone we know.”

  “But I’ll lose my job, and I promised Carmel we’d cover the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. She keeps forgetting who the Huguenots were, and…and…” I’m tripping over my words, trying to get them out fast enough for her to understand. I can’t just disappear. We’ve finally stayed put long enough that people will care if I’m suddenly gone one day. And what about Aiden? He’ll be waiting for me outside the library, where we always meet. If I don’t show up, he’ll think I’m giving him his answer, that I don’t care about him the way he cares about me.

  I’ll crush him, and I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do any of this.

  I feel my chin tremble, and then Mom has her arms around me again.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want this for you, and I’m going to make it right. I promise I will.”

  My throat goes tight. I ask the question that no one should ever have to ask her mom: “What if something happens to you?”

  She’s silent for so long that I start hearing the pounding of my heartbeat.

  She opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I don’t have a choice anymore.” She hugs me then, and the pressure makes me feel sick again, but I hug her back just as tightly.

  “Just tell me—who’s after you?” I ask when she moves to the door.

  She stops with her hand on the knob, and even though I can’t see her face, I know her eyes are squeezed shut when she answers. “Whatever happens, please remember I love you.”

  Mom doesn’t call.

  The first day, I tell myself there are a lot of things that might have delayed her. Maybe she had car trouble. Maybe she lost her phone or the battery died. Maybe whatever she’s doing is taking longer than she thought.

  Maybe a million things that don’t mean anything is wrong.

  But also, maybe she’s hurt.

  Maybe they found her.

  Maybe they killed her.

  I don’t sleep.

  * * *

  The second day, I don’t do as good a job lying to myself. Mom should have called. Whatever else she’s hidden from me, her love isn’t one of them. She wouldn’t leave me like this, alone for days, unless she had no choice.

  Because she was hurt.

  Because they found her.

  Because they killed her.

  I chew all ten of my fingernails to the quick. I don’t stop even when they bleed.

  I huddle on the corner of the bed and rock.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, I take the cell phone apart. I haven’t slept in two days, and the idea of action, any action, is too hard to ignore. There must be a defect or something that won’t let her call get to me. It’s a delusion, but I cling to it fiercely until I’m surrounded by electronic wreckage and my cheeks are stained with tears.

  * * *

  It’s been three days since I’ve seen or spoken to another living soul.

  Three days.

  I spend most of the day reassembling the cell phone, because why did I think I could take it apart and put it back together again like that? When I’m left with a phone that looks more or less the way it started, I turn it on. The display lights up with a welcome chime, and I want to hurl it against the wall.

  Instead, I break Mom’s first rule: I leave the motel room. I don’t go far, but every step makes me feel like I’m in the crosshairs of a dozen enemies. Still, exhaustion mutes my panic, and I have no other choice. I have to know.

  There’s a decrepit-looking pay phone fifty feet away—less, even—but it takes an eternity to reach it. Then several more eternities as I feed it change and dial the number for my cell. And when it rings loud and clear across the parking lot, no connection problems whatsoever, my knees give out.

  I’m kneeling on the asphalt with my arm hanging from the cord of the phone above me when I realize:

  I’m alone.

  * * *

  The walls seem to flee from me the second I step back inside, withdrawing the semblance of safety I’d felt from them when I still believed Mom would return.

  Something happened, full stop. I refuse to let my brain hurl itself farther than that one fact. Mom had to change her plans, which means I have to change mine.

  The cell phone is in my hand again, and I’ve half dialed Regina’s number before the muscles in my forearm seize up, stopping me. We were both scheduled at the café that afternoon, and it’s just after three, which means she’ll have worked up the courage to squeak a single “hi” to Evan, the new busboy, before dashing off without giving him a chance to respond. I’d bet money on her being in the third bathroom stall from the right at that exact mome
nt, systematically shredding a single square of toilet paper while wishing I was there to give her the report about which side of his mouth had smiled higher in response and whether he’d looked disappointed or relieved that she’d run off.

  He was disappointed—always disappointed—and I was so close to getting her to stand still for more than a second so he could say hi back.

  Instead, I wasn’t there. I never showed up or even called. The disposable cell phone in my hand turned heavy. My phone, the one I’d been forced to leave, along with more of my life than I’d even realized, was no doubt flooded with texts and missed calls from her and Carmel.

  Aiden.

  I was supposed to meet him two days ago.

  I keep expecting you to just ghost me one of these days.

  The phone slips through my fingers and clatters to the floor. That’s what he said to me, and now that’s exactly what I’ve done. I can see his face, his ever-present easy, warm smile dimming as the minutes ticked past and I failed to show. He would have sent texts too, making sure I was okay.

  By now, would he have decided his prediction had come true?

  And I can’t even contact him and explain. Or Regina. Or Carmel or anyone. That’s why my muscles seized. I don’t know what a call from me might do to them.

  Better they think I flaked out.

  Blew her off.

  Broke his heart without a single care.

  I wrap my arms around myself and suck in a shaky breath. “Mom, where are you?”

  * * *

  The walls never get any closer no matter what I do to mentally shorten the distance between them. Counting off the number of paces from side to side doesn’t help, but something else does. Ever since I can remember, Mom and I had a ritual for whenever we moved to a new place. Before we unpacked our bags or picked our bedrooms, we played a game where I had to find the way out of every room. When I was little, it was as easy as pointing out windows or doors. But when I got older, it wasn’t enough to identify the basement window I’d use. Mom made me show her how I’d reach it, pry it open when it was inevitably stuck, and show her how quickly and quietly I could get out. Just in case.

  Mom always said it was the Girl Scout in her that kept her so vigilant.

  Girl Scout, my ass.

  There are only two rooms in this motel room. The bedroom has the front door and two large windows, but the bathroom has only a small window above the toilet, one of those pull-out deals with hinges at the bottom, which are held in place by rusted screws that make my fingers throb just to look at them.

  It’ll take hours to loosen them, assuming I even can. And I don’t want to. I want to go back to the bed and curl into a ball and sleep until Mom wakes me up and tells me this has all been a bad dream.

  The toilet seat creaks when I step up on it, and the rust digs into my fingertips as I start twisting. It ends up taking just over an hour, and I sacrifice two fingernails to the cause before the final screw gives up its fight. I leave the last one loose but in place and trail back to the bedroom.

  I avoid the bed, since planning for exits didn’t feel anything like a game this time and I’m too afraid to sleep. Instead, I slide to the floor and stare at Mom’s engagement ring, a gaudy piece of costume jewelry that my dad found at a flea market. I’ve worn it on a delicate chain around my neck for years. I try to catch the light on the many facets until I fall asleep or, more accurately, pass out. I dream about Aiden climbing through my window and Mom catching him in my bedroom. I know it’s a dream because she invites him to stay for dinner, and I keep jumping throughout the meal whenever somebody clinks a fork against their plate.

  A car door slamming in the parking lot jolts me awake. Tucking the ring beneath my shirt, I break another one of Mom’s rules by dashing to a front window and moving a curtain aside to peer out. I leave the sheer one in place, so everything I see outside is hazy as the last sliver of the sun slips below the horizon, but I can tell that the person in the driver’s seat of the car outside is definitely not my mom. I don’t have time to register the sharp agony of disappointment, because Mom’s paranoia is seeping into my pores. It’s like my eyes have finally been opened to the world for the very first time.

  The last person I saw besides my mom was someone trying to run us off the road.

  All I can think now is that danger is only a pane of glass away.

  A lump forms in my throat, and I want to sink to the floor. I can’t pretend that she’s coming back for me anymore, that I don’t have to protect myself because she’ll do it for me. Something has gone very wrong with her plan. The lump swells, but I force it down. If she were with me in this room, I know what she’d tell me to do. So I start breathing and thinking, moving almost before deciding I’m going to.

  I scoop up a chair, dragging it across the carpet to block the door. As a barrier, it’ll provide nothing more than a few seconds’ delay, but if someone comes through the motel room door, I’m going to need every advantage I can get. I want to add more chairs, to build a mountain of them between whoever is outside and me, but no amount of furniture will save me if I’m still here when they come in. It already feels like ages since the car door slammed.

  I have no reason to feel safer once I’m in the bathroom, but I do. Just being in here buys me a few more seconds. They’ll have to search for me.

  I stand on the toilet, and the screw I left in earlier takes barely a turn to pop free into my hand. I lower the window to the counter and peer outside to ensure there’s no one there. I pull myself up and begin the Houdini-like task of squeezing myself through. I’m not as slight as my mom, and so I get stuck almost immediately.

  My hands are frantic, searching for something to grab and use as leverage, and I imagine someone bursting into the room and finding me like this. But fear is a great motivator. I shimmy around and exhale every scrap of air that ever entered my lungs. My jeans catch on the window frame and I hear a rip, and I hiss when my hip scrapes along a jagged edge. But I don’t stop. If anything, I redouble my efforts.

  Someone is at the door. I hear the knob turning, gently at first, then with more force.

  I brace my hands on the exterior wall and push as hard as I can. Harder. I pop free and slam down, a good seven feet below, onto the chewed-up asphalt. Blood trickles from my elbows and my hip, but the pain barely registers. The door to room 5 is rattling, and then bang. A crack reverberates through the entire building as the door is kicked in. I’m choking on my own heart as I shoot to my feet and run.

  The pavement behind the motel slopes into a ditch, which I skid down before tumbling into the densely packed forest of birch trees. The jagged bark catches my clothes and hair as I run, pulling at me, slowing me down. And I can’t make myself stay quiet. My breath comes in strangled gasps. Help me.

  The ground is wet and muddy from the rain the night before, causing me to slip over and over. Each time I get to my feet, I’m sure I’ll see the person after me, but I can barely see at all. The sun is setting fast, and I can’t make out anything more than ten feet in any direction in the murky darkness of the forest.

  I scramble over a fallen tree and lie flat, pressing my side against the bark. I force myself into silence, but my body doesn’t want to obey. My lungs burn and my pulse pounds, and nowhere near enough air billows in and out through my nose.

  Then I hear it. On my exposed side, someone moving through the trees.

  Faster than me.

  Terror closes its icy hand around my heart, squeezing tighter and tighter as the footsteps draw nearer.

  It takes everything I have not to bolt and tear through that mass of trees like the devil himself was after me. I want to flee like nothing I’ve ever wanted before. The impulse is so strong I have to constantly command my tensing muscles to slow down. I creep on my belly around the fallen birch, scanning ahead for small twigs that might snap under my we
ight. When I’m on the other side, I make myself wait. I squeeze my eyes shut as the footsteps grow louder, then grow quieter again, moving past me and deeper into the forest.

  My eyes dart everywhere. To my right is shadow, but to my left, I think I see the trees beginning to thin.

  Maybe there’s open field, where my pursuer can pick me off from their post in the trees.

  Maybe it’s a ravine, and I’ll plummet to my death before I see the edge.

  Maybe I’m delirious, and the tress aren’t thinning at all.

  If I run that way, I’ll be exposed in seconds, and I refuse to bet my life on what might or might not be on the other side of those trees. But I can’t stay cowering on the forest floor either.

  My breathing is growing choppy again as an idea forms. It’s not a good idea, but being overtaken in the woods—or the unknown beyond them—by someone faster is worse. And the reality is that I’m gambling with my life no matter what I do. So I choose the high reward.

  And turn back toward the motel.

  I give full reign to my flight instinct, scurrying from tree to tree, pausing at every trunk to listen for my pursuer, hopefully still moving in the opposite direction. But I hear only the blood pumping in my ears, and I move like I can feel the breath of every nightmare I’ve ever had panting down my neck.

  And to what? I might be heading toward another threat, one that’s waiting patiently for me to return. That’s the kind of paralyzing fear I have to strangle in its crib.

  I am going back to the motel because I know nothing about who’s after me. I know nothing about where Mom is or what she’s doing. I know nothing about why I’m running for my life. But I do know that there is a car parked in front of my room and that the driver knew where to find me. There could be someone else lying in wait, an accomplice ready to grab me or worse, but there could also be something inside the car, something that might lead me to Mom and the answers I need. At the very least, I might be able to slip back into the room and grab my bag. Right now, I have to believe the reward outweighs the risk.