Jess Haines - Enslaved By the Others

I looked around, studying the trees. There was some kind of cedar not far from where I was standing. The short, stiff needles would make a decent broom to hide some of my tracks. I moved around the far side of it, opposite the wall, and broke off a small branch. The scent of the sap was sharp on the crisp air. Put me in mind of hamster shavings.

Brushing up my tracks turned out to be easier than expected with the way that guy had been moving through the snow. Sure, the depressions were still there, but my passage was far less noticeable when I swept away the signs. At one point when I backtracked I even found a place where cell phone bro had—I am pretty sure unknowingly—crossed over mine. A great and wily hunter, he was not. I made a few new tracks to make it look as if I had gone deeper into the woods before following his tracks the way he had originally come. Oh, and I held on to that cedar branch, just in case.

I did have to be careful. He had been moving closer to the wall than I intended to be, and despite my best efforts, I ended up dragging my bad leg a few times. Still, it made it easier not to trip on anything when I knew exactly where to step, and having a clear path to follow gave me the opportunity to move with more speed and certainty.

It took a lot longer than I expected to reach the recessed door in the wall where the guy had come out. On the bright side, there was a brick walkway leading up to that locked, wrought iron gate back into hell. A swept brick walkway that led straight to a winding, paved road only a few yards away. Hallelujah and praise be to whoever above was finally looking out for me.

Just before the urge to make a run for the road hit me, common sense reasserted itself. I stayed where I was for a moment, studying the path. If it looked too good to be true, it probably was.

I crouched down—bit off the screamed curse that thoughtless move almost spurred out of me—then peered at the upper slope of the archway above the gate after wiping away the tears of pain. As I suspected, there was a security camera angled to see the walkway and even the road. Probably to watch for anyone who might think to drop in unexpectedly. Knowing who was coming gave Max and his people a chance to hide the evildoing, hide the bodies, hide the human trafficking, et cetera, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. It wasn’t like he didn’t have a few dozen hidden closets or creepy basements to shove those skeletons into if the police should stop by, as I had already witnessed.

Even the thought of the last of his basements I’d visited was enough to bring up a sudden urge to vomit and a flare of unexpected heat on my hip. Shoving it to the back of my mind, I rose—much more carefully than I’d crouched—and faded back a few steps, sweeping up my tracks with the branch as I went. I knew where the road was now. Even if my everything hurt, I had a direction and a plan. Better than what I’d had an hour ago.

Then it hit me. The urge to walk to that gate. The naked desire to return to Max’s side. To beg forgiveness.

I locked my muscles and closed my eyes, biting my lip until it bled. He knew. He knew I was gone and he wanted me back. Was demanding I come back, using that ephemeral connection between us.

It wasn’t like hearing words or seeing images, exactly. The feel of him in my head was familiar from those few days when I had first been bound to him by blood. He’d been able to pull my strings then, puppet-like, making me walk and talk however he wanted. Since the connection was never fully set between us by another taste of his blood, now it was just a bone-deep knowledge that something greater than me was trying to take the wheel and make me do what it desired. Something that was pushing at the walls I erected to keep it out, spider-claws tickling over my brain in search of any weakness to worm their way inside.

Freedom tasted better. Even if it did taste like my own black, corrupted blood. Bit by bit, I shored up my defenses with memories of what he had done to hurt me, hurt Sara, hurt Mouse, and what he might do to me if I gave in to that urge to return to his side. The more I thought about the pain he’d inflicted, the easier it was to keep him out.

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, out in the open, easy pickings for anyone in his employ to find me. It was too overcast to be sure, but the angle of the sun seemed different once the worst of the urge to go running back to Max’s side faded. Still there. Still urgent. Still painful.

But I’d just learned a whole new definition of pain at Max’s hands a few hours ago, and his mental nudges couldn’t hold a candle to that.

Fists clenched, eyes narrowed to the point I could barely see, I took a step toward the trees and the unseen road ahead. Then another. Another.

I remembered at the last minute that I needed to continue sweeping up my tracks behind me, but by then, it wasn’t so hard to move independently.

I walked away from hell with my head high, knowing that I would be back. And that next time it would be to see it burned to the ground.

Keeping to the trees, I made my way toward the road. This area seemed a little too rural for much traffic, but maybe I could flag someone down to help me.

I didn’t see them at first, but the murmur of voices told me there were people up ahead. Male. Low. Urgent. I slowed down, moving as silently as I could, peering through the underbrush to try to spot who was talking. I didn’t want to accidentally walk into a gaggle of suited idiots, all under Max’s thumb and ready to make me pay for running.

My heart leapt in my chest when I spotted the black-and-white parked at the side of the road. Then it stuttered and fell like a stone when I recognized Stokes, the man with the scarred face and eye patch, leaning against the other side and talking through the open window to the two uniformed officers in the car. His gravelly voice carried on the crisp, cold air, stopping me in my tracks and removing any last hope of rescue I might have been clinging to.

“Call me if someone spots her. Hopefully this crap weather will clear out so we can get the tracker working again.”

“Creepy shit, man. I thought they only did that to dogs and cats.”

The laughter of the guy with the eye patch chilled me worse than the snow and biting wind. “What do you think they are? They’re pets, man. We’ve gotta protect our investments. They run away, we need to be able to find them again. Just remember, this one bites. Someone calls it in, you let us deal with her.”

“We’ll keep an eye out.”

I hadn’t thought it would be possible for me to feel any sicker about Max’s slave trade activities, but that took it to a whole new level of what-the-fuck. Did that mean there was a tracking chip implanted somewhere on my body? Did the local cops get a piece of the slave trading pie in return for their silence and sometimes cooperation in returning escapees? I would have been violently ill at the thought if I had the luxury. The need for stealth outweighed my need to hork up the churning bile in my stomach.

I had made it this far and I wasn’t about to give up and turn myself in without a fight. Maybe luck would stay with me and I could find a way out of town before their GPS kicked in. If they found me, I’d do everything in my power to make them work for every inch they dragged me back.

As I made my way through the woods, I lost track of time. It got dark. Cold. Well, cold er . The pain in my hip turned into a dull throb and felt like the only warm place on my body as I tucked my hands under my armpits and hunched over against the chill wind.

There was no way to know if any cars on the road belonged to Max or one of his cronies. No way to be sure which of the cops were in his pocket. I kept the street in sight but stayed in the trees, following the road much as I had the wall. Oddly enough—or maybe not oddly at all—I could see just fine in the dark. The blacktop shimmered under the moonlight, slick with ice in places, gleaming in monochrome shades to my no-longer-human eyes. Easily visible between the trees.