I shake my head and slam his door behind me like I did when we were kids.
ELEVEN
Zephyrine
I don’t knowwhat I was thinking. I suppose I hadn’t been thinking at all. That’s not true either. Run. That was my thought. Just knowing that I need to get back to the convent. I don’t want to wait for whatever fate I’m going to be left to here.
Levi clearly doesn’t care about me, or he wouldn’t have disappeared no sooner than we arrived. He left me with two burly guards who looked at me like I was some kind of sideshow attraction and treated me like I was a child who couldn’t be left alone for even one minute.
At least not until I informed them I needed to use the restroom, and I wanted privacy since I was on my period. That lie had sent them skittering away and gave me time alone in the bathroom. A bathroom that thankfully had a window just large enough for me to sneak through. By the time they realize I’m gone, I’ll be deep into the woods and well out of their reach.
Or so I’d hoped. Instead, I’m stumbling along, trying to stay close to the trail and not lose the only direction I have by following it. At least I hope this leads to civilization.
The farther I walk and the darker it gets, the more I feel like I’ve made a mistake. I have no food, no shelter, and only the clothes on my back. I had a good, long drink of water from the faucet before I left on this adventure, but it isn’t going to hold me over forever. I try to walk faster, but my shoes are already giving me blisters. They’re not made for hiking trails in the mountains.
I’m hoping I can find a hiker or a camper out here with phone service to call the abbey and find a way to get out of Colorado and back home. I still have some friends up in Denver who might take me to the airport. It'll be a complicated story to explain how I got here, but I can cross that bridge when I come to it. It'll only work if this trail leads somewhere, anywhere other than deeper into the woods. With my luck, it’ll probably just lead straight to his front door.
My morale is even lowera half hour later when the sky opens up and drenches me. I dodge out of the open meadow I’ve stumbled past and hide under a tree, resting against the trunk, where it at least shields me from the worst of the downpour. But the rainstorm has sapped all of the warmth from me, and I’m left cold and soaked for the second time this week. It’s becoming a terrible habit of mine.
I still have a little bit of hope and enough determination left that I start walking again once the downpour turns to a gentle rain. The mud makes it more difficult to walk, and I catch myself from slipping down the mountainside twice in just a few minutes. I pause to look around, hoping to see a glimpse of light somewhere in the distance. But there’s nothing. Just rain and trees as far as I can see. I feel like I’ve been walking for miles with no change in scenery.
Just the Colorado wilderness and—I lose my train of thought when I hear a twig snap. One and then another, and a series of them until I hear the pounding of footsteps down the trail. I glance back over my shoulder, and in the fading twilight, I see the outline of a man. One who’s following my muddy footprints and determined to track me down. The darkness of the forest in the storm makes it impossible to make out which of the guards is after me, but I’m not sure it matters at this point. Either one will drag me back to the cabin and back to Levi. I haven’t seen him truly angry yet, but I imagine I will.
I pick up my pace, breaking into a full run, or at least as much of one as I can manage when my feet are already sore and blistered. The mud sucks the soles in and nearly makes me trip as it pulls the shoe from my heel. I slip it back in, glancing back to see the shadow lumbering behind me.
I steel my nerves as I start to jog downhill again. I just have to pay more attention. One foot in front of the other. I could make it out of here. I’m one person in this massive forest. It’s getting late. If I could make it until sunset, I would have a real chance of escape.
Up ahead, the path forks. One heads down and another up. I’m racking my brain to try to decide which is the better choice. Down seems more logical, but what if I’m wrong? I can’t afford to double back. I don’t have the time, and I’d certainly get caught if I have to backtrack. Each step closer has my anxiety ratcheting up.
A split second later, and my choices evaporate when I catch my toe on a rock. The contact sends me flailing. My bad ankle screams with the pain, and I land knees first, skidding across the dirt and debris on the forest floor. There’s searing pain as it tears a layer of flesh from my legs and the dull ache from where my bone collides with another rock as I come to a rest ten feet further down the hill.
The tears come right along with it, slipping down my cheeks with the rain as I try to get up again, and my shoe is trapped in the mud. I try to dig it out, but even as I scrape away the mud with my fingernails and pull as hard as I can the shoe refuses to budge. I momentarily consider abandoning it. One step forward without it tells me it’s a ridiculous idea. The broken sticks on the forest floor stabbing into the ball of my foot. I’ll never make it out of here with one shoe.
My mind is racing with fear. I hear the footsteps drawing closer. I hesitate too long.
“Freeze,” the unsympathetic voice demands. I do the opposite. Desperately bending over and digging through the mud to free my shoe and slip it back on. It works. I stand just in time to feel the cold metal of a gun pressed between my shoulder blades.
“Okay. Okay!” I yelp as I put my hands up.
“Get down.” He nudges the gun until I hit my knees. “All the way!” he yells, using the barrel to force me face down in the dirt.
“I’m down!”
“Don’t fucking move, or I’ll pull the trigger,” he orders, his voice monotone and unfeeling, nothing at all like Levi. He’d be angry, mocking, taunting me from his position of authority. This man is so apathetic about my existence that I think he might go through with it. I need someone reasonable before he does.
“Call Levi. I want to talk to Levi!” I plead.
The beep of a walkie-talkie precedes the buzz of static before he speaks.
“Got her. Little worse for wear but otherwise good,” he calls across the line.
There’s mumbling on the other end that I can’t distinguish through his earbuds. I assume it’s Levi. I hope it is.
“Roger that. I’ll bring her there. She’s asking for you.” He laughs. There’s another beep, another round of mumbledconversation, and he reaches down to grab me by the shoulder. His fingers dig into me as he tightens his grip, and he hauls me to my feet. “Time to march, nun.”
When we reachthe end of the interminable walk back to the cabin, one I make on a hobbled ankle, caked in mud, and as bedraggled as one could possibly manage after something like thirty-six hours of kidnapping and traveling, I see Levi sitting in a chair. He’s perched in an old wooden Adirondack, leaning back as he stares into an already roaring fire. The orange flames are a stark contrast against the dark night sky as he tosses another log in, fueling their dance toward the stars. The bonfire is surrounded by a neat circle of stacked rocks and sits just in front of the lake, where the ripples at the surface mirror the undulation of the flames. Up the hill is a quaint little cabin, reached by a gravel path that’s been neatly maintained. A small porch with rocking chairs, a towering stone chimney, and windows that are neatly trimmed make it look like something out of a fairytale.
It would be one of the most gorgeous places I've ever seen, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s also likely to be the place I die. My latest captor, Mr. Man of Very Few Words, nudges me forward and onto my knees in front of con artist priest. Levi doesn’t even spare me a glance. His eyes are glued to the way the embers break from the flame to float away on the smoke.
