Chapter Text
Prologue
2011
Her heartbeat is loud in her ears, pounding so hard she thinks her ribcage might break, unless her lungs implode before that. She doesn’t know how long she’s been running, just knows that she has to keep running, she can’t stop. Another twig scratches along her skin but she barely feels it. Her body is already littered with scrapes and bruises by now, her bare feet bleeding as she runs on stone and moss and mud. But she doesn’t stop. Even as her body screams for her to slow down, she can’t stop because he’s coming.
It's so dark, not even moonlight shines above her. The heavy clouds are grey in the sky and the rain has her soaked, the coldness of it numbing. She needs to find a road, needs to find a house, needs to find someone. Emily wasn’t one to get scared, but right now she was terrified because one mishap and he would find her. She’s sure she can hear him and his men, yelling, running, hunting her. This kind of fear felt paralyzing.
She dares a quick look behind her and sure enough, through the darkness she catches the light of a flashlight. It forces her to run faster, faster than she thought was possible. She was running for her life. When she looks ahead again she’s seconds from crashing into a tree and she just barely manages to bypass it, but the sharp turn causes her to slip and before she knows it she’s rolling down a hill.
She wants to scream, but no sound come out, even as she lands hard on her back and hits the back of her head on a rock. Somewhere through the dizziness she wonders if they heard her fall, but realizes that the rain is too heavy, too loud. The sudden flash of lightning above her keeps her focused, and she knows she’s just wasted precious time.
“Fuck.” She hisses as she rolls over until she’s on her hands and knees and throws up what little food she had in her stomach. But she can’t stop, can’t take a break even though her legs wobble and head spins as she stands. She wipes her mouth and looks up from where she had fallen down. There are more lights now, they’re getting closer.
“Over here! I got her!” Liam’s familiar voice sounds through the pounding rain, barely audible, but she catches it somehow. And where Liam was, Ian was never far behind.
Instinct takes over, her want to survive forcing her to take off again. The woods aren’t as dense in this part of the forest, and somehow she knows that’s a good sign. Her lungs ache, her breathing ragged as she tries to draw enough air into her lungs to keep her going. Another twig scratches her, high on her cheek and the blood tastes like iron as it mixes with the rain on her skin.
She barely takes notice, because the voices are getting closer, louder, they’re gaining on her. She’s too weak, her body too beaten to be as fast as she would have liked. But she wouldn’t give up, not when she was so close, so she finds the last of her strength and speeds up. The trees go by in a blur, the slippery leaves make a wet sound under her feet, it’s a sound she hated, a sound she associated with blood. An image of Ian pushing a blade slowly through Tsia flashes through her mind, and she thinks she’s going to be sick again. Tsia wasn’t supposed to be there, no one from her old team was. And now they were dead.
But she knows that means that her current team were close too, that they were coming for her. And she needed them safe, so she refused to stop. For herself, and for them. For her family.
Suddenly there’s lights ahead of her, but not shaky like the flashlights. It was a car. She smiles, because she had made it.
And then her body collides with something. If she hadn’t recognized the cologne she would have thought it was another tree. But when she looks up and piercing blue eyes meet her gaze she knows she’s lost.
“Hello, love.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She wasn’t supposed to get caught.