Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
She nods and we start walking toward the front door, that’s when I catch a glimpse out of the window and see two men standing by my car. They’re quiet, but they’re there, eyes on the front door, hands on some guns. Oh god. I grab Karen and stop her, and then quietly point. She glances out the window, and her eyes widen.
“Oh god,” she whispers. “Briella ...”
“Calm down, it’s okay. They were obviously expecting someone to come out here. We need to stay calm and get out of here.”
“How? They’re going to see us the minute we make a run for it out the back.”
“They are, but it’s our only option. We either go out there and get taken, which we really don’t want, or we make a run for it and risk getting shot. Now, I need you to listen to me and listen to me good, okay?”
She nods, but I can see the fear in her face.
“When we run from that back door, I don’t want you to stop. Do you hear me? I do not want you to look back. Don’t do anything but run. When you run, I want you to move everywhere, left and right, back and forth, wave your arms, do anything but be a moving target that’s easy to hit. It might not stop you getting hit, but it’s going to make their shot really hard. I learned it on a crime documentary.”
She stares at me, swallowing. “I’m scared, Briella.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. “Me too, but we’re going to get out of here. Okay?”
She nods, and I pull out my phone, glancing at the men again. They’re looking around, and I know any moment, they’re going to walk toward the house, which gives me an idea. It’s not going to give us a great head start, but it’ll give us a chance not to get shot in the distance from the shed to the thick bushland around it.
“I’ve got a better idea,” I say quickly. “They’re going to start walking toward this shed soon, the moment they do, that’s when we’ll run. The closer they are to this shed, the easier it’ll be for us to go out back and get into that bushland.”
“But they’ll catch us.”
“We’ll just have to move fast, it’s better than being shot. Come on.”
I look down at my phone and punch in a quick text to Alarick.
B – King isn’t here. There are two men here. We’re making a run for it. Send help.
I turn my phone off and then I take Karen’s hand.
“Are you ready?”
She nods, but I can see the fear in her eyes. “Ready.”
Here goes nothing.
I take her hand and glance out the window. The men, as predicted, start walking toward the shed. We move closer to the back door, and when I’ve guessed that they’re close enough, we push the back shed open and run.
We don’t look back.
We don’t do anything but run as fast as our legs can carry us toward the bushland.
I hear shouts behind us, and I know they’ve figured it out. A gun fires, and as I ordered, Karen starts moving around, waving her arms, trying to be a lesser target. I do the same thing, and just as we reach the thick bushland, a bullet grazes past my leg. I feel the burn and the immediate pain, and I cry out loudly.
For a moment, I stop, hopping and grasping at my leg.
Blood rolls down my calf, and I can see that it has hit me, but not penetrated.
“Oh, god,” Karen cries. “You got shot.”
“It’s a graze,” I cry out, as the burning sensation travels up my leg. “Let’s go.”
She takes my hand and we run. We run deeper and deeper into the trees, rushing through the thick scrub, tripping over, doing anything we can to get as far away from the two men following us.
“We need to find somewhere to hide,” I pant, stopping for a split second to look around.
There are a lot of trees, and as we go deeper, it gets thicker. We just need to find a massive shrub so we can get amongst it.
For now, though, we have to keep moving.
They’re still too close.
Bullets are still being fired, though they’re not in our direction which tells me they don’t have eyes on us.
“Let’s move, a little bit more, then we’ll hide.”
We keep running, and my leg burns but I don’t stop. We move through the trees, and it gets harder and harder to move quickly.
When I can no longer hear them close behind us, I find a thick, large shrub and pull Karen toward it. She knows what I’m asking and immediately climbs into the middle of it. If she’s getting scratched up as much as I am right now, then I know it’s hurting, but we have no other choice. We squeeze into the depths of the shrub, spiked branches digging into our skin, and then we hold our breath.