CHAPTER ONE
ONE: Little Girl Lost
She was just a girl then.
She ran.
As fast, as hard as she could. On and on. She didn’t know how long.
It hurt. Her heart pounded frighteningly fast and hard. Her lungs burned for air.
Her legs felt wobbly, like her bones were going soft. Roots and branches grabbed at her
feet, clutched at her ankles. She stumbled, more and more often as exhaustion wore her
down. As she slowed to a staggering walk, determined to continue, to get as far from that
cabin as she possibly could, her face, her ears, her hands throbbed hot. She felt like
throwing up.
But she plodded on. She didn't know the forest. Even if she did, in the dark of
night, under the thick canopy of the trees, there was no moon, no constellations to guide
her. She just focused on moving forward in as straight a line as possible, terrified of
accidentally circling back to that place.
When the heat of exertion and the numbness of fear abandoned her, cold crept up her bare
legs and caressed her under her thin blouse. Shivering convulsively she trudged forward as
long as she could, stumbling in the dark as she tripped over uneven ground. After what
seemed like hours she stopped, aching to rest and hoping that in the dark they
couldn't track her.
Too worn out by other fears, her whole being focused on getting warm and evading capture,
she thought nothing of insects or other nuisances as she gathered a huge mound of crisp
brown and soft yellow leaves, concealing herself as she lay down for the night. The cold
tormented her for a while, but it was defeated, eventually, by utter exhaustion.
When she awoke, stiff and aching from her forced march and uncomfortable bed, it was
still the misty gray of early morning. A cacophony of birdsong swirled and enveloped her.
Standing, she panicked. Which direction had she come from? She circled around her bed of
leaves in a widening spiral, desperate for signs of her own tracks from the night before,
but on the forest floor, thickly littered with leaves, branches and pine cones, there was
no sign of her footprints. Standing there, trying to decide what to do, every second she
grew more terrified she'd hear a twig snap in the distance, or see some movement,
then see the men emerge from the trees.
But then she thought she detected the faint sound of rushing water. She hadn't heard
the sound the night before. Probably she'd been heading toward it all along. Her body
sore and resentful, she set out in that direction.
For the first time she wondered if this was really happening. Her days with him had been
too real to doubt. But now. Lost in the unfamiliar embrace of this forest. Her real life
impossibly remote. Her tired legs and aching feet could not remember brief brisk walks
across campus on smooth concrete and even brickwork; her hands, pained by the cold, did
not seem the hands that tap danced over laptop letters, scurried pens over
three-hole-punched pages in a desperate effort to keep pace with the sometimes inspired,
sometimes inane ramblings of a lecturing professor. Her little apartment, warm and
familiar. Was she still that girl? That girl did not have her memories. That girl was
innocent.
What if they'd tracked her? Maybe they were just a few hundred yards behind. She
forced herself, against stiffening cold and aching muscles, to move quickly.
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