Page 159 of Rest In Knotty Pieces

I flick my eyes around the screen and pause on the red dot that says this is a live feed.

No!

I grit my teeth and don’t say anything.

I can’t. Damn him to hell. I can’t save him, but I can’t save myself either. This was a mistake; we should never have come here.

Devastation rips through me, and my control over the body loosens.

I swipe the phone off the chair, hurling it at the wall so hard it breaks into a couple of pieces. The screen shatters, and the world falls back into silence.

I hear him laugh.

My skin crawls, but I don’t run.

No, it’s too late for that.

“Merelee.”

Oh, fuck…I’m tossed into the dark.

Merle

Isurge up past Raptor and grab control, whirling and flinging us through corridors and doors and past huge metal beasts of dead machinery. None of it matters. I just need to get outside.

Running. My superpower is running. I can save us.

I can save Pix, I just need to run fast enough.

My heart is going to explode. Pix is in trouble, he was watching them. It was live, and they are going to hurt…him.

He found them, of course, he did, he was always going to find them. Father knows everything.

There was no hope, no winning against him, no fighting.

There is only running.

“Merelee!” he calls and laughs. That evil laugh echoes around and around the factory until I have no idea where it came from.

I let out an involuntary squeak and run faster, darting back the way I came. I get lost in the maze of skeletal machinery.

Confused and turned around.

My panic grows until my breath is sawing in and out of me.

“Run, little girl, run. You have been very bad, and it’s time for you to be punished.”

Panic slices through me, stabbing me in the chest until I think I’m having a heart attack. My shoulders curl, and my vision gets dots. I pant, sucking in air that does satiate my starving lungs.

Tears run down my cheeks, I grip my hair and turn in a circle, trying to work out which way to go. I’m so confused. So lost.

“Merelee!” he says sharply. “Run!”

I scream and bolt in any direction. I just move.

He laughs long and loud.

I run until I’m covered in sweat and bruises and exhausted.