Page 92 of The Girl from Widow Hills
What if I’d run outside and he’d chased me? What if he’d grabbed me by the wrist? What if I’d caught him off guard, in one quick motion?
“Jesus, Arden. You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Come on.” He grabbed me by the elbow, drew me close to his side, pulling me along as we walked.
But we were walking farther into the woods. Away from civilization, away from escape. “Where—”
“The river. I’m gonna show you the other access points. I’m gonna show you what really happened to you.”
I wrenched myself back, planted my feet. I could not go with him. There would be no coming back. Not from the woods, not from the river. This was how people were lost. This was how things were disappeared. “Get the fuck away from me,” I said, hands held out. I didn’t care if he told, if he screamed what he thought was true. If he claimed my whole life was a fraud, a lie.
He’d come this far, after watching and waiting for a decade. There would be no coming back the same after this, for either of us.
“Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he said.
There was a noise in the distance—someone moving or an animal pouncing—and when Nathan’s head turned for a fraction of a second, I ran.
I heard him cursing under his breath, his footsteps keeping time with my own. “I’m not going to chase you,” he called, though he was; “I’m not going to hurt you, dammit,” but he was a liar. He had to be.
I kept moving because there was something I knew that he didn’t. That, for reasons beyond physics, no one could catch me. The reason I’d always been able to win when I went out fast enough: I was always running scared.
I started calculating: Time to run to my car.
Time to unlock it and start the ignition.
Time to get to safety.
But the stitches on the outside of my leg slowed my stride.
It was a good story that I told myself: that he couldn’t catch me, that I’d make it out. But he caught up to me before I was even halfway back to the road. Grabbing me by the arm, jerking me back—something twisting, snapping in my shoulder. A sudden jolt of pain, and I cried out, bent over, legs giving way beneath me.
A flash of light, a jolt of pain, a dark room.Hold on, just hold on—
“What thefuck,” he said, pulling me back upright. “What do you think you’redoing?”
I was breathing into his chest, holding on to my other arm, frantic to orient myself—
And then we both heard it at the same time. “Hello?” A voice through the trees. Coming from the direction of the road and my car.
Nathan’s hand went quickly to cover my mouth, stifle my noise. His other arm around my chest, holding me to him. Holding me tight, my neck tipped back.
And I could see how he did it—how he could do it. A box cutter in his grip. One quick motion of his hand across my exposed throat. Dropping me back to the ground, waiting for someone else to find me.
I could see him arguing with his father, stopping him. Begging him. And then—
“Do not make a noise,” he said, whispering in my ear.
Footsteps coming closer, while Nathan held me perfectly still, his hand so tight across my mouth and nose, I felt light-headed, like I couldn’t breathe.
“You don’t want to do that, son.” Another voice now, to our left. “Let go of the girl, keep your hands where we can see them.” I strained to see the speaker, could just make out the police officer in my peripheral vision.
“Just a minute,” Nathan said, but he raised his arms, and I fell forward, sucking in a huge gulp of air in the process. “We were just having a conversation here. You scared us, is all.”
But I was scrambling away from him, toward the officer on my left, who had a gun drawn and was gesturing for me with his free arm.
“This is all a misunderstanding,” Nathan said. “Arden, tell them. Tell them who you are. What we’re doing here.”
“Hands behind your back,” called the other officer, now visible, approaching him with handcuffs. He patted Nathan down, pulled something out of his pocket. “You been tracking this lady’s car?” the second officer asked.
And only then did Nathan stop protesting. The officer beside me called for backup, and we all moved silently out of the woods.
