Page 9 of Redemption in the Dark (The Righteous 5)
As the hours passed and the sun moved in the sky, so did she. She had a mental map of how to get back to her home base, her safe place. There were also two major points that she would intersect with fresh water that she desperately was going to need soon. She swished around a single mouthful and gauged that she would be done with this bottle in four more hours at one mouthful per hour.
Not once did she hear someone following her, but she didn’t need to hear anything to know that Wolf wouldn’t give up that easy. His job was to find her and take her back to the authorities. She was simply a target, another day’s pay for him. But she was serious when she said she wouldn’t go alive. She’d rather be shot dead than locked up like a zoo animal again.
You’ve got this girl, one foot at a time. As long as you’re moving, you’re alive.
A tear trickled down her cheek as Morry’s words floated around in her mind like the woman was with her. She hated Morry so much the first year she’d agreed to go to the addiction and rehabilitation center.
Before she’d gotten there, she’d expected plush carpets, yoga sessions with sparkling orange juice, and kumbaya sessions. Instead, she’d been given an uncomfortable cot, chores that had to be done that left blisters on her hands, and grueling physical and mental testing sessions.
She’d tried to run away on multiple occasions, but there had always been a guard or a biker dragging her back like a caveman, only for her to start the process all over again from the beginning. Morry not only pushed her to her limits, but Morry also broke through every wall she’d placed around her heart.
The woman was a force, a storm that had gripped her tighter than any of her self-destructive tactics. Then Morry went a step further and kicked down the doors that Maeve had tried to slam shut. Morry had been relentless from the moment she agreed she needed help, and she couldn’t be happier that Morry had come into her life. If she hadn’t, there was no doubt in her mind that she would be face down in a gutter.
Looking up, she saw that the sun was dipping low in the sky, and she had to find that water source, or she wouldn’t last five minutes tomorrow. The strain on her system because of the alcohol and the lack of water was already making her vision a little blurry. Also, her movements were slowing down from her achy joints.
The deer path she’d been following suddenly opened up into a large grassy field, and she could see a smattering of houses off to the left in the distance. Humans were bad. She didn’t know who she could trust, so she needed to stay clear of anything that looked like it would take her toward civilization. Instead, she chose to follow the narrow trail, and soon she was once more hidden within the cover of the trees.
There was the soft rumble of thunder in the distance and a flash of lightning that lit up the darkening sky. Someone had pissed God off tonight. She could only hope that this time it wasn’t her. She’d certainly had her moments in the past, but those were thoughts she had to shove from her mind. She couldn’t squirrel down that rabbit hole right now.
She stopped moving, her breathing heavy as she closed her eyes and listened. She let the nature around her tell her the story she needed to hear. She lifted her nose to the air and could smell the water. The cool scent was strong in her nose, and she knew she was close even if she couldn’t hear it yet.
Allowing her senses and memory to guide her, Maeve pushed on and stepped out onto the riverbank. A small hysterical bubble of thanks passed her lips as she collapsed to her knees at the water’s edge. She didn’t even bother cupping her hands and simply stuck her whole face into the water and began sucking back the cool, wet liquid.
After less than a second, she threw it all back up but didn’t care. She just drank again until her body gave up and accepted the water. Then she drank until she felt full and the sharp pains of hunger subsided. God, she was tired and wanted to curl up into a ball and lay there, but a storm was coming, which meant she needed to be smart.
She pictured Morry’s face breaking out into a smile as she once more pushed herself up and onto her feet. Hands shaky, she pulled the shower curtain from her back pocket and wrapped it around her body to keep herself dry. Then she moved on in search of a place she could wait out the rain for the night.
You’ve got this girl. I have faith in you.
“I’ll keep moving, Morry. Until I’m no longer breathing. I promise I’ll put one foot in front of the other,” she said to the forest around her.
Wolf rubbed the bruise that had formed on his jaw as he listened to his boss chew him out on the other end of the line. He’d never heard from the top dog, and now he was wondering why he’d ever wanted to be special enough to warrant a call.
“I’ll get her back. There’s only so far she can run in a day,” he said, as his boss took a breath. Didn’t stop him from continuing the long-winded rant though.
“You better, or you can kiss the promotion goodbye.” His boss promptly hung up, and Wolf shook his head.
He played over again what had happened and how Maeve managed to slip through his fingers. She’d surprised him today more than anyone else ever had, and he had to give it to her. Few could take him by surprise and then escape so slickly, let alone do it as hungover as she had been.
Wolf stepped into the bathroom and looked around at the scene of escape. She was smart. He listed off the things in his head she’d taken and knew she had to have some training of some sort. People don’t think of taking a shower curtain when on the run. For whatever strange reason, it made him smirk.
On some level, he really didn’t want to catch her. The look on her face as she said she didn’t kill the detective felt like the truth. He’d arrested many people who claimed they ‘didn’t do it,’ but he believed her. The issue was that it wasn’t his job to believe her. His job was to apprehend her. That didn’t mean he couldn’t take a few hours to give her a head start.
“Hey Wolf, I got what you asked for,” Marcus yelled into the room.
Wolf gave the scene another scan for anything else that may be missing and then turned and made his way outside. A horse trailer was parking, and he could hear the horse inside nicker.
“You do know I’m not going with you, right?” Marcus shivered as he glared at the horse trailer. “I’m never riding a fucking horse again after you made me break my balls and my ass from that three-day ride in the Colorado mountains. I never thought I’d walk again.”
He squeezed Marcus’s shoulder and laughed. “Don’t worry, my friend. I figured you wouldn’t be up for this. Did you check out her room?”
“The guys didn’t find anything useful. No money or I.D., so she’s not going to get too far without either of those, and the clothes were minimal.”
Wolf nodded as he watched the man with the trailer hop out of the rig and head to the back doors. He didn’t expect much to be found in Maeve’s room now that he’d seen her in action. She seemed like the type that knew how to pack, how to blend in, and she certainly knew how to fight.
One thing he still didn’t understand, though, was why she’d been so easy to track in Vegas. Maybe she’d just got caught up in being free? If that were the case, it wouldn’t be the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last he’d witnessed someone on the run get distracted and end up getting caught.
The man disappeared inside the trailer and jumped out, holding the reins of a stunning chestnut stallion. The stallion’s nose flared, his ears twitching as he looked around at all the action as if assessing his desire to get involved. Who could blame him?
