Abigail was cold, bored, and nervous. The lines and lines of cars stretching in front hadn't moved an inch for the past five minutes. she stared aimlessly at the streams of rain running down the car window and tried to quell the nervousness bubbling up inside her.
"We'll get out of this, Abbs," Katelyn said, her hands methodically clenching the steering wheel. "Breath; close your eyes and pretend you're in the best place in the world."
"That doesn't work," the miserable companion moaned, flipping her hair out of her face to glare at the older one driving.
Katelyn didn't look back, only sighed and kept her eyes on the road.
Two more minutes passed, and Katelyn took a look around them, then reached into a secret compartment and pulled out a Glock, handing it carefully to Abigail.
"I'm going to go up ahead and see what is happening. If we can't move ahead, we leave the car here and walk on. If anything happens when I'm gone, you leave as fast as you can. Do you understand?"
Abigail nodded solemnly and watched as Katelyn pulled her hood over her head and stepped out into the downpour. She soon lost sight of her and passed the time checking the gun, taking parts off, and inspecting all the little pieces. Up ahead, a car honked, but she paid no mind. But when more and more cars upfront started honking, her nervousness grew. Then, she heard a gunshot, single and clear. Katelyn was telling her to run.
Abigail reached into the backseat and grabbed her small backpack, simultaneously throwing open the car door. She lunged out into the rain and instantly slipped, hitting her head on the pavement. Deciding to stay low, she weaved her way through the cars, groaning when she realized how criminal she must look like this, sneaking around with a hood pulled low over her ball cap. She wanted so badly to run up to her friend and help her fight, but she knew she should listen to orders; an action she was having quite enough of.
When she reached the edge of the road, she was at a pretty steep hill lining the highway for a mile or two. She looked up the line one last time, then slid down, whacking her knee on a rock and jamming her ankle in between two more. When she pulled it out, she heard something pop, and pain exploded through her leg. Someone up on the hill yelled something. Abigail whipped her head up to see a man joined by another looking down at her. She panicked and limped off into the woods as fast as she could.
Bang. A piece of bark right next to her face exploded, sending piercing little shards into her ear. Breathe, she thought. Concentrate. What would Katelyn do? The answer came fast enough: run straight to put as much distance as you can, then zigzag. On any other day, this would have been fine, but today was a drench of one. Again and again, Abigail slipped on moss and rocks as she ran deeper and deeper into the forest, but she pushed on. They couldn't find her; she couldn't go back.
All of a sudden, she skidded to a stop, gripping a branch of a dogwood tree to keep herself from falling into the flooded river. Drat this weather, she thought. When she glanced behind her to see where her pursuers were, she placed too much weight on a rock and tumbled into the water with a scream.
The freezing water stunned her, and she was tumulted limply along with the dashing current for several long moments before survival instincts started to kick in and she fought to the surface for air. Struggling to keep her head above the surface, Abigail turned all around to see what she should do next, and how she could get out. Concrete walls now lined the river, so she guessed she hadn't gone too far downstream, so when she saw a black pipe sticking out of the wall up ahead, she began to swim towards it.
Once there, she used it to pull herself out of the frigid waters and onto the squelchy mud. Thankfully, the rain was starting to lessen, and she was able to better see around her. A few abandoned buildings lay before her and a two-lane road. Shivering, she went towards a gas station, where she saw a couple of men hanging around there. She had lost the gun in the river, but she still had her tactical knife, and she knew how to fight, but in this condition...she would try to delay that for as long as possible.
The bell dinged as she pushed on the door and limped inside the building. a middle-aged man leaned against the counter, flipping through a sports magazine. He glanced up at the noise, and his good-natured face changed into one of concern.
"Hey, lady? Are you...okay?" he brought a rough cloth out of the closet and wrapped it around her shoulders.
"I...I fell in the river," Abigail said, which was the truth.
"Do you want me to get you a coffee?" he asked. She nodded and was grateful for its warmth. Once she sat down, she wrapped the cloth tight around her and refused to say anything else, deciding it was better to play a traumatized victim. She was sitting near the window and took cautious glances out to see if there was anyone following her. She knew they wouldn't give up easily, but seeing no one made her feel worse. Her head ached, and she fought against the intense urge to just curl up and sleep. Paranoia made her put the coffee down as she began to imagine the drugs he could have slipped in it. She gazed at the window again, and when she caught one of the men's eyes, she wished for the millionth time that Katelyn was here. When the clerk's back was turned, Abigail got up as quietly as she could and crept out the back of the store.
The rain was completely done, and dusk was creeping up, which was both good and bad. If Abigail knew where she was, she could use the shadows to her advantage, but...she had absolutely no clue as to where she was. Not even what state or country she was in. When Katelyn didn't want her to know something, she did a really good job of preventing it.
"You lost, girl?" a man drawled behind her. Instead of fear, anger bubbled up inside her, and she turned to glare him down.
"You get lost," she growled. Two more men came up behind her.
"Cuz...we can help you; you know?" he said, sidling closer. Abigail glanced over her shoulder to see where the others were positioned and reached her hand behind and under her jacket to pull out her knife.
"There ain't no need for that there knife, little missy," one of the others said, and she heard him cock a gun.
"I'm not a missy," she growled and lunged forward.
Running up the wall and jumping off on the first man, she took him out in no time; then, as she moved to meet to others running to meet her, she targeted one and broke her run to slide on the watery ground to meet him, bringing the knife up in a vicious arc and digging it into his leg, then ripping it down and out as hard as she could. Before his warbling yell could get too loud, her knife plunged twice into his chest. When she looked up, the third man was nowhere to be seen. Not good.
She kept low and ran. As she turned the corner, she was slammed in the chest with something hard and was flung back against the wall, cracking her head for the second time that day. Through the blurry shapes melting together, Abigail could dimly see a man step forward toward her. She struggled to hold on, but he ripped the knife away from her with ease, then dragged her up by her hair and clamped a damp cloth over her mouth and nose. She tried to fight back, but the worsened concussion and the chloroform weren't helping. She actually welcomed the blissfully unaware darkness that quickly swallowed her.
Please leave a review! This is the first ever fanfic I have published (first book too, as a matter of fact). I would love to hear what you think of it!
