Author's Note: Yes, really.
I know, I know, people have been throwing things at me. But just a little note there, know that I don't leave these things hanging for "dramatic purposes" :) Sometimes regardless of plans, intentions, or personal desires (trust me, I've wanted this story done more than any of you) the words just don't flow how I need them to flow. I can have a perfectly clear picture of events in my head, and a perfectly decent rough draft on the page, but that doesn't mean that at the last minute the muse won't slam on the brakes, toss me from the car and leave me in a cloud of dust on the side of the road. And then that perfectly decent rough draft is simply a piece of crap. That's where this chapter was for a VERY long time. And I would try to get back into it, and it just wasn't there. Everything about it, sucked. And then the movie stopped playing in my head, and I had to put the whole thing aside because it had put itself on pause.
That went on for about a year.
But then, a few months ago I scrapped everything I'd written, like 6k words, and started from scratch.
This is scratch.
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Past Meets Present
Emily's breath was coming in short, ragged pants. She had herself pinned against the wall of the den.
The light switch was digging hard into her spine.
It was a fact that she was aware of, but she barely noticed the accompanying pain. Because all she was doing in that moment was praying. Praying that her presence wouldn't be detected by the man out in the hallway.
Patrick.
That was the voice. They'd spoken so many times on the phone. The boy that she'd dated last year . . . the one that had been too interested in her family. The one that had given her the creeps.
The one that she'd never mentioned to her mother's security staff.
She hadn't wanted to cause him any trouble.
Well, good job Em . . . she thought with disgust as another tear spilled over . . . REAL good job! How could she have been so STUPID?! She should have just trusted her instincts and done what she'd been instructed to do since she was a small child!
Tell the agents when there was something WRONG!
And really, even if she hadn't led the life that she'd had, simply the fact that Patrick had pretended to be one thing before he'd shown himself to be something else entirely, should have been enough for her to realize that there was something SERIOUSLY wrong with him!
But it hadn't been.
She'd let it go . . . another tear slipped down her cheek as the house alarm began to scream. . . and now God only knew what this crazy man had done to Aaron. Because if Patrick had the key . . . a key that Aaron would have NEVER voluntarily handed over to him . . . then that meant that Aaron was probably dead.
He had to be.
That's why he'd never come back to the house. Patrick had somehow surprised him out in the yard. Maybe ambushed him from the woods when he went over to shut off the water. It was a probable chain of events.
But trying to envision that chain was doing her no good at all.
It just intensified the agony that was ripping through her chest. Because this was ALL her fault! Aaron was dead because of her. Because she was foolish and short- sighted. A naïve, pathetic . . . she doubled over and slid to the floor . . . FOOL! And he had paid for her idiocy.
He had paid dearly.
And though Emily knew that there was no time for this self-recrimination . . . not if she wanted to stay alive herself . . . now that she was picturing her sweet new boyfriend dead on the ground with a bullet, or a knife in him . . . probably a knife, she thought bitterly, it fit with what had been done to the picture . . . she couldn't think rationally at all.
All she could think about was him.
And besides . . . another thought came to her as she slumped down further and jammed her fist in her mouth . . . if Patrick had actually killed Aaron, then what chance did she really have of surviving this day anyway?
Little to none.
That's right . . . she closed her eyes as she heard Patrick continuing to call for her even over the sound of the alarm . . . little to none. And those odds, combined with that feeling of utter hopelessness, and her grief and guilt over Aaron's likely death, was almost enough to make Emily simply give up.
To just sit there waiting to be found.
But then suddenly she pictured her poor parents, what her death would do to them.
Especially her mother.
Not only would she be heartbroken, but knowing that Emily had become a target because of her and her job . . . that guilt would destroy her. And Emily couldn't have that.
No . . . she sucked in a breath and started scrubbing the tears from her eyes . . . no, absolutely not. Not if she could help it anyway. Which meant that it was time to pull it together. She bit the inside of her cheek.
To make Aaron proud of her.
That thought brought her back to tears again, so she pushed it . . . and his handsome face, from the forefront of her mind. She would grieve for him later. But now . . . she slowly exhaled as her watery eyes locked onto a scratch on the hardwood . . . it was time to come up with a plan. But it was so hard to think with all the noise. Patrick was still out calling her name.
And the alarm still hadn't stopped screaming.
But one thing that she did know, being on the floor the way that she was . . . even if she did have the fire poker as a small measure of protection . . . she was vulnerable. So the first thing that she did to get moving, was tuck the poker under her arm. Then she braced her clammy hands against the wallpaper.
She quickly pushed herself up . . . and back to her feet. Once she was standing, she snatched the poker back into her right hand and held it up like a sword. But then suddenly her heart began to gallop in her chest. Because she'd just realized something . . . Patrick had stopped yelling.
She could no longer hear his voice.
And she didn't know if that was a good thing . . . if maybe he'd gone upstairs . . . or if it was a bad thing.
Like maybe he was creeping back down the hall.
But either way . . . her fingers curled tightly around the smooth brass . . . she needed to get the hell out of this room. There was no phone, the door didn't have a lock on it, and the only effective barricade she had was her father's writing desk.
It weighed three hundred pounds.
So yeah . . . she anxiously gnawed on her lower lip . . . that was no good. And though she knew that the alarm being triggered would at least alert the agents back in DC to send help, help would NOT get here in time.
The house just wasn't that big.
Even if Patrick was upstairs, he'd be back down soon. And he'd definitely break into the den before any of the local deputies could arrive to check on her. Because it only took a minute to kill someone.
Just ask Aaron.
Okay Emily, she thought with a wince and a violent head shake . . . that was NOT a helpful thought! Just stay focused! Right . . . she sucked in another breath . . . focused. Okay, so for her known facts, a deputy from the Sheriff's Department . . . the closest law enforcement agency . . . should be arriving within the next ten, maybe twelve minutes. And he would get there and hear the alarm and realize that something was wrong. And he would call for back up. And shortly after that, another deputy would show up, and then another . . . and another . . . and eventually Aaron's colleagues. And the Marshalls.
A Secret Service liaison.
Really any government agency that held any role in protective services, would come racing to the farm once it was known that there had been an attack on the Secretary of State's daughter. ESPECIALLY if that attack had left one of their own . . . her chest tightened . . . dead.
Aaron was dead.
The words flooded her brain again, and again she shoved them away. But that time she did it as she turned towards the door. No more time for screwing around. If Patrick wasn't hiding out in the hall, then he'd be done checking the upstairs any time now. So she only had another minute.
Maybe two if she was REALLY lucky.
And again, that was presuming that he wasn't just standing around the corner with a butcher's knife raised over his head waiting to carve her face up. That was an image . . . a plausible image . . . that caused Emily to freeze for a second. If only she just had some way of KNOWING where the hell he'd gone!
But . . . she took a breath to push down her irritation, it did no good . . . she didn't.
So she started hedging her two best (only) options. Run out the front door . . . that was option one. Or run down the hall into the office. The office did have a good lock. And it had a book case that she could probably knock in front of the door. So she could probably barricade herself in, call the sheriff to make sure that they were on the way, and then PRAY TO GOD(!) that SOMEBODY with a badge showed up before Patrick broke down the door and hacked her to death.
That was option two.
And though she so desperately wanted to just get away. To race out the front door screaming like a banshee for somebody to please God help . . . that would be stupid. For all intents, they really were in the middle of nowhere. So if she ran outside . . . and Patrick heard her leave . . . where was she really even going to go? She didn't have the car keys, and both the town . . . and the closest neighbors . . . were miles away. And ten minutes was an ETERNITY when you were all alone with a psycho chasing after you.
Most likely Patrick would catch up with her long before she could get to any kind of safety.
DAMN IT!
Feeling another wave of helplessness . . . and hopelessness . . . wash over, the hot tears once more began to burn Emily's eyes. Though that time they weren't just born of grief, there was true despondence there as well. But before she let herself get completely dragged down, she forced herself to again consider her parents . . . and her poor Aaron . . . and she sucked in a breath. And she made a choice.
She'd try to run.
It might be the fool's choice, but it was marginally better than risking being boxed into a corner where she'd have no room to maneuver if the crazy man broke down the door.
At least this way he'd have actually have to CATCH her, first.
And with that, she mustered her courage . . . that time taking strength from the flash of Aaron's face in her mind . . . and stepped into the open doorway.
And . . . nothing.
No one.
Patrick wasn't there.
But by that point, Emily's teeth had dug so far into her lower lip, that she could taste blood. And though she was focusing senses as hard as she could against the bleating alarm, she still couldn't figure out where the HELL Patrick had gone!
If he was still downstairs somewhere . . . she tilted her head the other way, listening intently for background noise . . . or if he had definitely gone up to check the second floor.
She could only pray that's where he was.
Because if that's what he'd done, then most likely he wouldn't be back down until he'd finished checking under all the beds, and in all the closets.
And fortunately there were five bedrooms.
So hoping . . . and praying . . . that she still had those extra thirty or forty seconds, she tightened her sweaty grip on the fireplace poker, and started inching her way down the front hall.
Her heart was pounding so loudly that she was afraid that alone would give her position away.
But slowly . . . and oh so carefully . . . she continued moving her way towards the closed front door.
Eight feet . . . then seven . . . six. She wanted to just flat out run, but running feet made noise . . . flesh slapping against hardwood. And her only chance of getting away, of getting a head start, was to get out the door without Patrick knowing that she had left.
Suddenly she heard something fall over . . . she froze again. A lamp.
Maybe.
Either way it sounded far away.
Yes . . . her eyes popped as she felt a jolt of elation . . . Patrick WAS upstairs! Which meant that she wasn't going to get a better chance for escape.
GO! GO! GO!
The words were screamed in her head like they'd been screamed that day her mother's security officer was killed. And like that day . . . she bolted, racing for the front door. It was only six more steps . . . and she was running . . . but still it seemed like a mile.
A mile being run in the sand.
And then her hand was reaching out . . . she was scrabbling for the knob . . . but then something terrible happened. Her hands were too sweaty.
She dropped the fire poker.
It clanged into the hardwood . . . and then to her absolute HORROR . . . it bounced, once, and again. Even with the bleating sound of the alarm, the clatter rang out loud and clear.
OH JESUS! OH NO!
Feeling a wave of horror and panic both that she'd both given away her position, and that she'd lost her weapon, Emily froze for a split second. But then she realized that there was nothing to be done about her screw up, there was no fix, and she began moving again.
She'd barely gotten the heavy door yanked open before she heard the sound of feet pounding through the upstairs. Patrick was coming . . . and he was once more screaming her name.
Though now much more colorfully.
"EMILY YOU WHORE! WHERE ARE YOU, YOU FILTHY BITCH?!"
She fled.
Though she wanted so badly to get her little weapon back, the rage and hatred in Patrick's voice terrified her. All she could think about was that terrible picture. And the man who had sent it was right behind her. And so she ran like she had so many times in her dreams.
Like the wind.
Unfortunately the door was too heavy to take the time to pull it shut behind her. It would have been more seconds lost. As it was, her feet barely touched the front steps before her toes were digging into the sharp gravel of the driveway.
Then she just kept going.
Blood pounding, feet pounding, wanting to just scream and scream like some clichéd horror movie bimbo.
But she didn't.
She needed to conserve her oxygen. And besides . . . she sucked in a ragged breath . . . there was no one around to hear her cries anyway.
Screaming would be pathetic.
So she continued her race across the driveway in silent, gasping, terror. She didn't even try to make it to the road . . . there was no point in going that way, no advantage . . . she just headed towards the lake. It might have been another foolish thought, but she was thinking that maybe she could find refuge there.
At least until the deputies arrived.
She was a good swimmer. So maybe she could swim out and tread water. Even if Patrick saw her, there was no way that he'd jump in to try to get her. And if he did, she'd just keep moving further away. And if she drowned . . . sweat began to pour down her face . . . well, it was better than being sliced and diced like her picture.
ANYTHING was better than that!
And she was starting to think that maybe her plan wasn't a terrible one . . . she was making some distance . . . when suddenly she realized that her bare feet were getting cut up by the rocks. She was leaving blood in the dirt.
It was a trail for Patrick to follow.
And though she felt another surge of panic, then she reminded herself . . . it didn't matter. He wasn't far enough behind that she'd ever had any real chance of 'hiding.' Because there wasn't really any shelter for her to hide in . . . nothing besides the woods. But she would never go in there.
That's where the boogeyman lived.
No . . . the sweat started to trickle down her back . . . it was the water. That was the plan. She'd jump in and swim out. And it wasn't much farther. Twenty yards maybe. But then . . . she tripped.
It was a chuckhole.
SHIT!
Before she could catch her balance, she face planted into the grass . . . and she screamed. It was a sound born of both frustration, and blinding pain.
She'd violently wrenched her ankle when she fell.
And though with the adrenaline surging . . . literal fight or flight . . . she was able to push herself back up, she was only able to go another two feet. Then she fell again, sobbing and biting down another scream. It was impossible to run.
And that's when she heard the footsteps pounding towards her.
OH GOD! OH NO! THE RAZOR!
"NO!" Emily screeched as she rolled, throwing her hands up to cover her face.
"EMILY!"
Her arms dropped . . . her eyes popped open in shock.
"AARON!?" She gasped in disbelief.
And then he was groaning as he leaned over to grab her arm. There was blood all over his shirt.
"Come on!" he yelled while shooting a horrified look behind them. "We have to MOVE!"
A/N 2: Thank you to everybody who has sent all of the kind, encouraging reviews on this story the last couple years. I wish I could have given you some payoff a bit earlier, but unfortunately my brain just isn't that cooperative.
And THIS time, I wrote out the next two pages before I posted so we wouldn't get stuck again. Not promising it'll be the next update, but unless things go horribly wrong again, it's on the short list to get wrapped.
