Chapter 26 – On The Run
Heidi could barely feel her feet as she pushed her way, one armed and all, through the thick foliage of the red maple forest she'd found herself in the middle of. Her bare feet had reached the point of numbness with the number of sticks and stones she had tread on so far. The cut across her abdomen had finally stopped hurting, though she still kept her forearm pressed against it just in case it was still bleeding. The gash across her forehead had thankfully stopped bleeding though and she didn't need to use her free hand anymore to wipe the blood that had been dripping down the side of her face.
The dead of the night out here scared her so much that now all she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding loudly in her ears as she tried her hardest to move as quick as possible. Her breathing was ragged as she tried to force her sobs back as the tears continued to stream down her face. She thought that half the reason she was crying was because she was scared and alone out here and the other half was because she was free right now. The tears, regardless though, were making it that much harder to breath in the hot thick air out here.
Brushing past another big branch, Heidi jumped at the sound of an owl and her shirt managed to get itself stuck on a sharp protruding branch. The young Orton started to panic as she tried to move but was still stuck. Her heart started racing as she panicked to free herself from the tree branch which had snagged her shirt. Her head kept whipping around, making sure that no one was behind her and that no one else was out here except her. As the moments passed and her struggle with the tree branch continued, she started to panic more and more until she finally pulled with all her might and freed herself.
Not even bothering to check out how bad the stinging scratch was across her chest and how much of her T-shirt the branch had ripped, Heidi continued forward, trying her hardest to pick up her pace to make up for the time she had just lost. She had no idea in the slightest where she was going but at this point in time she didn't care. All that she knew was that the warehouse was directly behind her, so as long as she kept heading straight ahead at least she would be as far away from that place as she could manage to get herself.
Heidi ignored the stinging on her chest as the pain started to worsen the faster she moved, and therefore the stronger the force of the air on the open cut. She moved with the adrenalin that was giving her the strength and the will to maintain her almost jogging pace. Considering she hadn't eaten or drunk properly in over 40 days, if it wasn't for the adrenalin coursing through her veins she was pretty sure she would have been fainted, dehydrated and crumpled in a heap on the ground trying to desperately breath through all the pain coursing through her body right now. She refused, though, to give up now. There was no way that she was going to go back to that warehouse and those men. There was no way that she was going to go back to the beatings, the cuttings and least of all the rape. There was no way she was going back to being a prisoner. Even if she died trying there was no way she was going back there.
Broken out of her thoughts by the sound of another owl in the trees above her, Heidi suddenly realized that she could see lights up ahead. The full moon overhead was currently guiding her through the red maple forest, but up ahead she could clearly see the constancy of manmade light. The hope started to fill her heart and the tears started to fall more freely as she got closer and closer to the lights. It wasn't until she was a further 50 yards down the track when she realized that the lights she saw were from a row of streetlights. It wasn't until she was a further 20 yards or so that she could see exactly what those streetlights were illuminating.
Heidi didn't even realise she was out of the red maple forest until a couple of moments later. She could barely even breath through the sobs that had started to rack her body again as she continued to move towards the streetlights and the cul-de-sac that they were lining. Heidi finally saw the houses that were lining the cul-de-sac, and that's when she started to run.
The panic had settled in that she no longer had the cover from the forest she had just emerged from. She was currently out in the open and therefore the risk of one of the men happening to stumble across her was so much greater and she realized that straight away. Though her sobs and tears were getting more aggressive, and she could barely breath above it all, Heidi continued to run as fast as her legs could take her. She was exhausted, she was hurting, she was scared and she was running out of adrenalin, but she continued to run. She was going to reach one of those houses and find someone to help her even if it killed her getting there in the process.
Heidi found herself fast approaching a small cottage looking house that was slightly isolated at the very end of the cul-de-sac. It was a good 50 yards further down the cul-de-sac, down from this house, before there was another house. Heidi saw there were lights on inside the house and that was good enough for her to assume that someone was definitely home tonight. Heidi didn't even know what time it was. She didn't know whether she would therefore be greeted with kindness and sympathy by the person inside the house, but right now she was desperate enough to try anyway.
Without a second thought, as soon as Heidi reached the house she made her way round the front, still running, and up the stairs to the front door.
"HELP ME! SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!" Heidi practically screamed as she pounded on the front door as soon as she was close enough to it.
She didn't expect to know the person that was going to open the door in response to her loud banging, but that didn't even matter right now. All she wanted was to get away from them. She wanted to get out of the hell she'd been living for the past 40 days. She didn't care who opened the door, as long as it wasn't one of them.
"PLEASE!" Heidi screamed again as she continued to pound the wooden doorframe, tears spilling more furiously from her blue eyes.
Suddenly the door to the house flung open and Heidi immediately went quiet as she came face to face with who she assumed to be the owner of the house. A young blonde woman dressed casually in grey sweatpants and a pink T-shirt stood in front of Heidi with her jaw wide open. What a sight the 18 year old must have been. She had been in the same attire for 40 odd days without so much as a shower or a wash of her clothes. Since climbing out of the window of the warehouse earlier on in the night her white shirt was almost completely drenched in bright red blood from the cuts on her abdomen and her forearm. The top of her shirt was now ripped thanks to that tree branch earlier so Heidi was sure that most of her chest and her red bra could now be seen. Her hair hadn't been touched by a brush in what felt like yea, and now that the blood had dried on her forehead, she assumed there was still a fair chunk of her now red head stuck to that patch of blood. To top it all off too, her eyes were surely red and puffy from the tears that she couldn't stop from flowing.
Heidi wasn't sure how much the blonde had taken in of her condition, but after taking a moment to get over her initial shock, she quickly ushered Heidi into her house and quickly closed and locked the front door behind her.
"Oh my goodness, what's happened to you?!" The young woman said in a panic as she gently placed her hands on Heidi's shoulders and inspected the young girl more carefully.
Heidi's tears resumed as her small body started to shake in fear and sadness.
"Please... please... help me," Heidi whispered softly, looking into the young woman's doe brown eyes "Please. I'm so scared."
The young woman didn't know what to do other than lean forward and embrace the strange girl she'd found on her doorstep. Heidi embraced her back lightly as she continued to cry. She didn't know if her tears were tears of sadness or whether they were tears of happiness because she was now free.
"It's going to be alright, just come with me," the woman spoke gently to Heidi as she pulled away slightly, yet putting her arm around Heidi's waist for support as she led her into the living room.
Heidi followed the woman silently, apart from the odd sniffle and ragged breath, into her living room and sat down on the brown suede couch she was led to. She hadn't realized how weak her legs were until she had the option to sit down. The woman then knelt down in front of her, taking both of her hands in hers.
"You're going to alright, OK?" the woman repeated, her voice calm and soothing which made Heidi relax a little "I'm a nurse so I've seen much worse things before. It also means that I can help you right now, OK?"
Heidi simply nodded as she tried her hardest to concentrate on breathing properly. She could still feel her heart pounding in her chest.
"Now I'm going to get a first aid kit from the kitchen over there," the woman spoke as she turned around slightly to point to the door directly behind her over the other side of the room "I'm going to call an ambulance for you, but it's going to take awhile before they get here, so I'm going to grab some things and try and get you cleaned up while we wait OK?"
Heidi nodded her head again.
"Babe, get in here!" The young woman suddenly exclaimed as she turned around in the direction of the kitchen.
"What is it?" another female voice called back, her voice coming from the direction of the kitchen.
"Just come here!" The young woman exclaimed again, as she turned back to look at the state of Heidi in front of her "Quick, just come!"
Heidi brought her knees up to her chest as she started to sob again, her eyes now stinging from crying so much. She wasn't sure why she was even crying this time but she didn't care anymore. She just let herself cry.
"What do you..." The other female voice spoke again as the door to the kitchen flung open, causing Heidi's head to rise in mild startle "Heidi?"
Heidi rubbed her eyes as she tried to focus her vision. As she did she immediately realised she recognised the young woman who had just entered the room.
"Alle?" Heidi asked softly, not quite being able to believe what she was seeing.
It was almost too good to be true that she immediately thought it was all a dream. There was no way.
In an instant, Alle Dumas was at her niece's side, embracing the 18 year old like her life depended on it. Tears were falling from both their eyes as they embraced in silence. Heidi sighed as she started to sob uncontrollable again as she felt her aunty's arms around her. She wasn't dreaming. This was real. She was really here and so was Alle.
"Oh my god, Heidi," Alle finally spoke as she distanced herself slightly from Heidi to get a proper look at her "We were all so worried sick about you."
Heidi took a firm hold of her aunty's hand, never wanting to ever let it go, as she forced herself to speak through her sobs.
"I was so scared," Heidi managed as she continued to cry, the tears streaming down her face uncontrollably "I... I thou...thought... I was going to... to... to die."
With Heidi's words, Alle leaned forward to embrace her niece once more before turning to the other woman in the room.
"Dena, get me the phone," Alle simply asked.
"I've just called an ambulance," Dena replied as she bent down next to Alle, a first aid kit under her arm and the cordless phone in her hand, both of which she'd just retrieved from the kitchen "They're on their way but they're going to be about half an hour."
"Thanks," Alle nodded in her friend's direction "I'm going to call her parents."
"What's going on?" Dena asked, looking at her friend and then looking at Heidi again.
"Please just give me the phone, and I'll explain everything in a minute," Alle spoke impatiently, looking at her friend with pleading eyes as she pulled her still sobbing niece closer into her arms "I just really need the phone right now Deen."
Dena handed the cordless phone over to Alle without a second thought.
"It's going to be OK girly," Alle said, comforting her niece as she stroked the back of Heidi's head to calm her down "You're safe here. No one's going to hurt you. Dena and I are going to stay here and look after you until the ambulance gets here, OK?"
Heidi simply nodded, her heavy breathing and her tears preventing her from speaking at all right now.
"OK," Alle said as she broke her embrace from the young girl and proceeded to stand up with the cordless phone in her hand "I'm going to take this into the kitchen. Dena can you please look after her."
"Of course," Dena nodded in Alle's direction as she took Alle's spot in front of Heidi "We'll be fine here."
Dena was still unsure of what the hell was going on and what the hell this young girl had been through. She'd finally made the connection that the girl was obviously the young girl from Kentucky that had been kidnapped. Alle had told her about it many times as the young girl happened to be her niece.
Alle practically ran out of the room as she immediately dialed. She had no idea how badly Heidi had been treated and who had kidnapped her in the first place. Her niece was obviously extremely traumatised and the bruises and cuts she was wearing plus the state of her T-shirt and the amount of blood on her could only mean that she wasn't being treated very well. Alle couldn't be sure to what extent Heidi's physical well-being had been effected, or if heaven forbid she'd actually been raped by these men who had had her, but for right now she couldn't concentrate on that. For right now she had to get a hold of Heidi's parents.
"Hello, Randy Orton speaking," The voice spoke as they picked up the phone.
"Randy, it's Alle," Alle said immediately.
"Hi Alle," Randy said, trying to sound cheerful, although Alle knew as well as he did that Randy was anything but happy, and had been this way for the last month and a half "How have you been?"
"Look Randy, there's no time for small talk," Alle quickly said, trying to break the news the best way possible "This call is about Heidi."
"What about Heidi?!" Randy immediately exclaimed, sounding panicked.
"Heidi?!" Alle heard a voice in the background exclaim that she knew was her sister's "What's happened to Heidi?"
"What's happened Alle? Is there any news?" Randy quickly interrogated his sister-in-law.
"She's at a friend of mine's place, Dena Roberts, in Sanford," Alle quickly explained "I don't know how she got here but she just showed up on the doorstep about 5 minutes ago, but she's safe now and an ambulance is on its way here."
"Li and I are going to the airport right now to get the next plane there, OK?" Randy quickly decided "I'm going to get the car ready now, wait... here's Li."
"Alle?" Lita asked as she received the phone from Randy "What's happened to Heidi? What's wrong?"
"Ames, she's safe," Alle reassured her sister "I'm at Dena's house in Sanford and Heidi just showed up on our doorstep. She's alright, just really scared and it looks like she's been through a lot."
"Oh thank God! She isn't hurt is she?" Li quickly questioned, sounding obviously concerned and panicked about the state of her 18-year-old daughter "Please tell me she's not hurt Alle. Please tell me she's OK."
"I think she's alright," Alle answered honestly, taking a deep breath before continuing as she didn't want to lie to her sister about such a serious matter "It looks like she's been beaten up though. She's bruised and cut everywhere. She's lost a lot of blood Li, but that's all that I can tell from what I've seen of her. She's completely traumatised and I don't want to have to make her explain everything to me now. She's going to be all right Ames. I promise I'll take care of her until you get here and Dena's a nurse remember. She's in there right now cleaning Heidi up and making sure she's stable until the ambulance get here because they shouldn't be more than 20 minutes away."
"Oh my god," Lita spoke, Alle could hear the tears and sadness in her voice "I can't believe this. I can't believe this is happening right now Alle."
"Ames, it's alright," Alle said trying to comfort her sister "She's going to alright. She's safe with me and Dena right now and she's going to be at a hospital really soon."
"OK,' Lita replied as she tried to control her tears "Randy and I are going to be there as soon as we can."
"Call me when you get here, I'll make sure I have my cell on me," Alle added.
"We'll call you as soon as we get to Sanford," Lita answered.
"We'll see you soon then Ames," Alle spoke "She's going to be OK I promise."
A/N: Heidi's safe! Or is she?
Thank you so much readers and reviewers! The last chapter had only been up for a day and already I had so much positive feedback that I absolutely had to dedicate tonight to finishing off this chapter! Funny thing is that I had written half this chapter about 2 years ago, just after I started this fanfic and when I had started mapping the story out!
Congratulations are also due to GoodGirlGoneBad1984 for correctly guessing that Heidi was in fact in Sanford, North Carolina! Your prize is awaiting you in the next couple of chapters when your character will be introduced!
Look out for Chapter 27 – She's Alive, which is coming soon! And in true One Secret fashion, within the next 5 chapters a huge bombshell is going to be dropped! Can't wait to write it!
Please READ AND REVIEW! God Bless, Mrs Bridget Orton xxx