Page 13 of Corrupted Lies

What she’d needed was Jake, but something had held her back from saying yes when he’d asked her to stay the night at his place. It wasn't because she blamed him for what had almost happened, she didn't. If someone was after his family, then he had no control over that. It wasn't because she didn't want to be around him, in fact, she’d craved nothing more and maybe that was why she’d said no.

She’d needed him, not just wanted him, and for some reason that had felt wrong.

Alannah had chalked it up to the high stakes and overflowing emotion from wondering if she was going to die. She’d also done her best not to think about it.

It wasn't like she didn't have a ton of other stuff to worry about.

Which was why she’d decided she needed this.

It was the only way Alannah could come up with to try to convince her mind and her body that she was no longer trapped.She’d never suffered from claustrophobia before, but she was pretty sure she would going forward. It clung to her skin even though she’d scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower when she got to her friend’s house, but that feeling of being trapped remained.

For how long she wasn't sure, but hopefully not forever.

Sliding on her earphones, she set her playlist to her classical music selection, what she listened to when she needed to relax, and set off down the path.

Running had always been her escape.

As a child, she’d been the unwanted sister. As a small infant, her older sister had almost perished to SIDS. Found unbreathing in her crib by their mother, a pediatric neurosurgeon, who had performed CPR and managed to get Amy breathing again. After that, her sister had been the star of the family. The golden child, the one who was fawned over and spoiled to the extreme.

On the other hand, she was the unwanted second child.

Her parents hadn't planned on more kids after almost losing their firstborn, but her mother had accidentally gotten pregnant when birth control failed, so along she came.

Unwanted, and her parents made sure she knew it.

There was no limit on what her parents would spend on hobbies and activities that Amy wanted to try out. Over the years, her sister had tried pretty much everything under the sun, and was praised for giving it a go no matter how good she was or how hard she’d tried.

She didn't get the same treatment.

Told that they weren't wasting money on her, Alannah had gravitated to the one hobby she didn't need anything else for.

Running.

All she needed were a pair of sneakers and some comfortable clothes, and she was good to go. Needing to escape her home where she was constantly being shoved aside, told she wasn't good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough even thoughshe worked hard in school, got better grades than her sister, treated people better than Amy did, and looked exactly the same as her parents’ golden child.

But no one could take running from her. It offered her freedom to let go of everything else, to put her brain in a zone where thinking wasn't necessary, where she could stop feeling for a while and just be.

With the wind in her hair and her feet pounding the paths of the local streets and parks, Alannah had found her happy place. And since her parents were always happy for any excuse to have her out of the house, they never restricted her running time even as they seemed to enjoy taking away other privileges.

Today, though, it wasn't freedom from her unloving parents that she sought but freedom from the mess her entire life had become.

Thankfully, no one other than her and Jake were hurt yesterday. The childcare worker had revealed that a man in a maintenance outfit had requested she leave the space with the children, so no one else had ever been in any danger. Everyone else had filed out when the fire alarms went off.

Only the basement had been damaged by the fire and the resulting efforts of the firefighters to put it out. But since it was the basement, there was the potential for structural problems for the entire building so she couldn’t reopen until it had been evaluated.

Then there was insurance to deal with, and the fears that she’d lose members while it was closed, or that people would never come back because they no longer believed she could offer them a safe place to work out.

If she lost her gym …

No.

She couldn’t even allow herself to think that right now. The gym was her baby, her livelihood. She’d put everything she had into it and was so proud of how successful it had become.

What would she do if she lost it?

Forcing all thoughts out of her head, Alannah just ran. She had good speed, but it was her distance and endurance that had won her lots of awards when she was a kid. Now she ran marathons a couple of times a year, but it wasn't about winning, it was just about losing herself in the smooth, steady movements of running.

Alannah was so in the zone that when something bright orange-red appeared in front of her, she startled.

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