Page 79 of Backwoods
She had been tanked on adrenaline, but fatigue had begun to take its toll on her. Her thigh muscles burned. Her lungs ached. She badly needed to take a breather, just for a few minutes.
But the Overseer kept coming, unrelenting. He was walking, not running. But for every stride she took more slowly, he seemed to take more quickly, as if he were siphoning her strength, fueled by her growing fear.
I know who he is but I can’t believe it because it’s impossible . . .
Raven and Ossie were faltering, too. Ossie had stumbled, and Amiya had needed to grab his arm and pull him up. Raven, fighting through the undergrowth, somehow had lost the rifle in a tangle of vines. They were in too much of a hurry to look for it,and like Amiya, probably believed the gun wouldn’t have helped them anyway.
“Keep going, guys,” Amiya said. Her throat felt raw, like an open wound. She grabbed a fistful of Ossie’s tuxedo jacket and tugged him onward. He groaned.
“Think I twisted my ankle,” he said. Panting, he leaned against a tree, his body a slim silhouette. “Just . . . just keep going. Don’t let me hold you up.”
“I’m not leaving you behind,” Amiya said. “Think about Tanya. Don’t you want to see your mother again?”
“Huh?” He sucked in a pained breath.
“She means, move it!” Raven said. She had gone on ahead of them. In a flash of gas-jet blue light, her face was a mask of fear. “Man up!”
Cursing, Ossie pushed away from the tree. He snagged Amiya’s arm, leaned his weight against her.
Amiya glanced over her shoulder. The Overseer continued to close the distance as he cut a wide swath through the woods. His branding iron glowed brighter than ever, as if in anticipation of searing her flesh.
She pulled Ossie along. He groaned, but followed. Her feet ached, her shins plagued by splinters of pain as she trod over the uneven terrain. It had been such a long, agonizing day. She didn’t know how much longer she could press on. Her energy level teetered on empty.
“Someone’s coming!” Raven shouted. “Hear it?”
But Amiya didn’t hear anything; only her own tortured breaths, which had become like sobs, in between the crackle and thud of falling timber.
They burst out of the forest and into the bright headlights of an oncoming vehicle.
Amiya blinked, used her hand to protect her eyes against the sudden glare. The vehicle ground to a stop on the dirt road.
“Get in!” Grandpa Lee shouted.
Amiya didn’t hesitate. She ran to the passenger side of the truck and flung open the door. She pushed in Ossie and Raven ahead of her, then she scrambled inside herself. It was a tight fit, the three of them practically sitting on top of one another, mashed up against Grandpa Lee, all of them so sweaty and hot the windows fogged up almost instantly.
“Hang tight.” Grandpa Lee hit the accelerator. The truck jerked forward and bounced over bumps in the road, jostling them about.
Behind them, a tree exploded in a shower of golden sparks.
“He’s still after us,” Raven said.
Grandpa Lee grunted, poured on the speed. The truck’s headlamps carved apart the darkness. Trees and foliage sped past. Amiya had a million questions for the man, but one sat uppermost in her mind.
“Have you seen Nick?” she asked.
“He’s after us,” Grandpa Lee said simply, with a nod toward the rearview mirror. “He took it from me, thought he was saving me. I can’t let him wind up like me.”
“He tookwhatfrom you?” Amiya asked.
“The burden,” he said. He gritted his teeth as he wrestled the truck around a bend in the road. “Someday he can tell you all about it, but right now we’ve got work to do.”
“Hey, where we going?” Ossie asked.
“I brought some cans of kerosene in the flatbed,” Grandpa Lee said. He grinned, a savage expression. “Wasn’t sure I could manage to use ’em ’cause of the spell that came over me earlier . . . but we’re going back to Westbrook and we’re gonna burn down that damned place again.”
57
Grandpa Lee drove the truck to the estate’s front doors. Those doors hung open as Amiya and her group had left them. Some of the captives had wandered outdoors and milled in the front yard.
