A Beautiful New Life (26 page)

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Friday morning greeted them as warm and sunny but Louise’s mood was more dark and cloudy. She had dreamt her kids were in trouble and needed her and that set the mood.

“I think we should leave today. If they still suspected
us,
they would never expect us to leave right now. I
don’t
want to wait any longer. My kids need me.” She was angry and moody.

“Hey what’s wrong?” Jordan came over
to her and set his coffee down on the
table.

Louise shook her head. “I don’t know. I had a dream.
I know
it’s
just a dream.
But…
but my kids need me. Something’s wrong.”

“Louise
,
just calm down.”
Jordan pulled her into his arms “I don’t really think that’ll be a good idea. We should really wait one more week.”

“NO!” She slammed her fist on the table. “I’ll go without you if I have to but I’m leaving today.”

Jordan knew better than to argue. If he learned anything from his
mom,
it was to never come in between a mom and her children and if Louise felt they were in danger there would be no stopping her from getting home to them.

“Okay if you are sure then…hell Louise.” He paced across the kitchen and then turned and went into the bedroom. He returned a short time later with a sheet of paper. “Here’s a list I started to put together of things we need to take with us.” He handed Louise the sheet of paper.

“I don’t know if I have all this stuff.” She was getting angrier
as
each
minute passed.
It seemed to her that he was stalling.

“We’ll just have to take what we have.” He took a deep breath and tried to relax. It was not going to do either of them any good if they were both angry. They both ditched their breakfast and went to work gathering what they could. Louise packed the picnic basket
,
a cover if they
are seen
in the campground
.
J
ordan went gathering the items to pack in a backpack. Even though they were taking a
vehicle,
they would have to walk through the woods to get to the truck and then if they had to ditch the truck along the way they wanted to only have to carry the necessities.

“Okay I have the picnic basket done.” You could hear the tears in her voice. She was now afraid
,
a
fraid of getting caught, afraid of losing Jordan, afraid of what she might or might not find at home.

Jordan pulled her close and held her in his strong protective arms. He was her security blanket and she felt it the first time he held her. She knew if he had the power he would never allow anything to happen to her. The fear came back in her mind again. How far would he go for her?

Jordan drove her to work and kissed her goodbye like any other normal day. She wanted to linger but knew if they had been watching they would
pick up on
it
, b
ut no one was around that morning. Louise breathed a sigh of relief and got out running right into Edith.

“You got a ride on this beautiful morning.” You could hear the unasked questions in her voice.

Louise blushed. She had been getting good at producing a blush on demand but will be grateful to get out of here so she could stop pretending and get on with her real life. “Well we were delayed this morning.”

“Oh. Well you don’t need to give me the details.” Edith was now embarrassed for asking.

“Besides it’s such a beautiful day I convinced Jordan to go on a picnic for lunch. I couldn’t very well carry that to work.” She laughed and gave a look to Jordan that he returned. There was no pretending there. There was no doubt these two were in love.

She turned to Jordan. “See you at lunch.” She closed the door and walked in with Edith.

“So if you don’t come back from lunch on time I can just assume you two were…busy.” Edith kept walking without a look at Louise.

“Edith you’re too much. But hey you never know.” Louise slipped her arm through Edith’s and they walked into the building together.

The morning crawled by like
a
worm inching
i
t
s way across a football field. Jordan was going to be there at noon and even though it felt as if the day should have been
done,
it was only nine. She busied herself with her work and soon put her earphones
o
n to avoid any other distractions. She soon had all her work done, unintentionally. Since she was
leaving,
she did not care about deadlines any more but the work kept her mind
off
the pending unknown. As she was finishing the last bit of
paperwork,
she
was tapped
on the shoulder.

Jumping around, “Oh my god you scared me
!”

“Sorry I called out but now I can see why you didn’t hear me.”

She took off her earphones. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah well I thought we had a date.”

She turned and looked at the clock and it said 12:05. “Oh my I didn’t realize what time it was.” She started to shake. Jordan squeezed her shoulder and she relaxed some. She still had the queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

“So are you ready?”

“Yes I just need to clock out and lock my computer but yes I’m ready.” She put her earphones in their usual spot, opened the
time keeping
program, clocked out, and locked her computer. She tried to follow her normal steps when leaving for lunch.

Jordan took her hand and before heading out she yelled out to Edith a “see
ya
” and they left. They walked out the building and got into his car driving west out of town. Since they were not heading to their normal picnic spot Jordan
had
found an old tent and packed it.
He would say it was
his surprise to her
,
if questioned
about
picnicking at the campsites. He would pull out the tent and surprise her with plans of spending the night and weekend there. They continued to drive west in silence
,
with the only communication between the two was the constant intertwining of their fingers. They pulled into the camping area, stopping about halfway down the right side of the campground. They pulled into the spot they had chosen the week previous. She pulled out the picnic basket and proceeded to set up the table for lunch. They had not seen anyone on their way up but wanted to make a good impression on anyone passing by. They ate their last meal together or rather picked at it. Both were nervous about the risk they were both eagerly afraid to take.

“Well you ready to do this?” He pulled her close and he wished they had time for him to make love to her one more time. As if reading his mind she pulled his head down to her and kissed him with all the love and passion she felt for him. He returned her kissed and for a moment time stood still and they were two free birds flying off to forever. They pulled away and got up from the table. Jordan grabbed the backpack and they walked hand in hand into the woods in the direction of the parking lot.

The walk was shorter then they both had remembered and for a moment they paused, Louise pulled out the picture she had carefully kept tucked away and looked for inspiration, courage, and strength at the faces of her boys.

“Let’s do this.”

Chapter
Twenty-Four

They were closing in on them. Jordan pushed the gas pedal harder forcing the truck to increase its speed. Louise held on praying. They were going too fast.

“Slow down some Jordan.”

“I can’t they will catch us.”

They whipped around the first corner barely staying on the road. Louise looked behind and the car following was having no problem taking the corners at such a high speed. Louise now regretted not waiting another week like Jordan wanted. The next curve was even sharper and Jordan had to slow to stay on the road. The car now right behind them.

“WATCH OUT!” A fox darted out in front of them. Jordan swerved running off the road. The truck rolled

All was quiet as the dust settled. Louise stirred, her head hurt. She reached up and felt the warm sticky fluid leaking from her ripped skin.

“Jordan”. Her voice was no more than a whisper. “Jordan.” She tried to move but screamed out in pain. Her ribs hurt, her head hurt. She wanted to die but the pain would not let her forget a memory from not so long ago
, a memory of
a
beating she had endured at the hands of the people she was trying to
escape
. People whom her husband had sent her to; a husband who now had her kids that she needed so desperately to get back
to
. She tried again pulling upon the courage and strength the memory of her kids gave her. She could not move. She moved her head carefully to see what was restraining her. She fumbled around finding the
latch, undid the seatbelt,
and fell hard to the roof of the truck.

“Jordan.” She tried again to call out to him. “Jordan, are you okay?” She repositioned herself and now could see that Jordan was not in the driver’s seat.

“JORDAN!” She was crying now, scared.
She was sure the people following them would be there soon
and if they found her, s
he was sure to be a dead woman. She took her coat off
,
cleared the br
o
ken glass
,
and crawled out of the truck. She sat on the ground
and took in the scene around them
. They had rolled a good 50 feet or more along the road and came to rest in a pull off area.
Down the
road,
she could see the car that had followed them smashed against the rocks across the road. She got up
calling for Jordan as she
inched her way around the front of the truck
.

She reached the other side, “Jordan, oh my god, Jordan.” He lay pinned underneath the truck. Tears fell down her face as she struggled to get to him.

“Help, help!
Someone help us!”
Her tears washed away a
ll the fear
of
being
caught
,
as she feared even more of losing Jordan.

“Louise, Louise ...
stop
.
”
He reached out and grabbed her leg. She stopped yelling and knelt beside him.

“Jordan
,
hang on.
I
…
I’ll go get help.”

“NO! Louise
don’t…
don’t leave me. It has to be this way.”

“No, no. It
doesn’t
.
I’ll
get help. Jordan…I’ll get help.”

He reached up and touched her cut on her head letting his hand slide down her face. He loved her more than
anyone he had ever known in his life.
Nevertheless, he knew, just as he knew he had to help her that first day he saw her
,
his life would end by making the greatest sacrifice som
eone could make for the one
he
loved.

“Let me go get help… Jordan, please!”

“Who Louise, who are you going to get help from? They will surely let me die and kill you…or worse.” He cringed not from the pain of the truck ripping through his side but the thought of what they would do to her. He did not finish the
sentence;
he could see her face and knew she was thinking the same thing. “Don’t let me die in vain!

“I won’t because I won’t let you die. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You have to cho
o
se Louise. Where is the picture of your boys? Look at it and cho
o
se.”

“
Noooo
.
Jordan
dooooon’t
.”

“Stop it
now,
I need you to do something for me?

“What
?
What
?
A
nything?”
She was hoping he was coming to his senses.

“Get a piece of the broken
glass;
we need to swap out our chips.” The smell of fuel burned his nostrils.

“What? NO! I’m not going to cut you.”

“You have to...to protect yourself. They will be looking for me instead of you. This will give you a head start.” She looked for a piece of glass that was sharp enough to cut their skin and as she worked on swapping the
chips,
Jordan gave her directions on getting out of there.