Run (15 page)

The crack of a stick woke me up. I went from being asleep to being wide
awake in seconds. For one moment I lay on the ground frozen, cataloging facts. Jack was here when I went to sleep. Now I was alone. I was cold and hurt. The crack of a stick signaled the presence of someone else.

The last thought propelled me up to
my feet. I needed to move. I was barely on my way up to my feet when a hand grabbed my hair and threw me back down.

“Hey there
, smart girl.” He smiled down at me.

I tried to pull myself away. I tried to
get my feet under me, but he dragged me backward keeping my balance off.

Come on
, Charlotte, get up. Get your feet under you
.

My inner monologue was no match for
my outer reality. However much I told myself to get up to get away, the grip and the leverage he had on me kept me captive.

He threw me onto the ground
. When I tried to sit up, he backhanded me. My lip split and the taste of my own blood filled my mouth. In the seconds it took me to regain my sense, he pulled a gun from his waistband. Now standing above me with the gun in his hand, he smiled down at me.

He had the creepiest
, most evil smile I have ever seen. It made me cold inside. Everything slowed down. I heard him threaten me. I heard him say he was going to kill me now; that I was going to hurt. All of that seemed far away. Time slowed, each moment like a snapshot separately identifiable and catalogued.

He
stepped toward me and raised the gun. My heels scrabbled against the dirt as I fought for traction to get away. He thumbed the safety off; I was stuck.

Then he stopped and looked at the gun. “No, I’m not going to shoot you. That’s not nearly personal enough. I think this will be nicer with a
hands-on approach, don’t you?”

He tucked the gun into his waistband as he continued toward me.

One minute he was standing above me, the next he was on the ground under Jack. They fought, rolling one way then the other. Trading blows. First Jack seemed to have the upper hand, then Pheares. 

Pheares reached for his gun and Jack knocked it out of his hand. It fell to the ground and slid several feet on the other side of where Jack and Pheares fought.

Come on, Charlotte, do something. Do something
.

Jack landed a punch that probably had a fancy name.
All I knew was that it knocked Pheares back and Jack appeared to have the upper hand. Meanwhile, I sat on the ground like a tragic heroine in a romance novel. So not the way I viewed myself.

Come on
, Charlotte. Think
.

Pheares
kneed Jack in the side. Jack flinched and pulled back. His momentary lapse gave Pheares the advantage. He punched Jack multiple times in the face. Jack was trying to hold him off, trying to gain an advantage when I saw Pheares turn toward the gun he had threatened me with.

There was no more time to think. I rolled to my side. Something sharp
poked me in my side. In a flash I remembered putting my trusty nail friend in my pocket. I wrapped my hand around the nail as I pushed to my feet.

Jack and Pheares
struggled a few feet away. Two steps and I was behind them. I pulled the nail out of my pocket. I didn’t take time to think; I just grabbed Pheares’ shoulder with one hand and stabbed the nail into his neck with the other.

He screamed and grabbed at my hand. His nails scratched across the back of my hand, but he
wasn’t able to grab me. I stumbled backward, the bloody nail still gripped in my hand. He clapped his hand over the wound in his neck. Blood slid over his hand and between his fingers. He took a step toward me, yelling and cursing.

Jack
, on the ground, slowly rolled onto his side. Pheares took another step toward me. Despite being wounded and bleeding, he didn’t seem to be overly hurting. His forward push overcame my backward stumble. He grabbed me and pulled me towards him. His hand wrapped around my arm was tight. He shook me. I stabbed him again; desperate, praying he would go down. He grinned at me, that evil hateful grin and said, “Go ahead, stab me again, smart girl, I like it.”

I was shaking and afraid, stabbing out at him again. I think the nail wasn’t really long enough to cause significant damage
, but maybe he just was unbreakable. He backed me into a tree and closed his bloody hand around my neck. He started applying pressure, choking me.

My vision was graying.
My hands scrabbled at his hands wrapped around my neck. I could feel my body start to slump, my strength leave me.

Suddenly his hands were gone. I fell to the ground gasping for air. Survival instinct pushed me to move despite the trial my body had gone through.
I looked up to find him … the monster. What I saw gave me the freedom to slump back down on the ground. Jack stood to the side, the gun in his hand, and Pheares was on the ground.

Pheares
was unconscious and, considering the blood that was covering him and starting to pool on the ground beneath him, I did not think he would be getting back up anytime soon.

I leaned against the tree behind me and started to cry. The whole time I had been strong
, I had fought. Now that I had beaten him, that we had beaten him, I fell apart. Jack dropped the gun to the ground and shuffled over towards me.

He dropped down next to me.

“Hey.”

“Hey
.” My hey back was considerably more watery than his.

“Fancy meeting you here.”

I started to laugh, and even then, I would acknowledge that there was definitely a hysterical edge. Jack wrapped his arm around me and I leaned into him. In the distance I heard sirens.

We did it
, Emily, we did it.

Epilogue: 6
months later

It was a normal Wednesday at 7 am and I was
walking Max. The only thing that made that day different from that Wednesday 6 months earlier was that this time I carried a Smith and Wesson Baton strapped to my left ankle. Okay, I also had a .38 special in the drawer of my bedside table. And I took boxing lessons twice a week. I can admit it, my world was different. Completely different.

The day Jack and I beat Pheares
is fixed in my memory. I will never forget it. Sometimes I wish I could. After Jack and I overpowered Pheares we waited for the police. Turns out while I had been asleep, Jack had been looking for help. He made sure I was secluded and then he went on. He found an emergency call station and called for help. When an FBI agent calls for help everybody answers.

Jack and I were taken to the hospital first and then a few days later to the FBI office in Ph
iladelphia. We weren’t in very good shape. We were dehydrated, and had multiple bruises, contusions, and cuts. I had trauma to my throat from being choked. Jack had broken ribs and a sprained knee.

When they attempted to separate Jack and I, I fought, screamed, apparently cursed, but I don’t admit to
any of that. Anyway, because of my little scene, Jack and I were kept together at the hospital, given fluids, and patched up. It was in the hospital that I learned that Pheares hadn’t made it. He had died on the way to the hospital. I have to admit I wasn’t sorry.

The first thing I asked about at the hospita
l was Max and Kitty. They were rescued and taken to a shelter where my sister picked them up. When police saw the stuff that was in my car, they alerted the FBI. It didn’t take the FBI long to realize they already knew about the case in my notes. Special Agent Jack Moore had notes on my case in his files. The FBI had been looking for us before Jack made any calls. That’s a good thing, but to this day I don’t find any comfort that they were looking for us but hadn’t found us.

My family wasn’t allowed to see me right away. When my family and friends were allowed in
, it was overwhelming. My mom sat at my bedside and cried. My niece just crawled right into bed with me. I think my nephew thought the whole thing was cool. Tammy yelled at me for 15 minutes straight (I know, I timed her), I have never felt so loved.

There is a benefit to having an FBI agent as a roommate
; an exception was made for my fur kids to come in and visit me. If they never technically left … well, I wasn’t telling.

After we were released from the hospital
, FBI agents escorted us to the Philadelphia office. We were questioned repeatedly. I told my story so many times I don’t think there is anyone left in the FBI who has not heard it.

Since there was no one left to prosecute, my association with the FBI ended once they felt they understood what had happened. I was thanked for my service, and warned to leave any further investigating
to the authorities.

Of course
, when the FBI told me it was okay for me to go, I had nowhere to go. My home was burned along with all of my possessions other than those I had with me. My family was ecstatic I was alive and furious that I had “put myself in that position.” They were happy to take me in. I went to my parents’ house first, and then my sister’s when my mom’s fussing got to be a little bit much.

The one positive out of all of this was my books were selling like wildfire. Apparently
, being kidnapped and almost killed by a serial killer was great publicity for a mystery writer. My publisher was ecstatic. She had given me an advance that made my jaw drop, and she helped me find and settle into a new home.

A month
later I moved into a new condo in a secure community. In the month after I moved in, I wrote a 350-page book. I have never written so fast. This book is different than any other I have ever written. It is Emily’s story. I felt like I needed to write it. It was my final tribute to Emily. I dedicated it to her and the 22 other girls Pheares killed.

Jack is back to his job with the FBI. He and I went on a few dates, but it was
awkward. We had been so close. While we were kidnapped there had been moments when I felt like we were the two closest people in the world. We looked into each other’s eyes and it was like we understood everything about each other, like we were communicating without saying a word. Now it was awkward. We had been too intense too fast, now we didn’t quite know how to relate to each other. The last time we went out, we said goodbye and hugged when we left, but neither of us said anything about getting together again. I don’t expect to hear from him.

One of the worst things is the questions I still have. I don’t know why. I don’t know why Pheares killed all of those girls. I know he
was evil, but I don’t know his motivation. I never will. That is one of the things that keeps me up at night -- looking for answers to the unanswerable.

Since I am back home and back to my normal life
, I am waiting to feel normal again. I am waiting to stop being scared. I have started taking self-defense classes. I have self-defense tools. Max goes everywhere with me. I am as safe as a person can be. None of those things make me feel safe. My eyes have been opened to the evil in the world. All of the guns and training in the world won’t make me feel safe. What makes me feel safe is my belief in good. I have to believe that good will win. That the evil in the world will be defeated, that something bigger, something good is in control. I am as capable of protecting myself as I can be, but I am forever changed.

I know now that evil is out there. That evil can come after you, and sometimes
, when I don’t keep my mind occupied, I think of Georgia.