Run (The Hunted)

RUN

every step counts

Patti Larsen

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2011 by Patti Larsen

Find out more about Patti Larsen at

http://www.pattilarsen.com/

http://www.pattilarsenbooks.blogspot.com/

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may no be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

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Cover art (copyright) by Stephanie Mooney. All rights reserved.

http://www.stephaniemooney.blogspot.com/

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Editing by Ashleys Freelance Editing

http://www.facebook.com/ashleys.freelanceediting

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Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Dedication

Your generosity not only helped me bring this series to life, your support and faith made me believe anything is possible. Thank you, Renee, Sarah, Kirstin, Kelly, Nishka, Caron, Cindy, Mille, Valerie, Joan, Kim K., Kimberly, Louise, Kim M, Darlene.

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Chapter One

Reid wakes in darkness. But not quiet, steady darkness like he’s used to, the kind that lulls him to sleep and keeps him there. This blackness is full of motion and sound. Mind fog drifts around him, keeping his thoughts from forming clearly. He has only a moment to wonder what is happening when he is spun sideways and slammed into something hard. His right shoulder protests, recognizing the pain. It was a blow like this one that woke him in the first place.

He knows he has to sit up, instincts warring with the disorientation and confusion in his mind. Flickers of memory only taunt him, offering no answers through the curtain of mist keeping him helpless. His hands and feet feel tight, almost numb. Reid shakes his head a little, cheek pressed to something harsh that scratches against his face when he moves. It smells like plastic and rusting metal. And someone else’s vomit.

At least, as far as he can tell it’s someone else’s.

This time when the motion sends him flying, he realizes he is in a vehicle of some kind. His mind guesses a van. Even though he can’t see, he can feel the space around him, hollow and empty. Reid blinks, trying to restore his vision, but his eyelashes meet fabric over and over, fluttering against the blindfold like a desperately trapped bird. Everything he does to work it loose fails, his coordination missing. The throbbing in his temples makes it impossible to focus.

A moan rises in his throat. He can’t stop it. His stomach clenches against a wave of nausea, heart beat pounding one moment before skipping erratically the next. Panic joins the party, taking him and shaking him until he finds himself thrashing against his bonds in an all-out struggle for freedom. The pounding in his head gets louder and more insistent and he can’t keep it in anymore.

“Hey!” His voice is raw and jagged, throat burning. He only then realizes how thirsty he is. “What the hell! Let me out!” His protests devolve into wordless yelling, as desperate as his fight against his captivity.

It’s not long before only silence emerges from his tortured throat. His strength is gone in moments. The fog in his mind is lifting, but with it comes a horrible, creeping weakness. Reid collapses, gasping for air, voice completely gone. This can’t be happening. Stuff like this only happens in the movies, right? Besides, he has nothing anyone would want. Orphaned, broke, barely sixteen.

His mind spikes fearfully at the thought of being in the hands of some kind of sick pervert before shying from the idea. He does his best to flex his fingers and feet while his mind battles him for control of his body, feeling the subtle tingle of blood trying to reach his extremities. He finds if he keeps his attention on the job and it alone, he can stuff down a measure of the panic and hold himself in check.

Reid swears to himself then and there, if he is under the control of a monster like that, he will fight until one of them dies.

Someone laughs. Reid freezes, a lump of ice slamming into his already queasy stomach. But the sound is muffled, coming from in front of him, as though through a wall or panel. Another voice laughs with the first. Two of them then, as far as Reid can tell. Pedophiles don’t work in pairs, do they? He has no idea, but decides not just to settle his mind.

He rolls forward as the driver hits the brakes. Reid impacts the front of the compartment with his head, his neck buckling under the strain. He cries out, twisting his body forward, face tucked to his chest. His torso slides in a semi-circle as the van comes to a hard halt, shoulders absorbing the rest of the impact. A flicker of light makes it past his blindfold and he instantly strains toward it, begging for it. More voices, new ones this time. Still muffled though, and impossible to identify.

“Help me, please! Somebody!” Reid’s dull and crusty shout for attention gets him nothing. No one answers him, saves him. He is on his own.

The van starts forward again, Reid at the mercy of its momentum. He is already covered in protesting bruises and is just grateful nothing feels broken. The ride is rough and at one point he is almost weightless. Reid cries out from the shock of it, just before the van slams to a halt once more. He tucks just in time so his back bears the brunt of the assault, his body curled into a tight ‘C’. Weight shifts at the front of the van. Two doors slam in rapid succession. Reid takes one more panicked moment to tear at the bonds holding him. He needs to get free before they can reach him. But they are already there. The door creaks near his feet, and cool, fresh air floods the back of the van. He wishes he could welcome it as it washes over him, but he fears the end of the journey.

Until he catches a familiar scent that shifts him into happy memory. Reid isn’t sure why the smell of trees and the out doors makes him feel better, but it does. Hands grab his feet and jerk him out horizontal, dumping him on the ground, while his father’s face swims in his mind. He cries out, attempting to lash around with his legs and hands, hard to do with them tied so tightly.

“Quit it, you,” one voice tells him, rough and old like the edge of a rusty saw.

“Aw, let him struggle,” the other laughs, nasal and piercing in the quiet. “He’ll be needing the fight in him.”

They both laugh then. Like this whole thing is some big joke. Reid kicks out when hands settled on him again. Bright lights flash in his head as something bony and hot impacts his jaw. He drifts into the fog, wanting to fight back, but lost in the darkness. He is only aware enough of his surroundings to understand he is being carried somewhere, but has no way to stop his captors from doing with him as they wish.

His mind tells him to quit. Reid almost listens. But his heart is too strong, his instincts taking control where his thoughts fail him. The moment he is able, he begins his struggle all over again.

“Tough little bugger,” the first voice says, then grunts as Reid feels his sneaker impact something soft but firm. “Ruddy bastard!”

The second voice laughs.

“That’s it,” the first grouses as the world tips and shifts so Reid’s feet are pointed almost at the ground, his stomach aching from the disorientation of it, “you get the damned feet next time.”

The hands on him vanish. For an instant he hangs suspended in time and space. Gravity reasserts and he lands hard, flat on his back, the wind in his lungs gone from the sudden stop. Hands loosen his bonds, but he is too breathless to react to the chance of sudden freedom.

“Good luck, kid,” the first voice says. One of them hocks up phlegm and spits noisily. “You’re going to need it.”

“Luck?” The other says, footsteps and voices fading in the distance as they leave him there. “Ain’t no luck going to save him now.”

Their laughter leads them out.

Alone, Reid gasps in a deep breath, then another. It hurts his ribs, his lungs. He manages to roll over on his right side and regrets it. His shoulder roars in protest. Still, he is finally able to wriggle his numb hands loose from what holds him and claw at the cloth around his eyes.

Darkness. But not complete. The moon is up. Trees loom over him, the smell of spruce and fresh air so sharp it almost hurts. He doesn’t take the time to look around, not yet, but jerks at the plastic ties that hold his ankles, gasping in pain as the circulation returns to his useless fingers. His vision swims through a veil of pain-laden tears, but he manages somehow to force his screaming hands to work the ties loose and he is free.

Reid’s first instinct is to bolt. When he tries, he collapses immediately. His feet suffer the same fate as his hands. He spends a long time writhing on the ground in the dirt, suffering the agony of long-lost blood flow.

By the time he is able to wipe the tears from his face and sit up, the moon overhead has moved a fair distance. Reid tries to stand again and manages to get to his knees. He half walks, half crawls his way forward, his aching hands finding the bark of a thick tree. Touching it makes everything worse, because the roughness of it proves this nightmare is real.

Reid uses the support of the oak to haul himself upright. He leans back against the gnarled trunk and fights to get his bearings, physically and mentally. His tongue runs over his teeth, furry with bacteria, an odd taste in his mouth making him gag. He works up some saliva and swishes it around, spitting it out like his captor did. The act of leaning forward to do so almost puts him back on his knees as a wave of dizziness sends him reeling.

Reid clutches at the trunk again and hugs it, keeping himself upright, desperately grateful for its steadfast strength. He would have never thought before that night a lowly tree could be his best friend.

He is feeling better, more alert, but the weariness still clings to him, the haze in his head slow to lift. He wants to collapse to the ground and close his eyes, to sleep and pretend this isn’t happening. But he knows that isn’t an option. No more than letting some pervert have his way with him. Reid has to get out of there.

Where is there exactly? He has no way of finding out, not from where he is standing. In his struggle to be upright he got turned around and hasn’t a clue which way the voices went when they left him. And why kidnap him only to dump him in the woods? None of it makes sense. But Reid doesn’t care about any of that right now. All he cares about is going home.

At least there is a path. He can see it winding through the trees. Reid tries to scan further ahead and spots an upgrade. He remembers being carried like he was descending and a wave of relief, his first since this started, washes through him. His lips twist into a grin. Idiots. They totally gave it away. Now he knows where to go.

He gathers himself for another moment before trying to walk. It’s surprisingly easy considering what he’s gone through. His feet have recovered enough he can feel the roughness of the path through his sneakers. Reid is grateful his captors didn’t do any permanent damage. A broken bone or two would have made what he is trying much harder, if not impossible. But he is in relatively good shape, a natural athlete, and figures with enough time and rest he’ll find his way out.