Chapter 73
Chapter 73
Even though they were both kidnapped here, Emily still kept her guard up. Whether it was her family or fellow survivors from St. Gabriel Reform Academy, trusting too casily had always come at too high a price.
“Maybe you should start with your own name before asking about mine,” Emily said, flat and unfriendly.
Austin didn’t seem to notice the bite in her tone. He tilted his head slightly and smiled. “I’m Austin Pierce. I come from Beloris and just turned twenty-two. What about you?”
Emily hadn’t expected him to be so upfront. She thought, ‘Is he really just that blunt, or is he pretending?”
The dim light made it hard for Emily to see his face, let alone read what lay behind his words. After a long pause, she finally said, “I’m Emily Harper. Twenty-three. I’m from Cloudridge.”
Austin’s eyes suddenly gleamed with interest. Just as he was about to speak, he heard the clink of chains at the door.
Emily instinctively shrank back, holding her breath without thinking.
The door swung open and Kyle came in with two guys. “Hurry up and give that guy the meds. We can’t let him die.”
Kyle stopped mid-sentence, realizing Emily was no longer tied up, and Austin, who was supposed to be unconscious, was missing.
“Where the hell are they?” Kyle rushed over, spotting the stacked boxes beneath the window and a lone shoe on the metal rack. “Damn it. I underestimated that bitch.”
Kyle tossed the shoe aside. “Go get them.”
They bolted out, too panicked to bother locking the door.
Emily waited a moment before crawling out of the corner. The wall beneath the window offered no foothold, and the rack wasn’t high enough to reach the window. That didn’t matter because she never planned to escape that way.
Emily knew they would be back any second, so staying put wasn’t an option. She grabbed her phone, her shoe, and the meds from the floor, and helped Austin get moving as fast as possible.
It was too dark outside to see anything, so it was impossible to tell directions. Emily gritted her teeth and picked a random direction, dragging Austin along.
While running, she remembered words someone once told her. “Main roads are too obvious. Stick to where you can blend in and stay out of sight.
“When you run, erase your tracks. If there’s time, leave false trails in other directions to throw them off. And remember, stay calm. As long as you’re still alive, you keep running.”
Someone had once told Emily all that, back when they were trying to break out of St. Gabriel Reform Academy. She hadn’t needed them for the past two years until now.
Austin followed Emily like a silent shadow, never slowing down. Every step made his wounds worse, reopening the ones that had just started to heal. His face twisted in pain, but he didn’t say a word.
He watched Emily clear the trails and set up decoys like she had rehearsed a thousand times in her mind.
He thought, ‘Who is she? What has she been through? Even standing this close, I feel like she has built a wall between us.
‘No ordinary person would have been targeted like this. And someone as sharp as her has to know the best option after being kidnapped is to wait for her family to come rescue her.
‘Is she running like this because she knows no one is coming for her? Did her family dump her too? Or did they sell her out just like mine did?’