ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ | ᴊᴀʏ ʜᴀʟꜱᴛᴇᴀᴅ

𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢.

✧･ﾟ:*✧･ﾟ:*

She runs. She runs faster than she ever has, the adrenaline pumping through her veins blocking her from feeling the pain that she should be. Mia sucks in as much air as she can while her throat and lungs still burn. Her eyes stay focused on the large expanse of trees before her, the edges still blurred but she ignores it and trudges along without looking back. She knows that Daniel is following her – he has to be – but she can't waste even a second. Her legs carry her forward, crossing the threshold to the dense woods. Earlier, the remote area surrounded by nothing but trees had terrified her, but now she finds herself grateful for it.

Through the ringing in her ears, she hears the wicked sound of her name being called and still, she ignores the urge to peer over her shoulder. The dirt ground is rough and covered in fallen leaves, obscuring the paths littered with rocks and branches. Mia stumbles slightly when her foot lands on a particularly large rock, her ankle twisting unnaturally and sending a searing pain up her leg. She grits her teeth and bites back a scream, pumping her legs even harder than before to make up for the time the misstep had cost her, time she can't afford to lose. She weaves around trees, taking sharp turns in an effort to make herself harder to follow, harder to find.

Suddenly, a symphony of voices join her attacker's in calling out her name. Mia glances to the left, trying to discern where the voices came from but all she can do is hope she is going towards them when she takes a sharp turn. The rustling of trees from the wind picking up startles her and she glances at the sky, making out the shape of a helicopter flying above again. And that proves to be a potentially fatal mistake. Her right foot catches on a distorted branch she hadn't seen, and it sends her tumbling into the hard ground face first. The wind is knocked out of her once again and she groans, forcing herself up onto her forearms as she blinks away the confusion lingering in her brain from a mix of oxygen deprivation and what is almost certainly a concussion.

As Mia starts to push herself up from the ground, a hand wraps around her twisted ankle and tugs hard. She yells as she struggles against Daniel's grip, hearing his voice but unable to understand what he is saying. Her nails dig into the dirt as she kicks her legs, trying to crawl away. Another voice cuts through the sounds of their struggle and this time, she knows exactly who it is. "Jay!" she screams out as loud as her scratchy throat can manage, still not sure where or how close he is. The small dash of hope she feels that he will get to her in time dissipates when she feels a hand on the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair and yanking her head back, sending another shooting pain through the tense muscles in her neck.