Her Terrifying Love

Part 70

Every curve in the road led them deeper into the wild. With cell service becoming spotty, they were literally in uncharted territory. The desperate shriek of agony from the forest had faded behind them. Now the only sounds were the buzzing insects and the breeze brushing through the trees.

To Lyla, the scenery seemed to be playing on a continuous loop, the same narrow winding road, the same mountain rising to the left of them, the same steep hill falling away to the right.

"It has to be right around here." He craned his neck and squinted.

"How can you tell?

"Look. Look up ahead." He pointed to a dark stain on the pavement. He steered to the side of the road, got out, walked around the front of the car, and peered down the embankment.

"What do you think?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Maybe." She got out of the car and followed Jack as he went on ahead to examine the mark on the road. 

"This could be motor oil. Or stains from roadkill," he sighed.

Lyla did a slow 360-degree turn, her eyes searching for any sign that might provide some verifiable indication. Were they standing in the general vicinity of where the accident took place or were they miles away?

She peered down the hillside into the thicket below. Trying to identify the path that they had taken down into the forest that night was like looking into the night sky and trying to find the same star she remembered seeing on a camping trip two years ago. It seemed impossible.

They got back into the car and slowly proceeded further along the road, his air of confidence dissipating. She removed the plastic lid from her take-out cup then swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm coffee.

The brutal truth is this is a mistake. We can't undo--

When the car's front wheel suddenly dipped, her coffee splashed. She recapped her cup and brushed a few splatters of coffee from her thigh.

"I didn't think the hole was that deep," he said.

A fragment of memory flashed into her mind. She recalled stepping out of her dead car onto the dark roadway when suddenly, she was headed to the ground. It took a few moments before she realized that she'd been tripped by a wide pothole. She remembered the burning sensation as the heel of her hand skid against the gravel and broken pavement.

"Stop!" She shouted.

Jack stomped the brakes.

"I remember that pothole." 

"Wait. What?"

She threw open the car door and jogged back to the crater in the asphalt. Jack followed.

"My car broke down right about here," she said. "I got out, and while I was checking my phone, I stumbled into this hole."

"You sure it was here? I mean you said you were super high. And it was night. It had to be pitch black. How could you see anything?"

"That's why I fell. Until my eyes adjusted to the darkness I couldn't see a damn thing. This is the place."

Lyla pivoted abruptly and faced the wooded hillside rising from the opposite side of the road. "I ran and hid up there." She jogged across the street and took a few steps into the woods.

"Whoa, wait," he called after her.

She ascended the hillside then stopped to look down at Jack and his car. The smell of moist pine needles and soil transported her back to that violent night. She was terrified, wild-eyed like a hunted animal desperate to escape. She vividly recalled the overwhelming feeling of helplessness, the belief that if she were captured, Keenan would surely end her life. But the most prominent memory was the bitter realization that no one was coming to her rescue.