The forest began to ebb back into reality, shapes and shadows solidifying. Her breath was acidic every time she inhaled, scorching her lungs. Ahead, the border of the clearing appeared, and beyond that the driveway leading to the road. As she angled toward it a brilliant light shone directly across her path, more shouts coming from the left. Clare changed course, moving deeper into the trees.
Her foot came down on a rock and her ankle tilted, within a hair’s breadth of twisting completely. She stumbled sideways and kept going, biting back a cry of pain as something jabbed into the meat of her thigh.
The wind howled in the trees. More shouts came from the clearing and the flashlights’ glares slid behind her. She had to get out of the woods, had to get to the road, get to the car.
An opening in the brush appeared on the left and she swung through it, running down a small bank and into the openness of the driveway. She poured on the speed, running all out, letting the adrenaline boring through her veins push her faster. Her legs burned and she wished beyond anything else she’d accompanied Eric on more of his runs over the years.
Clouds parted and moonlight filtered down, illuminating the county road ahead. Any relief she felt came apart as a man’s voice called out from behind her. It sounded as if he were only steps away. She could almost feel his fingers tangling in her hair, dragging her down.
Her feet hit the gravel road and she leaned into the turn, pushing past the cramping agony in her chest. Fifty yards to the turnoff where she’d parked.
Thirty.
Ten.
She ran down into the ditch, splashing through muddy water and up onto dry ground before slamming against the rental’s door. Her fingers skittered there uselessly for a beat before they hooked the handle and yanked it open.
Clare dropped into the seat and slammed the door, hands digging at her pants pocket, a second of distilled panic when she felt no keys there. Flashlights cut through the trees like white blades. They were halfway down the drive and coming closer.
“Come on!” she said, furiously digging as her fingers finally closed over the keys.
It took two tries to get them in the ignition.
The engine fired and she threw the car in reverse.
The first people appeared at the mouth of the lane, streaming onto the county road. Dirt flew from her tires as she hit the gravel, spattering the undercarriage like gunfire.
She slammed the transmission into drive and floored the pedal.
Dust sprayed behind her and lights flared in the rearview and side mirrors. She risked a glance back and saw dark figures running after her, then slowing, stopping as they receded from view.
Then she was around a bend in the road.
A long, hitching breath escaped her, which became a moan. Black stars appeared at the edges of her vision and she bit down on the inside of her mouth hard enough to draw blood. The feeling of faintness receded.
They hadn’t seen her. At least not enough to make a positive ID. They might’ve seen she was a woman, but that was all, she’d been too far ahead of them. And her vehicle? She doubted they’d gotten a good look at the license plate but couldn’t be sure.
The car’s headlights speared the night, thrusting it aside as she sped through it. As more and more distance formed between her and the camp it dawned on her she’d never checked to see if this road met up with any other county byways or if it simply terminated. There was no way she could go back the way she came, first and foremost because they might be following her in a vehicle right now.
Clare pressed the gas a little harder and sent up a silent pleading for the dirt lane to lead anywhere but a dead end.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
When she pulled the car to a stop in the hotel’s parking lot and shut off the engine, Clare finally released the steering wheel from the death grip she’d held since escaping the camp.
The dregs of adrenaline left her system and she melted into the seat. She counted the rows of windows. The number of cars in the lot. How many times her heart beat in a minute. It was much fewer than it had been a half hour before.
The road had eventually petered out onto another equally forsaken county lane, though when she stopped to think about it she hadn’t spotted any road signs displaying a number, much less a name. She might’ve been on the moon for as much life and activity she’d seen, or for how much cell signal there was, for that matter. Her maps app wouldn’t even load. After following the second road for a time it ended near a questionable wooden bridge she drove across before she could second-guess herself. Several miles later, as the road narrowed to a track encroached by reaching branches and she’d thought she would have to take her chances turning around, it had opened up and joined with pavement. She’d spilled out somewhere west of Sheen and found her way back to the city’s lights easily enough.
The unreality of what she’d seen and heard continued to wash over her, creeping up like floodwater in her mind. There was no denying the connection between Parson’s camp and her father’s cult now. Rainier had been the conduit between the two, handing down her father’s beliefs and instilling them somehow in an entirely new group of people. The question was why?
Her stomach churned at the thought. Parson himself had made it abundantly clear—they believed the end of days was still on its way despite the fact doomsday hadn’t occurred after the sacrifice at the Refuge. She shook her head. It was beyond common in cults like her father’s, and now Parson’s. An end date would be set by the leader. There would be preparation and waiting as well as proselytizing to those who were on the fence about committing themselves fully to what was coming. And when the eventual day of destruction arrived and passed without the world ending, the leader simply moved the date forward, claiming some divine occurrence had caused the delay. It happened over and over while the leader strained for control and dominance, and the saddest thing was most cult members remained faithful to their prophet’s vision despite the truth in front of their eyes.
She recalled a few people drifting out of the cult prior to her father’s final descent into madness. It always enraged him when they left. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, she knew it probably reminded him of her mother leaving. Somewhere deep in Simon Kinsey, that particular abandonment had never been processed or accepted.
Parson’s camp was on a verge, she decided. A precipice she’d witnessed firsthand and studied via multiple cases in the intervening years. The cult was about to take another step. What it might be she could only guess at, but it was nothing wholesome. Nothing good.
She sighed, trying to refocus her thoughts on how to proceed even as her mind tipped toward the memory that had bowled her over in the forest. She’d forgotten the night Shanna nearly collapsed from the cold. It had been during their last winter at the Refuge before the fire. Their father had roused them from bed at an ungodly hour and brought them outside to sing, and little Shanna had gotten so cold. She remembered their father’s anger, how he had seemed like someone else completely when she’d broken rank and tried to get Shanna to safety. How he’d dragged her through the house toward the basement and—
It was like coming to a cliff in her head. The recollection ended there.
And despite a yearning to recall what had happened, a part of her was glad.
Clare closed her eyes and breathed deeply several times. What she needed to do now was figure out how she was going to explain the scratches on her face and arms along with the thousand or so bug bites covering her body. Adam and Shanna were sure to notice. And what would she tell them? The truth. But she couldn’t. At least not Shanna. Not yet. She didn’t know how she’d react. The loss of the camera was a weight in her stomach. Her only proof, narrow as it was, was gone.