How I ran away

How I refused

"Holly, Holly, Holly." The man shakes his head shamefully, "I thought you were better than that. Getting kidnapped by those thugs." He motions back towards the dust road behind us. He's not part of those who kidnapped me in school

More lethal. Ruthless. Coldblooded.

Experienced.

Dan Van Zyl.

The single most dangerous murderer in the world. Contract killer. Paid assassin. Whatever you want to call it, he is a skilled and dangerous man. And he's sitting right next to me with a gun to my head. Yet he talks to me like an old friend.

I know I should be scared. All I feel is that lightheaded sense of relief.

I start turning the steering wheel to pull over on the shoulder of the highway I turned to but he shakes his head.

"Keep driving."

I know enough to listen.

"Now I am going to lower the gun but I will have it trained on you the whole time." he speaks in a dangerous calm. "I am going to tell you what to do and you will listen. Do you understand?"

I nod.

"Turn off by the next exit."

I nod again. The relief drains and the fear begins to show. The level of calm in his voice makes it all more real somehow. Makes it all more frightening. He's a professional and I barely escaped amateurs.

The flashing lights catch my eye.

Police! They stopped by an accident on the side of the road. A police man stands aside with eyes on the road. The wreckage of a car behind him is being taken care of by others.

Van Zyl sees my eyes light up. "Try anything and I shoot you, and then I will push your body aside and drive off." Again, that dangerous calm.

I didn't doubt that.

Still, a fifteen year old driving a truck. They have to notice that. Have to.

As we drive by I slow down just a bit. That earns me a jab in my thigh with the gun. I look straight ahead and send silent waves to their heads. Help me! I'm right here! Just stop me and save me! Help! Help! Do your job and pull me over! The police man standing and watching barely looks my way.

Yet that time on fourth grade when I accidently exited the accessory store with a necklace on my wrist caused so much trouble. If I believe in luck, I would say I get the worst of it. I don't believe in luck.

Another two minutes on the highway and then I turn, as he instructed, onto a small road. Graceville. We enter a small town with rundown houses and mucky streets. How did Graceville get its name? I can only wonder.

The sidewalks are litter filled. Graffiti taints the walls of buildings. Each garden consists of one black square.

I drive down two blocks before he says anything.

"Stop."

I do immediately. The truck screeches as I pull it into an abrupt halt. He doesn't even bother casting me an exasperated glance. And still, nobody else notices. No lights turn on in those empty windows. No one sees and tries to get in contact with the police to summon them. Nobody.

He grabs the keys, pushes open his own door and then crosses the truck to mine. His eyes are on me the whole time. He throws my door open. I hop out. Without turning around or motioning, he walks, headed towards a dingy dark bricked house. Two floors but stooped and small.

Wait, he's not looking. I can turn and make a run for it. Head towards the truck-wait, no, he has the keys. I can run by foot. Scream for help. Escape.

As if reading my mind, he says, "I can gun you down before you take two steps." He doesn't even look my way when he says it.

I nod. He can't see it though.

Three uneven steps lead to the faded, red door with chips of paint peeling off. He doesn't bother ringing the bell. He doesn't bother knocking. Van Zyl turns the handle and opens the door. He strolls in.

I take a moment before I follow.

The house is just like the door. Chipped and faded. The couch-stained and split open so white sticks put in places. The carpet, hard to tell what the original color was although now it's a dark grimy grey. The wallpaper covers half the walls and hangs on the walls. The table and chairs are rotting. Mold climbs up the legs.

Van Zyl takes a seat, swinging the gun carelessly in his hand.

"I like you. I really hope you survive." He says that with a gun trained on me.

I point that out. Although I am truly surprised.

"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead by now." he says, "I'm an expert, it's my job. No Holly, I want to help you."

"How-why?" I'm stalling. Keeping him speaking till I find the great escape. Distract him and run for the door? No. Lunge for his gun and shoot him in the leg? No. fake death? Trip over a chair and land hitting him in the face? No. No. That last one isn't even an escape plan. Although it does seem most tempting. So how about-

"Because I know your secret."

I stop. I pause. Does he know? No it can't be. Could it?

"That got your attention."

So he didn't know it. Nobody does. I didn't tell a soul.

I take a cautious step back from the man with the sudden glint in his eye. He gets up. "I know who's after you. Too many to name. You'll be followed the rest of your life. Tortured for information. I may not know what you are or what you know but I know that you're in danger. And I know that I can help."

"N-no-"

The bullet hits with unbelievable force. The shot itself is muffled by the silencer but I hear the glass shatter. I here that before I even feel the pain. Before I see the blood.

My shoulder. I gasp. A patch of my shirt was blown off and under than that I see the pooling blood. I press a hand to it. its like pressing my hand against a puddle. He didn't shoot directly at the shoulder but the bullet skimmed it. blew through, taking a bit of my skin. Blood pours out onto my shirt. Dripping from the shoulder down my arm.

It's serious. I need stitches for sure. And it hurts, bad.

"You. Are. Going. To. Die." He says.

"Yeah, and it'll be you that's gonna kill me." I manage to gasp. My hand is pressed against my shoulder to stop the blood flow. I'm staggering, struggling to keep on my feet. It doesn't look like its helping, keeping my hand for pressure against the wound. My fingers are dripping with blood. I look behind me. The hole in the window where the bullet passed through my skin and hit it. And flew beyond.

"Holly, I am offering to save your life,"

"I can take care of myself," I hear myself murmur. The world has taken a faraway quality. If he wants to help me, now would be the time. Before I bleed to death.

"If you don't let me save you. I'll kill you."

The world spins away. I barely hear even those words. The last I hear of him.

Sometime later I hear the sirens. See the flashing lights.

My body is being lifted. I feel those urgent hands.

I black out again.