I felt my body soaring through the air, it felt like I was flying, but all good things must come to an end and my end came with a hard crunch of my ankle bone. A bone chilling scream erupted from my mouth as I crumpled to the ground, pain was shooting up and down my leg.

"HEY YOU FUCKING BITCH, COME BACK HERE!" Shadows shouted from the open window. In an instant his head was out of view and I could hear the door being slammed against the wall as he thundered out of my captive room. Without thinking, I pushed myself up, ignoring the pain, and took off in a run.

I didn't know where the fuck I was going, but anywhere was better than here. I took a sharp left and headed into a deep, dark, and thick forest. I thought that that was my best chance, if I was going to get out of here my best bet would be to loose them in the dark, amongst the trees. I kept my head to the ground, not wanting to trip over anything as I ran, actually my run was more like a hobble, but I dared my body to push itself more, I knew that this was life or death and I would just not accept the latter, I was going to live through this, even if I had to break every bone in my body to get there.

Before I even knew what was happening, I got lost in the woods, I didn't even know if I had been running in a straight line. I didn't know north, south, west or east. My bretahing was ragged as I came to a quick halt, trying to gather my surroundings. I closed my eyes and opened my ears, straining to hear something, anything, but I didn't hear anything, not one peep. I didn't even hear people coming after me, no snapping twigs, no thundering foot steps, there wasn't even a rustling of leaves. Hope soared through my entire being, I had finally gotten away.

After finally catching my breath, I took off in a steady run again, but this time I couldn't help the smile that fought its way onto my face. I was only running for another 15 minutes when I came face to face with a twenty feet fence, stretching as far as i could see. Was this the edge of their property? Without even thinking about it, I shoved my feet in between the metal wires and started my climb up. I could feel the metal ripping and digging into my skin, but I ignored the pain, I was free, I was finally fucking free! Once I finally reached the top, I knew I couldn't jump down, I had to climb, though climbing down is a lot harder than climding up. My feet slipped, making me only hang on by my feet, and I almost fell all the way to the bottom, but my determination grew and my grip got tighter on the wires.

My feet finally met the squishy ground on the other side and I took a moment to catch my breath. I placed my hands on my knees as I struglled to catch my breath, it wasn't as easy as last time, my body was not use to this much physical activity. As I caught my breath I took in my surroundings and I noticed two things.

One: The trees were thinning. Now I could see the sky and it had gotten considerably darker since I first jumped out of that window. And Two: I could hear movement, human movement, from the outside world, it wasn't coming from behind me, it came from directly infront of me. I started walking through the thinning trees and took in the sound of cars, cars speeding down a street.

I tried not to get my hopes too high, but it sounded like a highway.

I hadn't been walking that much longer when the wind blew my hair in my face, or at leats, I thought it was the wind. In reality, it was a speeding car, a car going so fast that it blew my hair to one side and my clothes were pulled along with it. A scream of joy and happiness erupted from my mouth, I stook my arms out and spun in a circle, laughing and giggling all the while. I didn't think I'd ever be so happy to see a highway. I'm usre that the people in th epassing cars though I was insane, but i didn't realy care, I was shaking with happiness and excitement. Once I had gotten rid of all the excess happiness, I stuck my thumb out and slowly walked along the highway, in the direction that it seemed most cars were going. Instantly a family pulled over and the mother rolled down her window.

"Hey honey, where ya goin'" I could hear the southern twang in her voice and I knew that she was not from here.

"Um, I was wondering if you would mind driving me to the police station?" There were gasps from the mother father, and their teenage son in the back seat.

"Why, why would a little girl like you need to go to the police station?" The father asked, lenaing over th esteering wheel and pearing out the open window at me.

"Well, I'm trying to get back home."

"Well then why didn't you just say so? Darn girl! We can give you a ride back home, do you live nearby?"

"Well actually, I'm from Canada." I said, I didn't really want to tell them that I had been kidnapped.

"Oh dear me, whatt are you doin' all the way out here sweet pea?" It brought tears to my eyes just thinking aout talking about it.

"I, uh, I was, um, kid- kidnapped, by, by the- these men and and I j- jus- just g- got away fr- from them." Suddenly, I couldn't hold back anymore, tears streamed down my face. I chokced and sobbed, unable to get a hold of my emotions. In an instant the mother and father were both out of the car, they had their arms wrapped around my shoulders as they hurriedly put me in the back seat. The mother closed the door softly and looked over her shoulders, into the forest, to see if i had been followed, to check that no one was watching us. They both ran back into the car and sped off, in direction of the bustling city.

We arrived at the police station in a matter of minutes, I bolted from the car, even though these people were generous and caring towards me, I wanted to get away from them ASAP. I was about to yank open the door when voices behind me yelled for me to stop. I turned around, and looked at them. They all looked worried, even their son. I slowly walked back to the car.

"Thank you all for your generosity, but I think that this is something I have to deal with alone. " I said softly, I didn't want to offend them, that was certainly not my intention. The mother and father silently got back into their car, smiling kindly. Though the son stayed behind.

"Hey, when you get out of this mess, or if you're ever in Texas, send me a text, or call me." He smiled a smile that, if I had been in a different situation, would have made me swoon. It would have given me butterflies, but I was in no way, ready to make any smile make me swoon. He handed me a piece of paper with his name on it, and wordlessly re- entered his car.

The nameless family backed out of the parking lot and left me alone. I suddenly felt very alone, my family was throusands of kilometres away and I was here, in California, trying to get away from my kidnappers. I felt alone, but isn't this what I wanted? Didn't I want those mysterious people to leave me alone? Din't I want to do this alone? I did, I knew I did, at the time, but now, I wanted to be surrounded be tens, hundreds, even thousands of people.

I walked back to the front doors and quietly opened them, though before I entered, I looked over my shoulder. I was terrified to think that I would see Shadows, or Bri, or even that Jimmy man, that didn't touch me. I was petrified to think that any of them had followed me. But when I looked, there was nothing, only a few stragglers wlaking along the boardwalk. I didn't know what time it was, but it was late, very late because the sky was a midnight blue colour. Coming back to reality, I wrenched open the heavy metal front doors and stepped into the bustling, busy police station.