Chapter 6 - The Ridge Line
The cold rain slashed across our faces, turning the overgrown dirt path into a slick, treacherous slide of mud and rotting leaves. The beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness, illuminating the raindrops like millions of falling needles and pinning us against the peeling back wall of the mansion.
"I said stop right there!" the man shouted again, his voice echoing off the damp cedar trees.
I didn't stop. Years of living in the hyper-competitive corporate and social elite had taught me how to read leverage, how to assess a threat, and how to spot an opening. The man in the trench coat—one of Victor Vance’s enforcers—was shifting his weight onto his left foot, favoring a bad knee or an old injury. He was overconfident, assuming a woman and two terrified kids wouldn't dare fight back.
He was wrong.
"Run, Thomas! Take Emily down the tree line!" I commanded, my voice cutting through the hiss of the storm.
Before the enforcer could clear his holster, I grabbed a heavy, rusted iron garden shovel leaning against the brick wall and hurled it with every ounce of fury I possessed. The flat blade caught him square in the chest with a dull, sickening thud, knocking the wind out of him and sending him stumbling backward into a thick thorn bush.
"Go!" I screamed, turning and sprinting after my children into the dense, black labyrinth of the pine forest.
The wet branches whipped against our faces, tearing at our clothes and skin, but the adrenaline singing through my veins drowned out any pain. We scrambled down the steep, muddy slope of the ridge, sliding more than running, the roar of the hidden highway below acting as our only beacon in the pitch-black night.
Behind us, angry shouts filtered through the trees. Flashlight beams danced wildly across the canopy, slicing through the fog, but the dense undergrowth was on our side. Victor’s men didn't know these woods the way a desperate mother protecting her restored family did.
We hit the lower fence line with a violent crash. A rusted wire barrier separated the estate property from the public maintenance road running parallel to the highway.
"Here! Under the wire!" I panted, dropping to my knees in the mud and lifting the rusted strands upward so Thomas and Emily could crawl through.
Emily scrambled under first, her jacket snagging on a barb, but she wriggled free with a gasp. Thomas followed instantly, turning around on the other side to grab my hand and pull me through as the distant sound of heavy boots crunching down the ridge trail drew terrifyingly close.
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We burst out onto the asphalt of the maintenance road just as a pair of blinding headlights swept around the curve of the highway.
I stepped directly into the middle of the road, waving my arms frantically, praying to whatever higher power was listening that whoever was behind the wheel wasn't connected to the nightmare we were fleeing.
