starting to suspect I’ve tried to hide on him. He’s trying to figure out where.
Her heart thudded wildly. Calm down, she told herself. Pretend we’re playing hide and seek.
Strange. She’d spoken so fondly of playing hide-and-seek to Jerry. Just yesterday.
And here I am now, playing it for keeps.
She wondered if she had ever tried hiding in trees. And then she remembered that she had—many times. She remembered standing on branches high up, clinging as the tree swayed in the wind, staring down as the kid who was “it” searched the yard and never looked up. The thrill had been like a giggle trapped in her throat.
Had she ever been found when she was hiding in a tree? She didn’t think so. They found her when she hid in bushes, under stairs, in window wells, but not when she climbed trees.
Maybe that’s the real reason she had decided to climb this one.
The forgotten trick of a kid game.
It worked then, she told herself. It’ll work now.
It better.
For the past minute—maybe longer—Gittian hadn’t heard a single footstep. He’d been panting for air when he arrived, but that had stopped very quickly.
If he left, she thought, I would’ve heard him. He must just be standing there, looking around, listening, waiting. Maybe he thinks I’ll decide the coast is clear and come out of hiding.
Maybe he did leave.
That’s what he wants me to think.
I’ll stay here all day. All night. Whatever it takes.
Footsteps rushed toward her tree.
Gillian’s heart lurched. She jerked her face back from the trunk and looked down.
Holden scurried under the hanging limbs, stood and gazed up at her.
Her breath blasted out as if she’d been punched in the stomach.
Holden’s knife was lashed to the end of a stick—tied there with the rope she had thrown to lead him astray.
The stick was six feet long.
Before Gillian could move, he jabbed upward with the makeshift spear. Its point sank into her right buttock. Yelping, she reached down for the knife. It pulled out of her and slashed at her hand, but missed.
She tugged the belt from her teeth and twisted herself away from the trunk. She pivoted, her right leg swinging backward through the air, foot kicking at the shaft of Holden’s knife-spear, then finding its way onto the same branch as her left foot.
The maneuver had turned Gillian around. She no longer had her back to Holden. She hugged the trunk with her left arm. Her right arm swung, whipping at the knife with the buckle-end of the belt.
The knife circled on the end of its stick. The lashing belt did little to keep it away. It slashed and thrust. Sometimes it got her. It poked the side of a calf. It nicked a hip. It sliced a thigh. It cut a half-inch slit across the top of her pubic mound.
Gillian knew he was toying with her. If he wanted, he could hack her to pieces or bury the blade in her. Instead, he tortured her with shallow stabs and slices.
He stared up at her with wide, eager eyes. His lips were a straight line. His tongue slid out between them as he made a hard sweeping slash at Gillian’s belly. The blade missed her by no more than an inch. As it passed, she struck it with her belt. The end of the belt wrapped the wooden shaft and she tugged. Holden tugged at the same instant. The belt jerked from her hand. Holden’s lips curled into a smile. He shook his spear. The belt slid down its shaft and dropped to the ground.
Gillian unhooked her arm from the tree trunk. As she sidestepped carefully, Holden jabbed the blade at her face. She flinched and nearly lost her balance. Her right arm waved. Her left hand grabbed an overhead branch. The knife point stung her left armpit, then scraped along the underside of her breast. The blade moved up between her breasts and turned, its edge pressing into her right breast.
She darted her right arm in, grabbed the shaft just below the knife handle, thrust it away from her body and leaped.
Leaped forward, diving, clutching the spear with her other hand as she flew.
Flew over Holden’s head.
Insane, she thought. Like diving into an empty pool.
She kept her grip on the spear as she crashed headfirst through a tangle of limbs that beat against her falling body. A branch pounded her hip, throwing her over. Then her back struck the ground.
She raised her head. Her skin was a maze of welts, scratches, and bleeding cuts. They itched and burned. But she couldn’t worry about that now.
The dive had carried her through the wall of foliage surrounding the pine. The spear was still in her hands. It had snapped in the fall, leaving only a few inches of shaft jutting out below the knife’s handle.
But she had the knife!
Gazing between her feet, she saw Holden scuttling through the shadows under the tree.
She gasped, rolled over, pushed herself up and whirled around to face him.
He held the rest of the spear—a long crooked pole. The break had left it with a point. He walked toward Gillian, both hands on the pole, shaking it at her. “Gonna shove it up your ass,” he whispered. “Gonna make you a scarecrow.” .
He lunged forward, driving the pole toward her belly. Gillisn slashed at it. The heavy blade knocked it aside. She threw herself at Holden, swinging the knife in a backhand stroke. He hurled himself out of its path and the blade cut only air. She glimpsed a blur of streaking pole and cried out as a blast of pain shot up her arm. Stunned, she saw the knife fly from her hand.
Holden turned, watching the knife, and started to go after it while it was still falling.
Gillian whirled around and ran.
Christ, I had the knife.
She sprinted.
It’s over, but I won’t make it easy for him.
Her arm throbbed. Her wounds burned. She felt blood and sweat sliding down her skin. Branches whipped her. Her feet snagged on something and she fell and skidded and scurried up again and kept on running.
In the distance ahead, the forest shadows were broken by brightness.
Another clearing? she wondered.
Maybe a lake!
If it’s a lake up there, I’ll dive in and swim. Maybe Holden can’t swim!
She glanced back.
Holden was racing after her, no more than twenty feet away. He had the pole down at his side, clutched in his left hand. His right hand held the knife.
Gillian dashed out of the trees.
Clear open space ahead.
Rocky ground for a few more yards.
But no lake.
A valley.
Gillian tried to stop.
This is it, Gillian thought as she plummeted.
Her feet hit rock. Her knees shot up, one striking her chin like a pitched hardball.
