It’s not until I get closer that I recognize the man. I freeze.
My brother’s here. Calder’s standing outside the gate, yelling at the poor security guards who appear to be trying to keep him off the premises. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize why he’s here. Why he’s insisting that the guards let him in. As if he senses my thoughts, he suddenly turns his head and looks right at me.
“Louisa!” he calls.
I don’t know what to do. It was one thing to decide to leave Huntington Manor, but to face my brother… Now? After what I just did? If Calder finds out… I don’t even want to know what he’ll do. He’ll freak. And I’ll end up doing the exact thing I was trying to avoid: dragging him down into my mess. I don’t want him to have to deal with this. He’s happy now.
As if in answer to that thought, the passenger’s side door of his car opens, and his fiancée climbs out. I think she calls something to me, too, but I’m still thirty yards away from the gate and I don’t hear it. The blood is rushing in my ears. My hands have started to shake. I was so close to escaping, but I can’t go out there. Not now.
There are footsteps behind me, and suddenly Mr. Haymore’s at my side. He’s out of breath.
“What the hell is going on here?” he says, waving toward the gate. He raises his voice. “Open those at once! The fire trucks are on their way!”
The guard looks from Calder to Mr. Haymore and beckons the latter one forward. My boss—former boss—makes an exasperated sound and marches toward the gate, but I stay where I am. My brother calls toward me again, but I can’t move.
I don’t hear the conversation they have at the gate. But I see the guard gesturing, my brother waving his arm. And then Mr. Haymore turns and looks back at me.
This is it, I realize. It’s over. Mr. Haymore knows. My pulse is going crazy. I want to run away, back toward the house, but I can’t. I’m trapped between two disasters of my own making.
In the distance, I can hear the sirens of the fire trucks. Considering the size of this place, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve dispatched some cops as well.
My suitcase falls out of my hand, but I don’t bother to pick it up. I turn and I bolt across the lawn.
There’s a wall around the entire property, but there are places where it’s low enough to climb over—assuming you’re willing to get a few scrapes and bruises. I got more than my fair share as a kid. Unless they’ve refortified the walls, I should be able to get out now. That doesn’t solve the problem of me not having a car to get back to Barberville, but I’ll figure that part out later.
I’m halfway to the wall when I hear running behind me. I don’t risk a glance back to see how many guards I have on my tail. I just push myself to run faster.
But as I thread my way through the trees along the edge of the property, it’s clear I’m outmatched. My lungs are burning, and my body’s so exhausted from lack of sleep and nourishment that my limbs are trembling. I’m afraid my muscles are just going to give out. But it’s not until a hand reaches out and grabs me by the arm that I finally stumble and fall.
And then I fight. I kick, I scratch—but the guard is too strong for me. And then red-brown hair flashes before my eyes, and I freeze. The man on top of me isn’t a guard. It’s Ward. There’s a cut on his cheek from one of my nails, but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.
His eyes are hard. And darker than usual. I can only stare at them for a couple of seconds before breaking his gaze.
“I’m leaving,” I say, struggling beneath him. “Let me up.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes, by myself.” I give a jerk of my arm. “In case you didn’t notice back there, I caused a bit of a disturbance. Now let me go.”
But he doesn’t move. I shift my hips, trying to buck him off.
“Dammit, Ward, let me up!” I squirm again. “Or are you on their side now?”
“I’m not on their side,” he insists. “I’m just trying to figure out what the hell is going on here.”
“I set off the sprinkler system. My brother’s out front, and now Mr. Haymore knows who I am. I need to get out of here.”
He doesn’t budge. I watch the emotions shift on his face. Confusion, anger, surprise—they’re all there. And then his expression goes blank.
“Your car’s out front, isn’t it?” he says after a moment.
“Yeah, but so is my brother. And Mr. Haymore. And some cops, in a few minutes.”
Something flickers in his eyes and his hands tighten on my wrists. He stares at me for a long moment, his lips drawn into a hard line. He’s considering.
“Come on,” I say, wriggling beneath him again. “Please, just let me up. I need to go. Please.”
I don’t care how desperate I sound. I am desperate.
“I know I lied to you,” I continue. “I know you have no reason to want to help me. This is my fault. All of it. But… please. Please, just let me go.”
His eyes soften slightly, and his mouth parts. For a single breathless second I think he might even lean down and kiss me, but instead, he climbs off of me.
“All right,” he says, helping me up.
Once I’m on my feet, I try to pull away from him, but he refuses to release my fingers. For a long moment, he just stares at me. He looks like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t utter a word, just continues to gaze into my eyes. Searching.
Finally he nods, as if he’s come to some decision.
“This way,” he says, then drags me through the trees.
I stumble after him, my hand still caught in his grasp. “Where are we going?”
“You need a way out of here, right?”
“Yeah, but there’s a place over here where the wall—”
“There’s more than one place where the wall is low. But there’s only one spot where there’s a car on the other side. We’ll need one to get back to Barberville.”
We? Wait—
“How is there a car?”
“It’s mine.”
“Out here? Why isn’t it in the employee parking lot?”
“Well, that’s a bit of a story,” he says, still dragging me along. He must know I’m not about to let him leave it at that because he goes on. “Remember when I said my roommate kept kicking me out to have girls over?”