Chapter 9: Tasting Freedom (Flashback)

*trigger warning*

—Kinny—

{Flashback: 16 years old}

"Kinny! Kinny, I can't outrun them!" I knew who it was without turning around, and I couldn't because that was the difference between life and death. Itzel, she was the smallest of the four of us. Felix was too weak to carry her, Cassie had a limp in her leg, and was only going a little faster than Itzel, and I was only a half size bigger than her. There was no other option, not one that I could see, and after what we just went through... They were making it out of this alive, they had to.

They were catching up to us, and I was the one who made the last minute decision, so no one else had to. "Itz! Go, all of you go, I'm gonna hold them off!" I still had the stolen knife in my pocket, and I gripped onto it for dear life. Neither of them moved, until I shoved at them. "GO!" I looked like a feral animal, and in all cases I could have been. They obeyed reluctantly, and fled out of the forest, into the breaking sunrise.

The crunch of their boots on the fallen, dead leaves made me sick, but I held the knife up, hands trembling and braced myself. Mama's words rung through my head. "If they think you're dead, they'll run, most of the time. Other times, and you gotta sniff 'em out, they'll wanna make sure you're dead. Get 'em in the throat right as they lean down, more than one, and you go apeshit." She always knew best when it came to what reaction to have, and with what type of person.

She knew when they hurt us, how to care for our wounds, they wouldn't take us to hospitals, not the chained ones at least. She knew everything about surviving Richard's hell. She gave me everything in that basement that she possibly could, and she wasn't even here to witness what she hoped twelve years for. Rage bubbled inside me. I only wished she could see me. I was this close to being free, and I was going to taste it, even if it was mixed with blood.

{End of flashback}