Fairy Rings

3. Escape

There was the bathroom, the spare room, a few closets, the giant library, and then, finally, the dreaded steps down to the lower level of the house. It might as well have been a mansion. "Hey, Mom," she called out, but there was no response. It had been three hours, and there was no way that her mother and her unknown guest could still do things together. Blocking the perverse images out of her mind, she decided to take a leap of faith down the steps, not a literal leap of faith. . . Creeping down the old steps, she attempted to skip the creaking ones. Tonight, it seemed as though all of them sang out in unison till she finally got to level ground again. Taking a breath, she looked at the front door and stopped, first the scary man and then a flight of stairs. This was great for her panic attacks! Heading through the house and to the vast kitchen, she stepped lightly across the tile floor. Her footsteps, though, were masked by the sound of music? Heavy metal music? That should have been the first sign of anything wrong, to begin with; her very religious mother had grounded her for months because a song had the word f**k in it at the very end. Well, with a new s*x life comes a new tune; maybe her mother had a change of heart on the so-called 'devil's music.'

Turning down the long hallway to her mother's room, she stopped. There were dark spots on the ground that hadn't been there before, and a few considerable splatters were much to be concerned about. Optimistically, she wrote it off as mud, although it hadn't rained in weeks. Maybe she was cosplaying; perhaps it was chocolate? The hopeful girl made her way down the long hallway full of pictures, trophies, and awards and peered into her mother's room. There, sitting on the bed tied up in her gown, was her mother. She was covered in dark spots. Disgust flooded Naveaha; she didn't want to know her mother was into bondage and sadism, that was till she heard the chainsaw start-up, rumbling softly. The music, as if on cue, lowered. Fear devoured any disgust that Neveaha had felt before; it consumed every feeling she felt. She was frozen in place as the prominent dark figure spoke.

"May, oh May." It chuckled condescendingly, "Don't try to talk to me about time, darling. Now, I'm going to give you one last chance to tell me where our lovely, beautiful daughter is before I begin dismembering you." Welp! If her mother spitting in his face and yelling something incoherently was ever a queue to leave, Naveaha turned back and scampered down the hallway as quickly as she could. The second she bowed out of the kitchen and onto the steps, a commotion on the porch sent her wildly up the dangerously loud steps. If not for the Adrenaline, she would have been saying horrible words the whole way to her bedroom, but now she was skipping steps, three at a time, trying to get to safety as blood-curdling screaming and the heavy metal music blared through the house louder than before. The front door opened; it didn't even have time to close before she fell on her door and dove into the closet. If she were to remember it, she would tell you it felt like a blur as she flew out the window onto the roof and nearly down it at that! She didn't know how, but her phone sat in her hand, 911 already on the phone.

" 911, what's the address of your emergency?" The man asked. Naveaha froze, and the phone was clutched in her hands. She had forgotten all about the man watching her window, and now, with the Adrenaline wearing off, her body ached from the sudden jolt of energy. Her eyes traveled the field beneath her; the man must have been the one to go inside.

"I need help. I'm at the Tennyson ranch. Please send help." Her voice was a low whisper as she spoke.

"What's going on? Was there another dead body found?" Of course! Even mentioning her mother's ranch came the jokes and the immediate police force with the forensic team in tow; her mother called so much that there must have been a betting pool.

"There are two men that have broken in. My mother is being held against her will by several men, and I'm sitting on the roof." Shuffling her way out of the window's view, she climbed higher onto the roof.

"Is this Naveaha? The operator asked, fear and shock overwhelming her as the familiar voice continued. "This is Gill. I used to work on your mother's ranch." No! Anyone but him. . . well. . . anyone but him and the people breaking into her house and trying to find her! That should have been the priority but for Gill. . . The man who her mother fired for stealing her mother's Sabre Motorcycle and selling it as scraps. . . Catching up was more important. "What a small world, how's college." How did he even qualify for this job?

"I'll find my f*****g way off this roof then." Hanging up the phone, she turned it off and slipped it into her emergency bag. It was a steep drop, but if she managed to climb down the side of the house, down onto the water reservoir, and then to the ground, she could get a running start on her motorcycle. The roof was slick with moss, algae, and dead leaves that had accumulated over the years, and with every step she took, she had to rebalance herself so as to not fall over the edge. Stopping for a moment to think was dangerous, but so was continuing to scoot across the roof, so, she took a moment to think of a better plan: it might be better to return inside and run out the front door. Hearing the door open and slam again, she could have sworn she heard the chainsaw above the loud music for a moment before it slammed shut again. It was now or never; hastily, she made her way to the side of the house and down the side of the rock fixtures on the house; pain screamed through her body as one moment she was halfway down, and the next she lying there staring up at where she had been.

Could this night get any worse? Horrible words escaped her lips as she rolled off her heavy bag; at least it dampened the blow of the ground's bittersweet embrace. The moon showered her in darkness as she lay there; thankfully, she wasn't visible in the porch light either, so she decided to wait a little bit and slump to her side. Pain is a genuine and stupid thing, and no matter how much of it she endured in just that short time, it still seemed to hurt the same it was: stupid as she now deemed it.

Gathering her strength back, or at least some of it, she clambered to her feet as footsteps began to round the corner. Peering around the side, she stopped. It was him, the man from her window, who was there taking long strides on the porch. His face was too hard to make out in the bright light from far away, but she could make out that he was a tall, broad individual, and a sawed-off 12 gauge was on his hip. Any path would have been better; hell, even giving up and just sitting there would have been better, but still, a mad dash for her motorcycle did seem logical. . . before she had done it.