Hit, Run and Hide

Focus

Chapter 3

I did not know how much time I had as I stumble to the bathroom and quickly wash the blood from my head. I’ve done it so many times I get it done in record timing. Fuelled wit adrenaline, I run to my closet and grab the backpack at the bottom of my dirty clothes basket. I quickly strip out of my designer jumpsuit now stained with blood and replace it with leggings and a pink sport top and tennis shoes. I quickly threw my hair into a pony tail. I go through my ski jackets and pull out the zip lock bags attached to the hanger and stuff into my backpack. The ski jackets were the perfect way to hide zip lock bags of stuff, because of their puffiness. We only used them once and they have stayed in the back of the closet ever since.

There is a knock at my door, I freeze and I start sweating am I caught? My heart again thumping in my chest, I can’t move then I hear Rosie and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Geeze Rosie you almost gave me a heart attack!!” I stutter.

She looks at me with panic in her eyes “We need to go now…Chase is on his way home, I just heard over the walkie talkie”

Of all days for Chase to return. Seriously…now why? I nodded knowing exactly what that meant. Ivan would be coming back to welcome his baby brother home from Columbia after 5 years, and Clara would also be on her way. Rosie put my backpack in a linen bag to go to cleaners and handed it and 3 others to Manuel and told him to quickly take them to the cleaners and ask for express cleaning as Mr Chase was heading home. We watched as he left the mansion. There was nothing in the bag that I couldn’t replace but it was still my stuff so if we get it back it would be a bonus as it would keep me out of the public eye for a while which is what I needed to do till I was as far away as possible. I had my running belt with cash, passport and sunglasses.

 As we reached the fence, I reached up about to climb over Rosie grabbed my arm and stopped me

“Maybe today is not the day?” she whispered looking very pale.

I turned to her and saw the fear in her eyes, I quickly hugged her

“It’s today or never, I’m not going back Rosie… I can’t, I’ve waited a year for this day, I prefer to die out there than in here”

We both climbed over the fence, it was the only part of the fence that the camera couldn’t see due to a huge heritage tree they were unable to cut down. We walked fast two streets to the left and back one to the right and cut through the alleyway to the park. As soon as we entered the park we started to jog – like we running for exercise. Little did everyone know we were running for our lives.

Once we made it around the oval, we stopped at the water fountain got a drink and began to walk to the joining street. As soon as we reached the edge, we made sure no one was following us and we reached into the bushes on the corner and pulled out a trash bag. Inside we had put additional clothes, sweat pants and a hoodie. We threw them over our leggings and then changed our hair styles and began to walk towards the dry cleaners so we could pick up our backpacks.

          Rosie grabbed us coffees from Starbucks so we could “blend in” and didn’t look like a wife and her maid friend trying to escape hell from 4 miles away. I felt too sick to drink it but she said we needed to relax and act cool but watch everything and everyone. As I sat and waited on the chair, I was taken back by the buzz of activity, I had missed society, I had missed the normality of the most mundane activities such as grocery shopping, running errands simple day to day life that Ivan had taken from me keeping me locked up.

Keeping a watch of the traffic coming in to the little strip mall of shops Rosie was spinning a story to collect the backpacks. The cleaners knew her and she was putting on a performance complaining about the new housekeeper saying she had put backpacks in the laundry going on and on about how mad Ivan would be if she did not return with them immediately. The cleaners eager to not upset the most powerful and feared family in the community quickly let Rosie retrieve them. Rosie thanked them and left.

          As I watched her walked up the street in my direction but on the other side – she was good always so careful, half the details of our escape, she explained that were necessary had not even crossed my mind. Watching her and watching for any sudden movements I got up and proceeded to head towards the meeting point when I heard some calling out to Rosie. I froze. Rosie slowly turned ready to dump the packs and run when she saw the owner of the dry cleaners run out holding her coffee. Rosie forgot her coffee. She immediately relaxed and thanked him and reached out for her coffee. He placed something in her hand and the coffee and cupped his other hand around it. He quickly turned and left not looking back. Rosie quickly glanced at her watch and looked over at me with a sense of urgency.

          I met Rosie at the junction at the edge of town, at the rest stop we changed our clothes again and split up. At the by the bus station, we separately purchased our tickets and avoided each other. Our bus for Wisconsin was leaving in 5 minutes, I just wanted to be on the bus and leaving town. Rosie had some friends in Wisconsin that were going to help us. Finally, the final call for all passengers on Bus 686 heading to Wisconsin. I got on the bus first while Rosie was loitering at the back of the line. The other passenger were taking their sweet old-time boarding – I mean who normally travels to Wisconsin from Florida during the week?? My legs were shaking, this was taking too long. My palms and underarms were sweating. I kept looking out the window with my sunglasses on watching for Ivan or his men.

          Finally, the door shut and as Rosie was walking down the aisle to where I was located and the bus started to pull away from the station. She took the seat across from me 3 rows up. We had agreed that at the first major stop we would move closer to each other. We knew at some point that Ivan would find out which bus we took and he would find out all the people that were on the bus so we did not want to let on that we knew one another. Thankfully the first part of our journey was not filled with too many people and even better no screaming children. At each major stop people get off or join so I’m just hoping for a peaceful trip.

I nervously stared out the window as we drive passed the streets, the same ones we had just walked retracing our steps. The bus would need to pass the house which had me sweating again. It wasn’t my house or jail anymore. I knew the fences were too high to see in to the actual house but I was trying to gage for any unusual activity. As the bus passed it all seemed calm. No extra cars and Chase’s 4-wheel drive was not there. So hopefully Ivan was still doing whatever he did after he beat me giving me a chance to gain some time. 

          We stopped in Atlanta Georgia for 30 mins. It was good to get off the bus in another state. I was still very anxious wanting to put as much distance between Ivan and myself as possible. Rosie and I met in the bathroom at the bus depot. Once alone, we hugged each other both feeling so overwhelmed with the past 7 hours. We both knew by now Ivan would know that I was gone. He would not know that Rosie was also gone till she did not show up for work tomorrow. We felt sorry for the other staff members as we knew that Ivan would unleash on them.

          Rosie handed me the note that the dry cleaner owner handed her. I opened it and read it aloud “Go as far as you can as fast as you can…disappear and be careful who you trust”.

“OMG Rosie, will he tell Ivan that we came there?” I was just starting to clam down and now I was again filled with anxiety. Rosie shook her head “I don’t think so Mandy, he is a friend of my uncle…but if he is forced, he will protect his family. Not much we can do now but follow the directions, disappear…” We walked back to the bus separately both lost in our own thoughts. I relaxed a bit once the bus took off if we could just disappear. I wish I had a phone to google on ways to disappear. That would be my first purchase when we stopped for longer than 30mins. I will feel better when we reach Chicago.

          The next 15 hours were nothing short of long and gruelling. With no entertainment I was left to my own thoughts which mainly consisted of fear and worry. When I slept, I had nightmares – when I looked out the window, I saw pitch black emptiness. When I checked on Rosie, she was sleeping soundly lucky thing. I should be rejoicing that I am free but instead the future seemed uncertain. Yes, I was free but not free to live a normal life, but a secret life, everything would have to be a lie.