The cold was overwhelming and bone deep when Sawyer stepped onto the porch. Her breath came out in puffed white clouds, and her muscles seized up as her lungs sucked in the icy air. She launched herself anyway, hands fisted, legs pumping. It didn’t take long for the warmth of motion to surge through her body. She zipped past three half-built houses, studs exposed like spindly skeletons as the warm air surged through her lungs, broke through her muscles.
Sawyer was a distance runner, not a speed runner, but she left her house quickly, clearing her street and her block in record time. As she ran she could feel the memory of Kevin, of the note, of Chloe and the oozing red gash pulling her back, doing its best to weigh on her, but she pushed harder, faster, her fists punching at the air in front of her, her heart metering out a quick, hot rhythm with her footfalls as they rang out hollow in the empty street. As she ran, something nagged at her periphery—something she was missing. She was deep in thought, trying to grab the missing piece, when she heard the footsteps behind her. They were quick, keeping easy pace with her, their echo cracking against the empty streets, bouncing off the model homes. Sawyer slowed and the footsteps mirrored her rhythm.
She stopped.
Suddenly the silence was too deep, too thick. It sunk into Sawyer’s chest, enveloping her so that she felt claustrophobic. Her fingers clawed at the zipper of her windbreaker, then pulled at the collar of her shirt. The street was deathly silent now.
Had she imagined the footsteps?
A branch broke behind her, and Sawyer sucked in a breath and held it, afraid to turn around—afraid not to. Her eyes searched the horizon in front of her and the breath seeped out of her body little by little as she saw each cookie-cutter house in front of her, each as perfect and as empty as the last.
She took off like a shot.
She dug into the air with her fingers and pumped her legs until her thighs screamed, wet heat breaking across the muscles. She squinted as the wind smacked at her face, turned the tears she didn’t know were falling into painful blasts of cold. She was making headway, had reached the looped street that returned to her house as the footsteps became more pronounced, more frantic. Her feet ached and her left calf seized, the pain shooting through her like needles in her bloodstream. She tried to will it away, tried to command her brain to make her legs move more, faster, harder, but her knee collapsed over her cramped calf and Sawyer felt herself falling, the whole thing in achingly slow motion. She noticed every detail on this block’s more finished houses as she went down—the unobtrusive almond-colored paint, the chocolate-brown trim, the shadow under one of the eaves. And she knew she was being watched.
Her shoulder hit the pavement first, sliding enough to accommodate her upper arm, her splayed palms, her belly, and her chin. She felt her skin make contact with the frozen ground, felt it tear and burn as she slid in the gravel. The smack had sucked the wind out of her so when she tried to scream, nothing came out except a low, offensive moan. She searched wildly for her assailant, for the shadow under the eave—but there was nothing there. Again the silence was everywhere, until a crumpled paper bag caught on the breeze and flitted across the sidewalk, coming to rest on a would-be porch.
Sawyer rolled onto her back and worked to pull air into her folded lungs. When she could breathe and her heartbeat dipped back to a normal thump, she pushed herself up, wincing as the gravel dug itself deeper into her ruined palms. She looked around her, her fear still palpable in the early morning light, still aching in her exhausted muscles.
The street was deserted. There was no one there.
Her teeth started to chatter, and the tears fell freely over her cheeks. She sniffed as she began a slow, laboring jog back to her house. Her jaw ached by the time she reached the low arc of her property, and as she stepped onto the porch, her eyes caught the faintest glimmer of something in her periphery.
A flash—from a camera? Sawyer wondered.
It was there and then gone before she could blink, and it was soundless, but Sawyer whirled anyway. Nothing. No person releasing a shutter, taking another shot. No car speeding away. Just…nothing.
Frustration knotted in her chest, and she used her fists to rub at her eyes, then blinked, her gaze lasering in on the landscape around her: empty houses; damp, desolate street; gravel upset where she fell.
After someone had chased her?
Sawyer shook her head, trying to clear it. She imagined the morning fog thick between her ears. Had she taken a pill last night?
Yes, yes, I must have, she reassured herself. That’s got to be it. That stuff makes me see shit, makes me paranoid. That’s all it is.
But even as she worked to convince herself, something remained, something nagged at her periphery and the feeling of unease settled like a stone in her gut.
When she sunk her key into the lock, her father was on the other end, pulling the door open. He grinned until his eyes fell on his daughter, fell on the bright red raspberry on her chin.
“What happened to you?”
“I—I fell. Someone was chasing me and I fell.”
Andrew Dodd opened the door wider and pulled Sawyer inside. “Who was chasing you?” He looked over her shoulder. “Who would be out at this time in the morning?”
Sawyer sniffed. “I don’t know.”
“Do you know who it was?”
She shook her head.
“Was he in a car, on foot?”
Sawyer shrugged again. “On foot, but I didn’t really see him. I saw a shadow, and like, a camera flash. And I heard the footsteps. He was keeping pace with me.”
Andrew smiled then. “Keeping pace with you? Sawyer, are you sure you heard someone? It’s a little creepy out there with all the empty houses, I know. Don’t you think maybe your imagination was working overtime and you just scared yourself?”
Her father was trying to be gentle, but the anger boiled in Sawyer’s belly. “You don’t believe me.”
Andrew cocked his head. “Sawyer…”
“I’m not making this up, Dad.” Sawyer paused, sucking on her teeth. “Oh my God. You think this is about the nightmares, don’t you?”
“You mentioned they were back, and Tara mentioned she saw the Trazadone out on your nightstand again when she was straightening up.”
“Why the hell was Tara in my room?”
Andrew quirked a fatherly eyebrow. “Now, Sawyer, Tara was just helping out.”
“You mean helping herself to my business. Besides, the stupid nightmares came back right after Kevin died, Dad. Not now. And today, I was outside, I was running, I was awake!”