Ridge Creek by C L Green Read Free Book Online

Tony isn’t far away and that he will soon come
storming into the room, gun pointed at my head to finish what he started.
    All through my spiral downwards, Ellen stays close.  Calm,
gentle, soothing, she watches me cautiously as I begin to overreact to every
sound I hear in the rooms around me.  Like an animal caught in a trap, I sense
impending doom. 
    Over sensitized as I am, I soon become aware that outside
this room, life is busy.  There are constant sounds of doors banging and Harley
pipes roaring their arrival and departure.  There are muffled voices both loud
and soft at all hours of the day. 
    Sometimes my mind decides all the activity is a good thing. 
There’s a whole world out there and people nearby to help when Tony finds me. 
Others, it panics as I vision Tony and a band of gun wielding men storming
through the building shooting everyone in their way as they search each room
methodically to find me.
    It is during one of these latter episodes that I hear a loud
bang somewhere in the building and I lose it.   With a shriek, I realize
he’s here.  Launching upright from my position lying on the bed, I fly into
action.  My eyes quickly scan the now tidied room (compliments of Ellen). 
Frantically assessing my hiding and defense choices, my eyes settle on a pen on
the bedside table.  Snatching it up, I haul myself from the bed and without a
moment’s hesitation, throw myself under the bed. 
    A serious of pains explode through my body but I ignore them
as I curl into a tight ball, clutching my pen closely to my body.  My mind and
heart racing, I listen.
    There are no more bangs.  I can hear quiet laughter off in
the distance somewhere.  I can also hear what are now ingrained as ‘normal’
sounds such as doors opening and closing and people moving about.
    I lay in my tight ball for a few more minutes listening,
working my hardest to convince myself it is all okay and that I should crawl
out from under the bed.  But my mind won’t allow it.  I am frozen in fear,
unable to move.
    Hearing the bedroom door open, I gasp and hold my breath. 
No matter how hard I try to convince myself nothing is wrong, I cannot lift the
feeling of impending doom as I freeze, breathless.   Realizing too late that I
have balled myself in the wrong direction to see the door, I listen as soft
footfalls enter the room and then leave.
    Shit.
    Who was it and why did they leave?  My mind decides that if
it was someone I knew they would have called out and started looking for me.
    This is bad.
    As cold shivers of fear start to wrack my tightly curled
body, I feel the hot prickling of tears forming in my eyes. 
    He’s going to find me.
    Jamming my eyes closed, tears leak from between my eyelids
and drip silently to the floor.  Why didn’t I just die jumping out of that
truck and have done with it?  I should have dived straight onto my head and not
tried the stunt roll thing.  Perhaps I should even have just waited and
accepted my bullet to the head.   At least it would have been instant. 
    Living in constant fear is far worse than dying. 
    The sound of heavy boots crossing the room drags me from my
thoughts again.  Tilting my head back slowly from my protective ball, I open my
eyes.  My vision is blurred with tears as I try to focus.  I can’t see
anything. 
    Blinking rapidly to clear my tears I receive the shock of my
life as suddenly with a loud scraping noise, I am no longer under the bed.  It
has been dragged sideways with force, leaving me open and exposed.
    “I don’t crawl under beds.” I hear the deep, gravelly sound
of Jake’s voice behind me.
    Uncurling my body from its protective ball, I let out a huge
slow breath as relief floods through me that it is Jake.  Sitting up, I throw most
of my weight to my good ass cheek.
    A huge hand appears in front of me and I take it.  Rising to
stand gingerly, I find myself staring directly at a huge, wide muscly chest. 
Tipping my head back to look up