Chapter 3 Unexpected

Lila, he said softly-pleadingly. "You don't have to do this. Just come back to me. We can be happy again."

Desperation clawed at her throat and tears streamed down its cheeks. "You don't understand!"

There was a handhold that crumbled away beneath her foot, and Lila felt the dizzying pull of nothing as she teetered on the very edge.

"Lila! Don't!" Lucas shouted, his voice thin with urgency as Percy began to push her closer to the brink.

Running out of room, she turned to face him as he towered over her. Her heart was pounding in terror but mixing with anger too now that she'd come so far and realized there wasn't anywhere left for her to run from this man who was bad news all over again now maybe worse than ever_THAT SHE'D COME SO FAR! "You won't take me back. Not alive, not ever!"

Until the words became melancholic, of freedom and captivity... titled bitterly around her as though obliterating; until there was nothing but air for bones.

She gasped a deep, harrowing breath preparing to fall into the dark, uncertain abyss below what ever waited for her in darkness.

As she vanishes from sight, the two playful souls are left at odds that sway between choice and consequence - caught up in their moments of suspended time with just the thunderous surge of water off distant cliffs to fill what remains.

Adrenaline filled his chest as Lucas sprinted to the edge of the cliff. Then Fear took him in a wave. "Lila!" He shouted, his voice cracking in desperation as he looked over the edge of where she had been. The churning blackness below threatened to consume her, drowning out any sign of a saving grace. Adrenaline rushed through him and in a split second he readied himself to pounce after her, unthinking but knowing it was his only chance; that he could let go so easily!

An inner voice of course, warning that one step more could be heading towards a very thin line separating love and obsession. As he prepared to leap, a distant thunder sounded the depths of his resolve as much as it did in his heart. He hesitated, his hands becoming fists as he struggled against the rising tide of anger.

Prayer in despair, "Please... don't be gone..." He imagined her plummeting and swirling into the darkness below, felt a raw ripping at his guts.

Lila meanwhile fell screaming into the darkness, air pounding on her as if she were falling through a wind tunnel; thoughts wheeling madly in confusion. She couldn't think of the fear, only that desperate knowledge she needed to get away from himwhomever he wasescape whatever love so warped it felt like a tightening noose around her neck. Every night she closed her eyes, his kind warm blue orbs transformed themselves into glaring ghostly images reminding Halley of what used to be and would never again.

The chill water closed around her all at once, engulfing her in its frosty hug and pulling hee into the darkness below. She gasped, and the shock of the temperature left her limbs limp against it. Instinctively, she kicked and thrashed as the darkness moved to take her. The sky above the surface grew darker, and for a heartbeat there was nothing (but her own heart under her hands) There were just the sound of drops falling from old leaves or water cascading down between rocks.

It was no more than a glimmer of light, as if seen through mud-covered glass with only the vaguest sense that it led up. Lila swam after it as though her life depended on such speed. She thrashed up, gasping and burning as her lungs lunged for the air, disorienting chaos of water all around. Where was Lucas? Did he see her fall? Would he follow her to the dry depths?

As she started to float downriver, carried not by the wind but rather gravity and drifting farther away from that rock edge a feeling of disaster came over her in waves. She saw a crag of rock forming an arm from the bank and almost collapsed with relief. Gritting her teeth, Lila swam toward it and hoisted herself out by the slick stones until she was breathing hard.

Laying on the cold ground, she gasped for air as she felt her wet skin bite against that night wind. She knew she did not yet have a safe place. All around, the woods seemed almost impenetrably thick with shadows that moved as if they were things alive whispering secrets she could not begin to understand. But she was free – for now, anyway.

Her heart raced, even though she was no longer being held by Lucas physically, his threat looming like a ghost in the night. She paused to compose herself, wiping the moisture off her face and yet tasting the saline of tears entwined with river currents. Indeed, she knew which option she wanted (sic), but would that be sufficient? Would she ever truly be free?

The rustle that came from the bushes made her jump too and she snapped herself upright, fear clenching like shards of ice in her them to have even formed a semblance of consciousness And turned towards whatever was coming out through Then: The darkness. Lucas? Another predator? Her instincts fired off, and she was on guard for either fight or flight.

The shadows slid and I could see nothing but doosra jangle beyond the trees. The world around her had gone eerily silent, as though it was holding its breath in anticipation. She couldn't linger here. She doubled her resolve, demanding movement from herself. She had to get herself out, push on into the dark where she could barely hear Lucas halfway through saying something or other.

As the moon rose overhead, lighting Lila's way through yet more forested ground cover, she continued her escape in earnest not only from Lucas and his physical prison onto a plane bound to New York City; but now slowly unraveling years of guilt and self-condemnation from emotional chains no less confining than flesh forged bonds. For her right to live, for the sake of her soul itself and now she felt a certainty that as daunting nighttime closed in upon all its secrets, there was nothing ahead but battle.