Missing Pt. 3
I think - THINK - that this is going to be the last Missing part! Thank you for reading these!! I hope you like them!!
~
She was running blindly, but everything was slowing her down. Her hair continuously snatched on branches and yanked her momentum backward, her clothes ripped against thorns and sharp sticks, her shoe was untied and tripping her, and the wound in her thigh was sending screaming pain through her whole leg.
Rachel yelped as her shoelace whipped under her right foot and sent her sprawling forward. She narrowly avoided colliding with a trunk of a tree as she fell, curling into herself as she collapsed to the forest floor below her. Her hair settled in a halo around her head as she laid against the cool leaves, forcing herself to inhale and exhale as evenly and deeply as she could - but her chest was burning with exertion and exhaustion from running for the past fifteen minutes. Her whole body was trembling, her hands shaking against her chest as she remained where she laid.
Her mind was telling her to get up, to keep running in fear that Tartarus would come after her; but she knew that he wouldn't waste time chasing after her. She wasn't sure how fast she'd been running, but she had managed to escape fifteen or twenty minutes ago and run as fast as she could.
She wasn't even sure where she had been running. She hadn't been paying attention to the position of the sun, and she had taken a few sharp turns to avoid wildlife. She just wanted to get away from that madman's clutches, to never see him again, to get back to her sister and friends. She just wanted someone to hug right now.
Rachel just needed her sister.
If Linda was there by her side, she would feel all right even with the bullet wound in her leg.
When Rachel had woken up in the middle of the night, she hadn't expected to find that it was Tartarus himself who had hauled her off the bed and onto his shoulders. She had tried to scream and struggle, but he had pressed a cloth to her mouth until she had sank into darkness again.
And then she'd woken up in one of those solitary rooms that she'd come to fear. A single bed pushed against the far right wall, a toilet and sink across from the bed, no windows, and a sealed door to the left.
She'd lived in one of those for sixteen years, one year less than her twin sister. She'd spent her most horrible times there, sobbing into the dusty pillow beneath her head. Wishing that she was home. Wondering what Tartarus wanted with her.
And Rachel had been in that dreaded situation again merely thirty minutes ago, clutching the worn-out pillow into her face and practically screaming into it as she tried to imagine why Tartarus would bring her back here right then. The memories of her abnormal childhood came flooding back as she sat forlornly on the bed, waiting for hours on end for Tartarus to come back.
The whole time she'd been in the room, she'd been crying her heart out - until finally, the door had opened. It hadn't been Tartarus who had walked in, but another one of those cloaked men. The hood had been pulled down over his face, and he had looked scrawny.
And Rachel had decided to take advantage of that. She was taller than him by almost half a foot, and she knew she was stronger than him. She wasn't a really strong person, but she was able to take down a full grown man because Tartarus had had the mercy to teach she and Linda some basic defense all those years ago.
Thankfully, the cloaked man hadn't been expecting Rachel to leap off the bed and attack him. He'd gone down immediately after she whacked him on the side of the neck, and she had quickly rushed out of that wretched room.
For the first five minutes, she'd been confident she was going to make it out of the small, solitary building without being spotted. She was moving less stealthily by the time she'd been caught by a group of the hooded men.
For a few moments, Rachel had panicked - and rightly so, for all three of them had been wielding guns. There fortunately was a fire extinguisher to her right, and she frantically shattered the glass door with the hammer hanging beside it. She had yanked out the large fire extinguisher and sprayed half of the container into the hallway, obscuring the men's view of her. She had rushed forward and slammed the heavy extinguisher against his chest to knock him away from her.
And then she had started running again, at first blindly through the white wisps. But finally she'd made it through the blinding air and rushed through several hallways - before a gunshot had made her stop.
For the first few seconds, Rachel had stood there gasping, wondering if she had been the one who was shot. In those few seconds, she hadn't felt the pain spreading through her thigh - until it hit her full force. She had stumbled and fallen, but the sound of Tartarus's minions approached had spurred her on. She had lunged to her feet and crashed through a door, and she had only guessed that it would lead her outside.
Rachel wasn't sure how she had managed to get this far with a bullet wound in her leg, but she was grateful she had. She also wasn't sure why no one had followed her, but again she was grateful they hadn't.
Slowly, it dawned on her that she hadn't even checked to see where the wound had been and how much it was bleeding. Biting back a groan even though there was no one near to hear her, she shoved her arms under her and sat up.
Hissing through her teeth, Rachel lifted her right leg and stretched it out in front of her, leaning back and propping one arm behind her to hold her up. She swept her hair onto one side of her head so that it would stay out of the way, though the tangles bunched up at her shoulders awkwardly.
There was a hole in her jeans on the right side of her thigh, and as she pulled back the fabric, she began to worry that the bullet had struck her from behind and she would have trouble looking at the wound. But thankfully, there wasn't even a bullet lodged into her leg - it was just a deep scratch from the fast moving piece of metal. It didn't look like much, but it burned like fire and was almost an inch deep.
Rachel realized with a long sigh that she didn't have anything to clean it with. But she told herself to look on the bright side and struggled to rip off a piece of her shirt to cover the graze. Clenching her jaw, she lifted her thigh above the ground and wrapped the long strip of cloth around her thigh once, tying together at the front.
Now she just had to figure out where she was and how to get home.
She also had to get herself to calm down. The panic of being in Tartarus's place was still lingering in her mind, and she couldn't keep going if she was fearful of everything around her.
Taking a deep, even breath through her nose, Rachel grabbed the tree trunk that she'd nearly crashed into and hauled herself to her feet. Because of how long she'd been running on her wounded leg, the pain was worse than she thought it should have been. She leaned on her left foot with a small grunt of pain, scrunching up her face to keep from crying.
She couldn't cry helplessly in the middle of the woods. She had to do something, and crying wasn't an option.
Rachel tilted her head back and gazed at the blue sky, almost smiling at how ironic it was that the day was so bright and beautiful and her day was so dark and terrified. The sun was dipping toward the trees exactly to her right, which meant she was facing north.
And then she realized she didn't really know where the fortress was located. Cynthia had never given them that information when they'd arrived a month and a half ago, and no one had bothered to ask.
Sighing, Rachel wished she'd been awake for when Tartarus had taken her away.
But it had been dark, so even if she had been awake, she probably wouldn't have been able to see where he was headed.
Rachel shook her head, realizing that anything she did would be hopeless. If she went the wrong way, she would end up farther away from her new home; and she didn't know which way was the right one.
Taking another deep breath, Rachel gazed around her for the first time. The section of wood that she was in wasn't thick; instead, it was wide open and full of autumn colors, which made Rachel smile a little. She always loved the fall colors.
Rachel wanted to sit back down again and wait until she knew where she was going, but she knew that would probably never happen if she stayed put. Besides, she was hurt and alone - and night was coming fast. She had to get moving, to at least find a town. She didn't know where the nearest one was, but she might as well try.
Blowing out another breath, she turned toward the sun and started walking.
~
An hour and a half later, Rachel was ready to collapse against the nearest tree trunk, but she forced herself onward. The sun was setting now, casting bright lights over the tops of the trees in front of her. She wanted to lay down under the fading warmth of the sun and sleep until she woke up at home, but she knew she couldn't do that.
Her leg was throbbing, her body was aching, and she was exhausted; but she had to keep going. She didn't know where she was headed, but she hoped to find at least some kind of civilization before nightfall.
As Rachel walked, tears started to sting the corners of her eyes. She missed Linda. She just wanted to let her older sister hold her close, to let Linda run her fingers through her hair and speak comforting words to her.
She just wanted to go home.
"RACHEL?!"
Rachel nearly screamed at the loud female voice that yelled her name so loud that it sounded like it was in her brain, rattling through her skull and echoing in her thoughts.
And then she realized that the voice had been in her head, that the voice had been Linda.
Rachel almost collapsed in relief, halting where she was and pressing her hands into her face. She didn't bother to hold back her tears any longer - they weren't even upset anymore. They were tears of relief and joy that she'd been found, that her sister was somewhere nearby.
I'm here, she thought softly, not even caring that she sounded stupid, even to herself, for trying to reach out her thoughts to another. She had only ever spoke to Linda with her thoughts once, and it had been strange.
"Oh thank the stars," Linda's voice breathed in Rachel's head, followed by a mental sigh that sounded like wind rustling the autumn leaves. "Are you all right?! Where are you?! What happened?! Please tell me you're okay."
Because Linda was only projecting her string of thoughts into Rachel's head, the latter couldn't tell if Linda was overjoyed to have found her sister; but Rachel knew that she was.
I'm okay, she thought to her sister, swiping away the tears running down her cheeks and smiling faintly. Head towards the sun. You'll find me soon. She hoped, anyway - but she forced herself to know, to be assured that Linda was coming.
Crying and smiling at the same time, Rachel lowered herself onto the forest floor and sat in wait for her sister. Even though she'd been through the memories of her horrible childhood, the strange room that she'd grown up in, and the day had been horrible, she was happy.
Twenty minutes later, Linda's small figure appeared over the little hill that Rachel had been walking upward until she'd been stopped. At first, it was only Linda, hurrying straight up the slight hill; and then Gabriel and Shintaro appeared behind her, both jogging to keep up with Linda.
But when they saw Rachel sitting just a short ways ahead of them, they all began sprinting as fast as they could.
Linda reached Rachel first, dropping to her knees and immediately wrapping her in a tight embrace. The two girls melted into each other, both openly sobbing as they hugged warmly. If Rachel's leg was hurting her, she didn't feel it. She could only feel her sister's welcoming embrace.
"Are you all right?" Gabriel's frantic, breathless voice asked, and Rachel tilted her head backward to find him standing above the two girls. His eyes were wide and panicked, but full of relief and joy.
Rachel nodded her head, afraid that if she spoke she would break down again from relief and happiness. She was grateful to see that Gabriel literally sagged with relief when she assured him that she was okay.
Shintaro too breathed a sigh of relief, giving Rachel a faint smile.
"Did he do anything to you?" Linda asked suddenly, leaning away from Rachel and examining her sister from head to toe - but her eyes caught on the strip of cloth covering her wound. "We have to get you home! How bad is it? Is it bleeding a lot? Please tell me it didn't-"
"It didn't," Rachel assured her sister, knowing exactly what Linda was going to say. "There isn't even a bullet. It's just a deep graze wound. It's not that bad." She smiled happily at her friends, unable to describe the relief she was feeling to even herself.
"And no," she told Linda. "He didn't do anything to me. He didn't have the time to. I managed to escape before he came for me."
Linda blew out a sigh of relief, then her eyes began shining again. "I missed you. Don't ever do something like that again."
Rachel laughed, the best feeling she'd felt all day. "I'll try, I guess." She pulled Linda into another hug, then lifted her eyes to Gabriel. "Can... Can we just go home?"
"Of course," Linda said quietly into Rachel's shoulder. "Let's go home."
~
THIS IS THE LAST PART. XD
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