Kelly ran and she kept on running.

Even when Sammy started to cry and beg to stop. Even when her legs started to shake. Even when her lungs started to burn.

She kept running.

When Sammy tripped and fell, she barely stopped. She heaved him up into her arms and she pressed on.

She wasn't going to stop running until she saw that crossroads again. Who cares if the cops were still combing the area for them? Anything would be better than that crazy town and that monster of a mayor!

She could see the welcome sign.

They were half way there.

If they could get past the welcome sign they'd be safe.

And then she hit it.

She didn't see what she hit, she just knew when she ran face first into it. The fact that she had run full tilt into an invisible wall had been bad enough, but to add insult to injury it threw her back.

Like a blast of air had picked her up, took her off her feet and slammed her into the ground.

Kelly bounced twice before skidding to a sprawled stop on the dirt path a few feet away from whatever it was she hit and the welcome sign. She had Sammy clutched to her side and the two of them were groaning.

"Are you okay?" she asked when she could breathe again. Well, she wasn't really breathing, more like gasping for air, but she managed to form words so that was good.

Sammy picked his head up, already doing better than her. "What happened?"

Yes, what had happened? Was she wearing a shock collar she didn't know about?

"I told you," a dry voice intoned and Kelly practically groaned.

She forced herself to get up and turn to where Franklin was standing. He just stood there, still in the same suit he had been, he didn't look like he had just run there but he must have to have caught up that quick.

He held her glare as she got to her feet.

"I told you. You can't leave," he repeated and she felt her glare darken. He took a step towards her, no doubt assuming that he'd have to herd her back. "Now, you may not have a curse, but you walked over the threshold with a sigil from Lydia. And as you've just established Anathime will not let you out."

Oh, so he was going to blame the town? The town did this? The town had its own thought process and just decided to keep people? Yeah right.

She realized he was wearing the mask again. That red sparkle version that mimicked whatever his actual face looked like when he was human. Why would he wear that? Was he trying to not scare Sammy?

He smiled down to her. This smug grin she wished she could slap off of his ghoulish face.

"You, my dear, are stuck here," he said. "Whether you like it or not."

God this was all so stupid! She just wanted to get out of here, and now both she and Sammy were trapped. She had no one to really blame other than herself. She shouldn't have brought them here. But she had Franklin in front of her, so she was going to put all her anger on him.

"Maybe your colossal undead pain in my butt is my curse," she snarled.

The second she said it she knew it was oddly cruel to throw that at him. She didn't know why but she knew it. And when she saw hurt flash across his features, she knew she hit a nerve. But she just wanted to hurt him in some way. Any way.

"That's right, you heard me!" she cried. "You must be my curse! I bet you're the reason I'm stuck here you... you rotten... hideous... monster!"

Now those words, specifically monster, hit him hard. He straightened, looked her up and down, his face blank but his eyes shining with the pain he was trying to hide.

"Fine," he growled. "Fine. Why don't you bash yourself against the barrier a few more times? Maybe you'll be the first one break through it."

"Maybe I will!" she shouted at him as he turned to walk away from her. He kept walking though, he didn't even bother to turn back around. "We don't need you! We're going to be fine on our own!"

But Franklin didn't turn around, nor did he stop. He just kept walking away and Kelly glared at him until he was officially gone.

Only then did she realize that she was completely alone, in the wild, with no way to get back.

Well... she'd see about that.

She dropped her hold on Sammy's hand and then turned back to where she had hit the shield. Her plan was to hold a hand out and see if she hit it again. However, the second she turned she could see it.

This translucent barrier of black sparkles she hadn't noticed before. She looked it up and down, it looked to go right up to the very sky. How had she not noticed it the first time they walked through here?

Dear god, Franklin was right. She really was trapped.

She was going to have to slink back to town with her tail between her legs and apologize to that stupid zombie.

Maybe she could sneak back after dark, let herself into Granny's and beg Elouise to hide her. She seemed like the kind of old woman who would play a prank. She seemed to like to give Franklin sass, Kelly was about 60 percent certain she could get her to go along with tricking the mayor.

She turned back to Sammy and wondered if she could convince him to stay out here until dark. Maybe she could make it a game.

"Now what?" he asked shattering Kelly's panicked silence.

"Now what indeed?" a pert voice asked and both Kelly and Sammy yelped.

Both of them turned and found a woman on the other side of the barrier. A woman they both recognized.

"You!" Kelly cried, stalking forward.

It was the woman in white from the diner. The woman who had sent us her.

"You sent us here! Why would you send us here? What did we ever do to you?"

"Nothing," she said simply. "I didn't send you here to punish you, my dear."

What? That didn't make sense at all. Then why trap them there.

"You see, everyone has their own stories. For the people of Anathime they have an evil witch and a host of curses. You, however, you and Sammy have an evil-stepmom," she said and Kelly backed away.

How had she known that? Was she working with her? Was this all part of the plan, trap them there and have Sammy taken away from her?

"I sent you here because they have what you need to be free of your curse," she said. "And you, you are the only one who can free them from theirs."

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no," Kelly said with a shake of her head. "I'm having a hard enough time with my own curse. I'm not taking on anyone else's curses, metaphorical or magical. Now you put us in here, you let us out."

"Unfortunately I cannot."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I cannot get you out."

"Why not?!" Kelly near sobbed and the woman simply smiled at her.

"Due to a long standing agreement with my sister I am not allowed to use my magic to mess with her magic, and vice versa."

Kelly just glared at her, this blank unwavering glare before she growled one single word: "What?"

"Alright, let's explain it this way. I am Sylvia the White and my sister is Lydia the Dark. Lydia created this town and she's the one who cursed it's inhabitants," she explained. "Now, she knows I have a habit of helping her poor tortured souls, but in her eyes, these punishments, they're for their own good. Bad people needed life lessons if you will."

That was messed up. Why was this Lydia person who decided who got punished and how?

"She agreed to keep her inhabitants somewhere where they couldn't tempt me to reverse their curses, and in turn I had to agree to not meddle."

"But you did, because you sent me here."

"I found someone with a unique ability and gave them her sigil to get you through the door. I used not a single shred of my own magic, as she requested."

She said it so proudly, like she was happy she had found herself a loop hole and Kelly just glared at her. Yeah, that was all well and good, except she was punishing her and Sammy here.

"Look, I have no idea what you're talking about. These people can't help me, and I can't help them. You've got the wrong girl..."

"Of course, you're the right girl," she said. "I've tested you."

"Tested me?"

"Yes. I gave you opportunities that could magically lead to your wildest dreams. The door that opened to the unattended all you can eat buffet. The cash register that sprung open when the cashier was distracted. The woman who left her own ticket and her son's ticket behind. And finally, when I dropped a wad of cash in front of you..."

She remembered all of those moments. Each had happened in a different towns or cities. This woman had to have been following them for months.

Like that wasn't creepy.

She hadn't taken a single one of those opportunities because at the time, she had seen the sparkles left behind and she had learned long ago not to trust anything with sparkles on it.

"Okay, not stealing is being a good person and decent human being."

"That is true, but we both know the real reason you turned down each opportunity to lessen your stress and load was because you saw the imprint my magic left."

And she was right. And she knew it.

"You are the saviour these people need to be free, to beat my sister. You are the Curse Breaker because you are the only one who will be able to find what's been hidden."

"No. No, I don't want to be a saviour. I don't want to see or save people. I'm only nineteen you can't put this on me."

"You were only seventeen when you ran off with Sammy," she reminded her.

"Yes, and that clearly has not been going well!" Kelly cried. She glared at Sylvia and all her pristine whiteness, she was clearly not going to be reasoned with. "Alright, don't help us. We'll just go along the boarder. Sooner or later I'll find a gap."

"Really? You're going to stay in the forest? After dark? Oh darling, I wouldn't do that. Not with the sort of beasts this place is crawling with. They're not your regular kind of beasties."

Kelly took a hold of Sammy's hand as he looked up at her with a sort of fearful look on her face. "Don't worry she's just trying to scare us."

"Oh...well... alright. If you insist, take this," she said and tossed a necklace at Kelly. It went through the barrier with no issue and though she shouldn't have she caught it anyway. "Do remember to wear it. It will protect you."

Kelly should have thrown it back at her, but instead she pocketed it. "Yeah thanks for nothing, lady."

She went to walk away again when Sylvia called out again.

"You really should trust in Franklin. He may be a little uncouth but he really is just looking out for you. And he will always come to help you. No matter where you are, or what sort of trouble you're in. He will come and he will save you."

Kelly shook her head and didn't even bother to turn around. "Yeah trust the corpse with anger management issues," she growled. "The woman is nuts."

She tugged Sammy along with her, choosing to go into the forest to walk along the edge of the barrier. It wasn't her real plan, but she figured she'd at least try to go through with it until she was certain Sylvia was gone.

"Are we really going to stay out here in the forest all night?" Sammy asked.

He didn't like the sound of that and she knew it.

"Nope, we're going to head back to Granny's." Even without looking at him she could tell he was smiling for the boy had started to skip. "We're just going to go through the trees, we're gonna play a sneaking game."

Except she would need to see the road. So when she thought they had gone far enough she headed back the way she knew the road would be and then together, just in the tree line, her and Sammy began to head back.

She was using the trees as cover in case Franklin came back, she didn't think he would, but you know, just in case. She'd decide then, if he actually did come back, as to whether or not she'd go to him. It would depend on how afraid he seemed.

If he looked really worried, she'd lead Sammy out of the shadows and pretend he found her. If he didn't she'd continue back to granny's and let him stew.

"What was that lady talking about?" Sammy asked her.

"Don't listen to her, Sammy, she's crazy."

"She said she could stop Carol."

Kelly hated hearing their step-mom's name. Any form of it at all. It brought back memories that Kelly was struggling to push down, it felt like the name could summon her to them. Even if it was a ghost of her. She hid her wince well at the sound of it though.

"I told you. I told you we're going to hide out, wait until I'm legal to adopt you then I'm going to deal with her," she said.

"But maybe... she could fix it now with it now and we could have a real home again," Sammy said. "And besides, you'd be a great Curse Breaker! You've always been super good at helping people and... this place isn't so bad. We just need to stay away from Franklin. He's scary."

He was too. Even if Sammy couldn't see what she did. He stooped down to pick up a stick and swung it around like it was a sword. He did that for a few minutes and then a shadow passed over them.

"What was that?"

Kelly squinted through the branches to the evening clouds and saw the telltale sign of a hawk circling the sky.

"Just a hawk," she said.

It was going to get dark soon. It was going to get cold. She had left all of their protective gear at Granny's when she ran. She had not thought this through. Walking would keep them warm though, so she was just going to have to keep them moving.

The shadow passed over them and Kelly stopped.

This, this was eerily similar to her incident that afternoon in the town square. Where the massive thing with wings had swooped down on her and she had gotten mesmerized by a ring of pink that had encircled its neck.

She glanced up to the sky once again and squinted hard on the hawk that had been circling above them. It looked like an awfully big hawk. Maybe it was an eagle.

She swore she saw a glimmer of faint pink and that worry shot right up her spine.

She grabbed Sammy's hand again and pulled him deeper into the trees, trying to get them more cover. She didn't have to turn to look to know that the shadow was descending upon them, and that the branches probably wouldn't help.

It crashed first into the branches above them and down into the canopy before them.

Sammy screamed, but Kelly took him and shoved him to the side so they were running in the opposite direction. She didn't get that good of a look at it, but she saw brown speckled feathers, and giant black talons the size of kitchen knives.

But that wasn't all she saw. She saw it's beady black eyes trained on nothing but her. She didn't know how she knew, but she knew that it was only there for her.

"Sammy, run, you gotta keep running," she said. "Keep running. Don't look back. Go to Granny's okay. Run. Run!"

She had let him go with the express plan to split them up, lead this thing away from her. Already it was in the sky, she could hear it's piercing bird like screams and the heavy flapping of its wings in the air.

But Sammy wouldn't let go.

"No, no, we go together. You said we always stay together."

Kelly looked up as the bird-creature circled once more.

"Not this time," she said and Sammy burst into tears. "Sammy this is important. I will meet up with you later, I promise. But I need you to run, run back into town. Okay? Can you do that for me?"

He nodded and then reluctantly let her go. She pushed him forward, got him away from her, just as the creature crashed through the branches again. This time it came in between her and Sammy, as Kelly had to dive in the opposite direction to avoid the creature's heavy bulk.

Sammy stopped again. Stopped and faced this thing that looked like it had the lower half of a bird, the upper torso of a woman and yet the arms were wings.

It was looking at Sammy so Kelly took the closest branch and whipped it at it's head. The second it made contact the creature turned, and she could see it's pointed humanoid face looking right at her this time.

"Kelly!" Sammy sobbed. God why hadn't he run?

"Sammy! Run!" she ordered. "Don't look back, just run! Run now!"

And then she turned and ran away from him. She heard it when the creature took flight again. She heard it's heavy flapping wing beats, beating tempo to her racing heart.

She knew it was no use, she couldn't out run it. And when is crashed into her, talon first not moments later, she had to hope that Sammy wasn't there to see this.

And she hoped he knew that she felt bad for lying to him