Something big was going to happen today, the knots in my stomach warning me it wasn't going to be anything pleasant.
"You know she'll sleep all day if you let her."
A gentle knock tapped at the door.
"Sweetheart, are you awake?" My fathers raspy voice muffled through the thick door.
"I'm awake, go ahead downstairs, I'll be down in a minute." Covering my face with the pillow to silence my slight scream.
It's just a birthday, so why does everything feel so utterly different overnight. Other than how I feel, I'm not any different now than I was last night, all I did was fall asleep.
I had just finished getting dressed when a loud bang came from the west side of the house and everything violently shook. I fell to my knees, crawling towards the door as dust and small pieces of the wall fall around me. As I reach for the knob, the door burst open, my father frantically searching the room trying to find me. Panic and fear clouding my father's usually vivid green eyes.
"Adee, sweetheart, you have to go. You have to go right now," sheer terror lacing his voice.
"What do you mean go? Go where? What is going on?" Bile rising to my throat in fear.
"I told them no deal and I meant it, no matter what that crazy bastard tries to do. Listen to me, go out the south door and head straight to the woods. When you reach the tree line don't look back, just keep going."
I tried to protest what my father was saying to me, but he places a finger over my quivering lips to silence me.
"We don't have time, I should have been better prepared. I should have known he would still send them for you. Your grandfather made a deal with a man as sinister as he is, you in exchange for, I don't even want to know what. Lord Brickett is coming and you can't let him find you." Tears starting to stream down my father's face. "You aren't Adeena Fowler anymore. Get as far away from this place as possible. Tell no one who you are." He turned on his heel, grabbing my hand and dragging me through the house to the south door, inspecting every corner before he went through.
My father collected my face in his hands "I love you, now run!" Shoving me backwards and slamming the heavy door closed between us.
I ran, just like he told me to, full speed as I reach the woods, tears flowing down my face. I take one look over my shoulder in time to see the home I grew up in glowing orange with flame. The roof of my room caves in, crashing to the ground. As I see dark figures making their way out of the door I had just come from, I start running again not risking another look back.
A loud crack echos through the trees around me and I startle awake, not sure exactly where I am, wishing it was all just a bad dream. I slowly open my eyes and lift my head to assess my surroundings. Morning dew was glittering off all the lush greenery in the soft morning light. There is nothing close to me large enough to have made a noise loud enough to wake me. Although with the level of stress I doubt I was in a very deep sleep, a squirrel could have stepped on a twig.
I pull the long sleeves of the dress I'm wearing over my balled hands to wipe off the night's grime from my face. I take a deep breath to calm myself, nerves completely shot with yesterday's events.
"A lady such as yourself shouldna be traveling woods as dangerous as these completely alone." A deep, gravely voice cut through the utter silence.
Panic racing through my veins, I bolted forward, trying to put as much space as possible between myself and where I thought the voice was coming from. I am almost at a full run when my foot catches something on the forest floor and I tumble forward. Everything was upside down, my ankle and knee both throbbed and began to burn as I felt liquid flow down my left shin and into my shoe.
As I began to get back on my feet, I hear a group of dogs faintly barking in the distance, but seeming to get closer. My head on a swivel rapidly trying to pinpoint the direction the noise is coming from when I am grabbed from behind. A large dirty hand covering my mouth while the other enveloped a large cloak around us. The stranger backed us into a large dense bush for thick cover. Just as the last branch sprung back into place, a group of seven men on horse accompanied by the group of dogs that had alerted me to their presence, broke into the clearing I had just occupied.
I could hear my heart beat thumping in my ears, the dogs encircled where I had just been sitting. I hear the large stranger behind me begin to mutter something in a language I couldn't understand, when the dogs began barking again frantically and took off in the directions opposite where we were. The men on horses sped after them in pursuit.
I slowly turn my gaze too meet that of the stranger who had pulled me into the bushes, my gaze is locked into place by blazing emerald green eyes. He raises a finger to his lips, motioning for me to still remain quiet.