Saved By The Outlaws

Chapter One: Why can't it be easy?

Authors Note: Considering I took a break from my revision for far too long and the only think I had to show for the last 2 hours was this chapter, I have decided to post this one as well and update early. I guess I had to make myself feel better some how, if not by knowing I'd done revision, why not by knowing I was one chapter closer to finishing this book? (: Enjoy..

Chapter One: Why can't it be easy?

Carly ran.
Oh boy did she run.
She ran until her feet hurt.
She ran until her lungs felt like they'd collapse.
She ran until he heart felt like it was in her throat.
She ran, until she could run no more.

Not once did Carly look back.
Not once did she try to reason to turn back and try and understand.

There was no going back on what she'd just seen and there was definitely nothing she could do now to change it.

She'd seen her brother, the brother she grew up with, the brother she'd played with and the brother who had always looked after her. She saw him take the gun and fire it straight into their father's face before turning to their mother and ruthlessly killing her in the same way. It didn't take much for Carly to turn away and flee from the place that was her home. The gun shot she heard whizz past her and land in the ground before her only spurred her on.

And the cries she heard from Alec made sure she would never return to him. His threats to find her no matter where she ran to, no matter where she hid. His threats to search the whole world to find her and kill her.

The rash decision Carly had made now left her penniless, without a family and with nowhere to turn.

She felt herself tire and she wondered through the towns. She'd been on her feet for days, drinking from rivers she passed and eating anything she could find.

Carly was at the stage where she had wished that her brother had managed to kill her, rather than this prolonged paranoid death that she was facing.

It had been 4 days since she'd ran from her home.
4 days since she'd had something proper to drink, something proper to eat and worn a different dress.

Why did everything have to change so quickly? From the easy life she had had before, to living this hardship?

Carly looked down towards her feet to see the blisters and the blood, her soft skin was pierced and oozed with infection. She couldn't go on much longer. She could feel the dizziness creeping into her consciousness and only then did she see the house in the distance.

If there was a God, she'd definitely remember to thank him in her prayers.

As she gained ground towards the house she felt herself wobble and her eye sight blur.

She couldn't stop now, not when she was so close, so close to being safe.

As she looked back towards the house she noticed that it was higher than before and before she had time to register why she fell to her knees.

The earth spun and the air grew hazy, she reached out towards the house.

Why couldn't it be easy?
Why did she have to break now?
Why did she grow weak now in the middle of nowhere? Too far from help and too close to isolation.

The days of worry crept up on her as she lay in the dirt waiting.

She couldn't move.
Her hands wouldn't move to swipe away the pestering fly.
Her legs wouldn't move to stand.

She was physically exhausted and now Alec would get his wish. She would die here.

The only thing her body allowed her to keep free from fatigue was her mind. It was torture. Knowing that your body was shutting down, knowing ways to stop it, but your body being unable to cooperate long enough to help yourself.

Carly thought how quickly life had passed her by. She'd never thought about marrying or having children before, but now she found herself wanting all of it.

She wanted the husband to dote on her, to have a relationship like her parents did.

She wanted 2 or 3 or 4 little ones playing in the garden as she made them all dinner.

She was 18, and she realised how much she had been robbed of the life she could have had. The life she was meant to have.

As Carly's mind wondered and flashed to memories of her childhood, she knew she would be gone soon and it scared her to think no one would care, no one would come to find her or miss her. At one time there were people who would mourn her death. Not now.

Carly felt the fog crawling into her mind, breaking through her last defenses.

This was it.

Just as her last breath rasped through her chest she heard the sound of galloping hooves in the faraway distance.

She couldn't decide if she was dreaming but Carly quickly came to the conclusion that even if she wasn't, whoever had come to her rescue was too late.