Hide (Sequel to RUN)

Chapter 1

A man stood in the aisle next to my pew.

"Hello," I greeted him, moving towards him, "I was actually just leaving." I moved to slip past him.

"Lekia Born, isn't it?" he asked, grabbing my forearm.

"Yes, sir," I replied, using a magnitude of willpower to ignore my immediate instincts, "Would you mind letting my arm go?"

"I don't think you're telling the truth, you know," he growled, "I don't think that the Lakuan kid did anything to you." My eyes swept him up and down, sizing him up.

He wouldn't be hard at all to take out. Mid-forties, frail. But I didn't want it to come to that.

"Well, sir, I am telling the truth. And there is evidence to back up everything I've said."

"You ought-a be put in jail instead!" the man exclaimed, reaching into his pocket. His eyes grew confused as he went for the other pocket.

"Sir," I whispered, "are you looking for this?" His eyes darted to my hand, which held a closed pocket knife.

"I don't like being threatened, sir," I told him, prying his hand off of my arm. "If this ever happens again, I will take it to the police as assault and harassment."

I felt his eyes on my back as I walked away, trying my best to look confident. As I walked past the last pew, I chucked the pocket knife out the wide double doors and into the oblivion of landscaping.

"Sir, if you really want your knife back, I'd find it before the gardner comes in about a minute. He's always on time," I turned my back on him and walked into the doorway.

"Have a good day, sir," I called over my shoulder, finally walking into the sunlight.

I didn't walk for long. The sounds of the man's scuffling were already beginning.

My heels were off my feet and dangling from my fingers within seconds of reaching the side of the church. And I was running. I was free.

When I reached the courthouse, I leaned against the wall. Gasping for air. Luckily, I hadn't worked up a sweat. That wouldn't be a good for the hearing.

Ms. Born, would you please explain why you arrived at the hearing gasping for breath and sweat-stained?

Yes. I just sprinted from a certain location, that I won't make known, and crawled through a window I unlocked yesterday to get into the courthouse.

That wouldn't call my stability into question at all.

Sighing a bit at the insanity of it all, I jumped and placed the heels on the small sill of the bathroom window. I jumped again, getting a secure grip on the sill with my hands and pulling myself up. The window, thankfully, opened without any trouble. The janitor hadn't noticed that I'd unlocked it yesterday.

My body slipped through the small window with ease, as I'd predicted. I threw my heels off the sill to the middle of the bathroom, wishing I could just throw them out back the window instead. But again, my stability would be called into question if I wasn't shoes.

Grunting now, I grabbed onto the closest stall and pulled myself out of the window. My feet hit the cold tile with a soft thud. I quickly jumped up and closed the window, securing the lock. No one needed to know how I'd gotten into the courthouse.

I glanced at my watch as I grabbed my shoes and headed to the door. 9:53. Right on schedule. Lansing and Palika should be right outside the bathroom door, backs turned to me.

I slipped my heels back on and entered the crowded hallway. Lansing and Palika, as I'd predicted, were standing in the middle of the sea of people with their backs turned to me.