***
I walked until I faced the door that lead outside. I pushed it open and paused for a moment, inhaling deeply. As I exhaled I stepped into the night. I took a step closer to my father.
***
I started centering my focus as I continued forward. The light disappeared behind me as I entered the maze. If my father had been watching me there was no doubt in my mind as to where he would be holding them captive. In my one sanctuary. The one place I held onto as mine.
The world seemed to go silent as I put my first step into the maze. The steady murmur of crickets disappeared. The sound of leaves rustling stopped. The silence seemed to pound in on my ears. The only sound came from me, my breath.
I slowed my breathing down so that it was as silent as the world around me, though my heart continued to race faster and faster. I stepped forward, in position to be attacked from anywhere. The twists and turns carried me through the maze as I followed my mental map to the center of the maze. I had to start there.
A rustle of the bushes. I flinched and turned, ready to attack. The leaves could do me no harm. A snap of a small twig. Another flinch, another harmless piece of nature. He had to know I was here. Where was that bastard.
I reached the path toward one entrance to the center. I pull up tight against the bushes, protecting my back. I pull up next to the entrance, listening for any sound of life. They had to be alive. My heart caught in my throat. I glanced up into the sky. The cloudy sky obscured the light of the moon. I would have to rely on my senses other than sight more readily.
I slipped my blade into my hand silently as I took a deep inhale just as soundlessly. As I let it out I turned the corner, hoping my beating heart hadn't already given me away.
The opposite side of the maze faced me. The moonlight faintly struck the ground and benches, creating jagged lines and large black holes. Footing would be tricky in the unknown.
I glanced around one more time. How could he not be here? Where the fuck was he? Where the hell should I go now?
A rustle to my right, the snap of a twig. Was my father forcing me that way? Was he leading me into a trap? I had no choice to follow even if it was. I couldn't let them suffer for me. That asshole would get exactly what he wanted if it saved them.
I followed each sound that was out of place. Each twig moved, each leaf rustled, each crunch in the dirt. Nothing that was out of the ordinary. Everything that stood out.
I rounded a corner and faced a wall of dark green and black. There was nowhere for me to go, nowhere to turn. I was trapped just as he would want. I held my head high and walked straight to the end of the walkway. I turn my back and face where I just came from. He would at least have to face me before attacking.
I crouched, ready for the inevitable attack. My heart pounded, my breath caught in my throat. The silence was once again too loud to bear. One minute passed. Sweat trickled down my back. Two minutes passed. My muscles are knotting, my body protesting against being so tense. Three minutes passed.
A sound to my left, barely discernable. I snap my head in that direction, ready for something, anything to happen. Four minutes passed. Another sound to my left. I half turn my body this time, ready to attack the bushes if necessary.
Just as I am about to move through the hedge if necessary, my body is jerked back the other way. I'm pulled back through the hedge.
Branches scratched my body through the fabric. As I am pulled out to the other side I can feel the blood start to pour down. I would tire faster now. I had to preserve my energy.
I unconsciously tighten my grip on the handle to my blade. My fingers only dig into my palm. I realize that I've been disarmed. No one was around me. I looked to my right and flinched at the sight of the forest towering over me.
He had only shaken me. He was going to make me attack him on his own turf. I should have known he would never give me the advantage of how well I know that area. He knew I was here. He had known all along. There was no reason to sneak around now.
"Where are you, you bastard! I'm here! Come and get me!" I scream into the trees that loom before me.
My reply is a scream. Lexie's scream.
"Asshole," I mutter as I sprint into the trees. Why the fuck was he still going after them when I was here?
"Let them go!" I scream again.
"Shea!" Lexie screams to me. She drags my name out at the end, unwilling to go silent. Until she was cut off. The silence yet again pounds in against me.
Lexie's scream had brought me close enough. I knew that he was somewhere near. Too bad I had no idea where I was. I heard a moan directly in front of me. It was male, but I couldn't tell whether it was Blade or Ayden. Either way it tore me apart.
I sprinted forward again, not caring if I was being stupid, being reckless. I had to get them away from him.
I continued running forward until I was stiffly caught in the waist and dropped to the ground.
"Going somewhere?" A voice from above me asked.
I stood up, willing air to come back into my lungs. I turned and looked my father in the eye for the first time since I had run away.
"Might want to stay," he added with a vicious smile.
"Where are they?" I was in no mood for his games.
"Oh, I can't tell you that yet. We need to have a little... chat first." I notice movement in his hands and immediately recognize my blade in his hand.
"Afraid to fight me even after you've disarmed me?"
His laughter echoed throughout the trees. He abruptly cut off.
"I have nothing to fear from you. I never will."
"You should," I reply, just as serious. "Now tell me where the fuck they are. I'm here. You have no reason to keep them here anymore. Let them go."
"Interesting offer. However, I feel I will have to decline. They may have some value yet." He watches my blade slowly twirl. His eyes flash back to mine as he says. "Oh, and your outfit is stunning. You mother's I presume?"
"You asshole. Don't even mention her!"
"Oh, still a little touchy about the mommy issue. I had so hoped you would have moved passed that by now." He looks at me with mock pity.
"You killed her! The woman you had a child with, that you lived with! You murdered her!" I screamed back in his face.
He studies me closely before replying. "I had so hoped you were smarter than that child."
"Excuse me?" I asked, completely taken aback.
"I knew you weren't the smartest child out there, but I so hoped you would be able to put two and two together by now."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" My anger was rising, and I could do nothing to abate it.
"Such language. What has this school been teaching you?"
"How to kill you," I replied through clenched teeth.
His laughter once again rang out through the night. "You really are a stupid child aren't you?"
"Well it must be genetics. And at least I had mom to balance out your utter stupidity."
I was rewarded not with his anger, but his laughter.
"Stupidity? I think not."
He grasped my arm and pulled me forward. I stumbled as I attempted to catch up to him. He pulls me through to a triangle of trees.
The gnarled trunks twist together until they join at the top, becoming one large tree. Others around it have been cut away, only emphasizing the height of the three left.
"What the hell do three trees have to do with anything?"
"Look closer. Don't tell me you're blind along with idiotic."
I peered out at the trees, scanning from top to bottom. My eyes caught on the gnarled trunks. Something looked out of place, something unnatural. A moan reached my ear. My breath left me as I recognized them as bodies. "No," I breathed out as I tried to race towards them. My father's grip on my arm prevented me from moving more than two steps.
"Ah, ah, ah. That just will not do right now. Patience."
"How could you do this to me?" I screamed as I turned on him. My movement was so sudden that my arm broke free.
"I beg your pardon? You brought this upon yourself."
"I'm your daughter! You're supposed to love me! Not force me to walk to my death! Not kill anyone who chose to love me!" I yelled.
"You don't even deserve to be considered human let alone a father."
The next thing I see is his face an inch from mine. My back was on the ground. My own blade was placed against the skin of my neck.
"You are right about one thing. I am no father of yours."
He studied me, savoring every moment that it took for that to set in. I could think of no words to say in reply. It didn't make sense, and yet it had to be true. The fact had always been there, always so obvious, so hidden.
"You were never my father." As I say it for myself something seems to resonate inside of me. This man was nothing to me. He never had a part in my life. He was no part of me at all. The lies, the deception. All those years. It had to be part of his stranglehold on my mother. At the thought of my mother the anger builds. It continues to grow and fester. I would have sworn that my eyes had changed from green to red.
That man, I had no idea what to call him anymore, seemed to sense the shift inside of me.
"You are nothing to me."