Fate.
I'd written it off not a month ago.
Meeting the trio had just been a coincidence, there was no fate.
But the moment I entered town a string of murders occurred starting with the man who first robbed my van.
Then the officer I reported the man missing to.
Then the daughter of the suspect.
Possibly others I didn't know.
I didn't have my knife on me, I was sheathed under my pillow and my only fight plan was to scream but he covered my mouth and with a quick motion of his hand, he snapped my jaw and stuffed a cloth inside, soaked in something with an intoxicating feeling.
My eyes rolled back and I taught the urge to fall asleep.
I was already tired from my insomnia pills and now I was being possibly drugged by a man the size of a bear.
I turned to face him, defiance in my eyes and fire blazing in his heart.
I ripped out the cloth and he moved his hands to stop me. I parried his outreached arm and grabbed onto the side, pulling him down in one swift motion as I brought my knee up with all the force I had and hit him square in the face.
His nose made a loud snap and blood gushed out.
He spit out the blood that leaked into his mouth and I fought back tears of the pain my broken jaw was giving me.
I ran past him, in a dumb horror movie decision I ran upstairs to get any available weapon. He grabbed my ankle as I sprinted up and yanked me back down.
I tumbled down the stairs into his chest and he fell back.
He stood up abruptly, flipping me over and bringing his foot down on my stomach.
I vomited water and I gasped for air.
I glared at him and rolled out of the way.
I ran behind the table with crippling pain and flipped it at him.
He caught it and threw it back at me.
I ran out the back sliding glass door, shutting it behind me though it would do little to slow him down. I ran around the house and leaped the side fencing, I stumbled onto my feet on the other side and fought back all the pain with sheer will to make it out of this alive, or remotely okay at least.
I had a feeling tonight wouldn't end with a broken jaw and bruised stomach and I ran down the street in the direction of the police station.
The man was sprinting behind me, he was bigger and stronger but I was faster and I'd gotten in the practice from my sprint in the woods just days earlier.
My feet scraped against the cracked road and I turned the corner trying to catch my breath whilst running, breathing in and out slowly.
I didn't look behind me and I didn't need to, car lights illuminated his shadow close behind.
I prayed to god with all my heart the car was Francis's but it wasn't.
It sped past us both and swerved in front of me blocking my smooth run.
I leaped over the car hood but the door opened quickly and the arm inside reached out and caught me.
My scream was muffled by another strong hand and the large man pursuing me opened the car trunk as the man holding me forced me inside.
I kicked and screamed, but no one saw and no one heard.
I bot his hand but the hand was cold and hard like stone and my tooth chipped.
I tried not to cry and I tried not to show fear, instead what I showed was seething hatred as I looked up at my other captor.
Officer Shenck.
I knew it.
Damn it.
The trunk slammed shut and my hope flickered.
I kicked the trunk hard enough the inside was denting as I heard and felt the car speed away.
I bounced inside the cramped trunk but tried to maintain my strength and push the trunk lid with all the force I had inside of me.
My side was in piercing pain and I screamed in fury.
I wish I had my phone, I wish I had a knife, I wish I had anything at all.
All I had was myself.
I wasn't good with plans, I wasn't a tactician, but I was good at surviving.
I didn't want another death in my hands but never before I wanted so badly to do so.
The moment the trunk would open I would jump on my captors I would scratch and claw and scream and rip off their ears, their eyes, their nose, anything I got ahold of.
But something about Shenck was hard like diamonds and my tooth had chipped on his skin.
His friends the bear looking henchmen would be easy compared to him.
I heard crunching of sticks and leaves under the car as it made its way as close to the clearing as it could get without hitting anything.
The car doors slammed shut with enough force to break them and the trunk opened.
I pushed myself up by my arms swinging a kick to his face.
But it was Shenck who opened the car and I felt my ankle roll off awkwardly and twist unnaturally.
I panicked for a second as I recovered from nearly breaking my ankle. The shock wore off quickly and the bear-man tugged me out of the car and threw me to the ground.
The animalistic, deadly instincts inside me were awakening.
These men thought I was weak.
I was a Venus flytrap.
And they just entered the trap.
Shenck watched the bear-man launch himself at me.
He clicked his tongue watching the bear-man lose again and again.
"Such a disappoint you are Dedric," he growled, "just string the bitch up and drain her for me." He barked his command.
Dedric nodded and he flung himself at me again.
I swiped at his face, my crooked bitten nails catching and tearing the flesh above his right brow as I tumbled out of the way.
I got myself back up on my feet.
I needed to gasp for air but I refused to show I was tired.
I held my hands up in a Muay Thai fight stance and stepped lightly back and forth from one foot to the other, ready to strike as I'd been schooled in for years of my youth.
I knew how to fight and damn was this man gonna find out the hard way.
Even if every move wasn't conventional every little bit helped as fighting back and I glared daggers at him.
My icy cold stare revealed the hatred inside of me and for the first time, the man noticed that I wasn't as weak as he presumed.
I am a Venus. You flew into my trap and now you're going to die.
Meanwhile, Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert were not at a hospital. They were behind the abandoned gas station by the forest entry they always took and they were trying to steady Anna's breathing.
Anna was alive. But she also wasn't.
Anna was reborn in blood, made to be a suffering distraction as her father could murder her friend.
"Who did this to you?" Antonio asked her.
"Who do you think?" She panted.
She tried wiping the blood from her face but smeared more on it instead.
"The winner survives," she choked out recalling the previous hours.
She had left with her father.
He hadn't gone home, he went to the forest instead and he dragged her with him.
He gave her a knife and threw her into the clearing with Heidi.
Heidi was bruised and beaten and crying, snot running out of her nose.
She held a knife with shaky hands and Anna's own father declared, 'only the winner survives, you win vhen the other is dead'
Anna tried to forget the nightmare but she couldn't forget anything anymore, she never would again.
She screamed in pain of the burning desire in her throat for food.
Gilbert handed her his metallic bottle and she chugged the drink inside but it wasn't enough.
Heidi was dead and it was because Anna decided she didn't want to die after all but maybe she should have.
Maybe she should have just died and now she never could. She was made to stay and suffer with the blood of Heidi on her hands. It was literally still on her hands, and her mouth, and her dress.
She sliced Heidi's stomach and Heidi bled to death crying. Anna started crying and she felt her father's mouth on her throat and when she awoke she was tearing Heidi apart searching for blood.
Heidi's body was still in the clearing mangled and gutted.
I was two minutes into fighting Dedric when I tripped on Heidi's body and her bloody innards stained my clothes.
I was too shocked to take in that I'd fallen into a corpse of someone I once despised. But she was unrecognizable at the moment. I didn't know for sure it was her but I had a feeling it was based on the bloody dreams I'd had earlier.
If those dreams were precognitive then that meant Shenck would die too but I didn't know how I could pull that off.
I slid in between Dedric's legs, slipping on the bloody leaves giving me enough proportion to slide through effortlessly.
I stood back up with some difficulty as my back foot slipped on a bloody leaf. It threw me off enough I wasn't able to avoid Dedric pummeling towards me like a raging bull.
He smashed me into a tree and the air left my body.
Humanity seeped away from me as my shocked, injured body began to work on autopilot and that's how the Venus flytrap triggered.