North Oak 1- Born to Run Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Race

  RUN BABY RUN

  HAVEN

  SIX O’CLOCK SOMEWHERE

  LOST AND FOUND

  ONLY A DREAM

  NORTH'S SECRET

  LEARNING THE ROPES

  FIGHT FOR HER

  THE FLASH

  BORN TO RUN

  NO ESCAPE

  TRIBUNAL

  SILENT MAJORITY

  HER SAVING GRACE

  NORTH OAK

  Fan Ann

  About the Author

  Suggested Listening

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Ann Hunter

  Graphic Designer: Andrew A. Gerschler

  Artwork by Nichole Bryant

  http://chicken-priestess.deviantart.com/

  Published in 2015 by Afterglow Productions/P. Gerschler. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher.

  North Oak #1: Born to Run / By Ann Hunter

  For Eileen,

  Who got me hooked.

  "Let us run with endurance the race set before us."

  — Hebrews, 12:1

  RUN BABY RUN

  A thread of smoke wafted from the barrel of the gun. Alex's foster mother crumpled before her. Alex stared, hand trembling, ears ringing. The gun tumbled to the floor.

  "Alex, what have you done?"

  Alex rounded to see her eldest foster sister, Carrie, horror-stricken in the doorway. Their other foster sister, Ashley, lay lifeless near Carrie's feet. Two bodies too many.

  The acrid stink of gun smoke filled the room. A piercing breath stuck in Alex's throat. She looked around the room, staggering. I have to get out.

  The window.

  Alex threw it open. Cool, fresh air buffeted her face. The light of an October dawn streamed in as Alex leapt out the second story window.

  She landed on the top of a parked van a few feet below and slipped on icy dew from last night's thunderstorm. The force of her fall popped her spine, igniting firecrackers in her ears. The purple Tennessee horizon flew up as her jaw smacked against metal.

  A sudden numbness throbbed in the side of her tongue. Sputtering with the raw taste of iron, she rolled to the muddy ground, and swallowed back the blood in her mouth. She staggered to her feet and ran.

  The slick grass chilled her tempered, bare soles. A clump of damp, black bangs stuck to her forehead and blocked part of her vision. She pushed them away, along with what had just happened.

  Whether the cold humidity was choking her or the fear that police were about to find two lifeless bodies at Haven Point right behind her, she did not know.

  Ashley was dead.

  This was not how Alex wanted to spend her thirteenth birthday. She hadn't expected it to be perfect with the way their foster mother had been treating them at Haven Point, but why did it have to be this? She and Ashley were going to run away together. They were going to have a life of their choosing. All they needed was each other.

  The image of her best friend bleeding in her arms, watching life leave her like a candle snuffed out, burned on Alex's conscience. I should have stopped DeGelder sooner. Why didn't I stop her?

  Alex skirted the local high school and scaled the chain link fence behind the baseball diamonds. The spikes of the fence caught her t-shirt and scraped her stomach. When she kicked and swung against the links, trying to free herself from its teeth, her shirt gave way with an audible rip. She fell backwards and rammed the ground so hard her breath rushed from her.

  Don't stop, she thought, hugging her ribs with a cough. She wheezed and hacked, rolling to her knees. Each breath came in a ragged, sharp wave. She crawled toward the thicket of trees ahead, and braced against a tree trunk before clawing herself to a standing position.

  There was a hard knot in her stomach. The world swirled for a moment, blurry around the edges, bright white in the center. She shut her eyes against it.

  Ashley…

  She had been taken away like everything else in the world.

  Alex swallowed back bile. Blood roared in her ears while her heart hammered against her ribcage. She placed a hand over her heart as though that would slow it down. Her eyes opened to a smear of blood across her partially torn shirt.

  Police sirens wailed a mile away. She did not want to go back to Haven Point. There was nothing left for her there. She tried to wipe the blood from her hands against her shirt, but it only made her clothes more gruesome. Carrie's words rang in her head, "What have you done?"

  Alex whimpered. She kept wiping in desperation. She had not been there to protect Ashley.

  This was supposed to be our day. Our new life. Alex thought if her heart could explode, really explode, it would be less painful than what she felt right now.

  She took off through the woods, vaguely aware of the green and brown whizzing by, how the rain had softened the pine needles and ground debris poking at her toes. Petrichor invaded each breath.

  When she emerged on Mobley Lane, loose gravel jumped from old asphalt, biting into her arches and sticking until velocity flung them off. Some of them stabbed her ankles and calves.

  The sound of skin slapping on wet pavement seemed louder than the gunshot. She pumped her arms harder despite the pain in her legs and feet, sprinting as far away from her past as she could get.

  The morning sun fully crested the Tennessee Ridge tree tops near Main Street ahead. Darting toward the apron of Ace Hardware, she dove into the center of a circular clearance rack she had watched an employee wheel outside. Alex peered between shirts as several police cars zipped by, sirens wailing.

  Her lungs seized at the thought of getting caught and going back to that horrible place. Haven Point looked like a legitimate home for troubled girls on the surface, but Alex knew better.

  If the social workers realized what really went on there, it would be shut down in an instant. The Open Arms Organization sounded like a benevolent charity, but it was nothing more than a shady subsidy of the Vantage Corporation.

  Alex gulped when she remembered a girl, who had killed someone, that had passed through the home as a ward of the organization. She said Open Arms was trying to "sweep her under the carpet".

  Vanessa DeGelder, the woman who ran Haven, gave the other girls nightmares by insisting the murder sentence would be death. An eye for an eye.

  What have I done?

  Alex's right forefinger throbbed as a phantom gunshot thundered in her head. She winced and sucked in air between her teeth. Her hand shot to the side and grabbed a shirt from the rack. She changed into it and left her torn t-shirt on the ground, then hopped out from her hiding place to snatch a pair of flip flops from a sales bin beside the rack.

  Alex bit off the plastic tie binding them together as she started running again. She threw them on with an awkward hop and darted into the trees across the street.

  Alex emerged hours later near the Austin Peay Memorial Highway going over the south end of Kentucky Lake, north of The Big Sandy. She watched cars motor across the causeway and chewed her lip, pacing. What do I do? She ran her hands through her hair. Ashley would know what to do.

  A beat up blue car rattled behind her and slowed. She stared blankly at it, rooted to the asphalt beneath her. A man with two little girls buckled into carseats in the back rolled down his window and leaned out.

  "Y'lost?"

  Alex's mind ran wildly. "No," she said thinly. Sh
e glanced toward the water, then back to the man. The two young girls in the back seat swatted playfully at each other.

  "Could I get a ride into town?" Alex asked. "We broke down on Ryden Road and someone told my mom the marina might have some gas."

  The man squinted at her. His eyes wandered up and down with clear suspicion. "The marina? Most likely she ended up at the Exxon a stretch up the road from there."

  Alex stuffed her hands in her pockets and shrugged. "Sorry. We're not from around here."

  He sighed. "Get in. I need to stop for gas myself."

  Alex's heart knocked like the engine of the jalopy. She prayed the man wouldn't notice how her hands shook when she buckled her seatbelt. Her eyes locked on the stretch of water and road ahead as the car rolled forward. From the corner of her eye, she noticed him glancing at her.

  "You sure you're okay, kid?"

  Alex nodded curtly.

  "You look like you've been in a fight."

  She pulled down the car visor to look in the mirror. Her jaw was swollen and bruised. Alex forced a smile and a nervous laugh. "You should see the other guy."

  The man didn't seem amused. "How'd that happen?"

  She put the visor back up and looked him square on. "We were boating yesterday and I lost my balance. Smacked it on the dock as I was getting out. I'm a total klutz like that."

  The man nodded and leaned forward as they passed around another car. "Done that a time or two myself. I bet you were trying to be cool and not hold on to the piling as you got out."

  Alex looked out the window. "Totally."

  "Are you a stranger?" One of the girls piped up from the back. "Daddy says not to talk to strangers."

  Alex turned on her hip. It scorched with a new soreness that grew hotter the longer she leaned on it. "My name's Sam. What's yours?"

  "Emma and this is my baby sister Chloe."

  Alex winked at them. "Now we're not strangers."

  She saw the man smile. "You should call your mom. Let her know we'll be at the station soon so she doesn't leave. Here, use my cell phone." He leaned forward and grabbed it from a small console beneath the radio tuner and handed it to her.

  The phone was pretty basic. Alex wouldn't have any excuses about not knowing how to work the screens or anything. She stared at it in her hands and wondered if the man could hear her heart pounding.

  She dialed a random number, then stared out the passenger window so he couldn't see the tears threatening to slip down her face, or her lips tremble. What would she say when whoever owned the number she just dialed picked up?

  Ring.

  Ring.

  Alex's white knuckles grew brighter.

  Ring.

  She forced her throat clear as a sob tried to emerge.

  Ring.

  "Hi, you've reached Millie. Leave a message."

  A rush of air escaped between Alex's tightened lips. "Hi, Mom, it's, um… Sam. Listen, don't leave the gas station. I caught a ride. Don't worry, though, they're nice folks. Love you."

  Her fingers felt numb as she ended the call and placed the device back in the console. Alex stared through the passenger window and chewed on the tips of her fingers.

  "Shame you got her voicemail," the man murmured. "I hope she gets it."

  "Yup."

  "You can text her if you want. I know when my wife texts me, I usually notice it faster than a voicemail."

  "I'm good. Thanks."

  "We'll be there in about five minutes."

  Alex remained silent until they rolled in to the gas station.

  The man leaned forward and looked around. "Do you see your mom?"

  Alex shook her head and opened the door before the car stopped at the pump. "Maybe she's inside."

  "We'll wait here as long as you need."

  Alex shoved her hands in her pockets and skulked into the station convenience store behind a young man in an army green tank and shredded jeans. Alex strolled to the bathroom and locked herself in a stall.

  There was no Sam. There was no mom. There wasn't even a boating accident.

  Dammit. Alex bashed the barrier between stalls.

  She climbed up on the toilet tank and drew her knees to her chest, trying to calm down. The chemical perfume of toilet mint and lemon scrub penetrated the cold tile, porcelain, and metal surrounding her. Her stomach snarled. She hadn't eaten all day. Every muscle in her body ached from running.

  Haunted, Alex clutched her heart, raw from the way Ashley had stared at her with fading eyes.

  "I…" Ashley sputtered, "I love you."

  "Ashley? Don't leave me, Ash." The words echoed in Alex. "You're all I got! Don't leave me."

  Alex batted at the tears on her cheeks with the back of her wrist, took some toilet paper to blow her nose, and then a deep breath. I gotta get out of here. I have to keep moving.

  She went to the sinks and washed her face so she didn't look like such a street urchin. The cold water made her shiver, but felt good against her throbbing jaw. The bruise was getting darker. She dried her hands and face, squared her shoulders, and left the restroom.

  Her eyes darted around the store, trying to take it all in. The young man that had entered the store before her was still poking around. He had a wallet chained to one of the loopholes in his pants. The man with the two little girls was fueling his car. The sun dipped behind the horizon. I need food if I want to get through tonight. I wish I grabbed what Ash and I saved.

  A small TV mounted near the ceiling in a corner played the evening news. Alex spotted two security cameras. Stealing was definitely out of the question. She gnawed her lower lip.

  Grabbing a large cup from the soda fountain and filling it with cola, she glanced at the young man who was gazing at the sodas in the refrigerator across the way. He looked about seventeen. Alex put a lid on her cup, grabbed a straw and mashed it til the paper came off, then slid it in, and took it to the register.

  The clerk was watching the TV in the corner. Alex cleared her throat to get his attention. He was a paunch, mustachioed man with a nose like a potato. The kind with pores so large, Alex wondered if she might get sucked in by some bizarre black hole. He turned to her, one eye still trained on the television. "Two dollars please."

  Alex glanced at the young man in the green tank and tattered jeans. He had moved to a bin of candy bars and packaged cookies, and casually rummaged through it. Alex looked back at the clerk. "My dad just filled up on pump three, told me to get this for him."

  The clerk looked over his shoulder to see the man replacing the gas cap on his rickety car. He happened to look up at them and waved at Alex. She waved back. The clerk added two dollars to the tab as the man got in his car and pulled forward.

  "Thanks," Alex said.

  The clerk nodded and glanced at her, then did a double take. "What happened to your face?"

  "Oh, it's nothing." She looked over at the young man rifling through the bin, then back at the clerk. "My brother and I were being dumb yesterday doing some free-running tricks. I followed him over a ledge and totally biffed it."

  The clerk's sight leveled on the young man. "You gonna buy anything, punk?"

  The young man looked back at the clerk, wide-eyed.

  The clerk turned back to Alex and took a large, day-old cookie from beside the register. "I had a big brother once. He was always a bully. Here, you take this. It's on the house."

  Alex tried not to appear too greedy as she swiped the cookie off the counter.

  Music came on the TV in the corner and caught the clerk's attention. "This is an Amber alert for Houston, Henry, and surrounding counties. Be on the look out for this girl."

  Alex clenched her teeth as she saw her picture come on the screen.

  "Her name is Alexandra Paige Anderson. She is thirteen, five foot two, dark hair, and green eyes. If seen, please phone the following number immediately."

  The clerk looked at Alex. "What did you say your name was?"

  She swallowed. "Lizzie."

&n
bsp; The clerk squinted at the TV. "You look an awful lot like that girl."

  Alex looked at the screen and laughed nervously. "Not the first time I've heard that. My grandma says I have one of those kid-on-the-milk-carton faces."

  She looked at the young man who was scrutinizing her now, and tilted her head toward the door. He strode out.

  "I better go. Jax is leaving." Alex followed behind him as the clerk headed toward the back of the store and reached for the phone in his pocket.

  She watched the young man head toward a commodities shop next door, and went to the man waiting for her in the car with his two little girls.

  "Great news," Alex announced. "My cousin ended up picking up my mom and brought her here. He says she's in the commodities shop."

  The man looked over and saw the young man in the green tank head in. "You sure you'll be okay?"

  Alex nodded. "Yeah, he got me a soda." She lifted the drink to show him, and rattled the ice and dark liquid. "Thanks for everything."

  Alex leaned in and smiled at the little girls in the back. Chloe had fallen asleep, and Emma wasn't far behind. "Be good, Emma. You're so lucky to have such a nice daddy."

  "Bye, Sam," Emma yawned sleepily.

  Alex waved as the man pulled away from the gas station. She headed toward the commodities shop and just kept going.

  HAVEN

  If Hell had a name, it was Haven.

  The memory of watching DeGelder beat Alex's smallest foster sibling, Katrina, lay confirmation to the fact. Haven was Hell.

  Alex had hid around a corner, watching DeGelder's face glow red with rage, eyes wide as she screamed and swung at Katrina.

  DeGelder wielded a belt, whipping it back and forth across the girl who huddled on the floor covering her head and sobbing. A bucket of soapy water cascaded across the linoleum, no doubt the trigger for the reprimand.

  What DeGelder bellowed was unintelligible. Alex thought she could make out tiny veins in the caretaker's neck. She wondered what she could do to stop the woman. Alex's eyes wandered to the belt. Could she grab it and use it to restrain DeGelder? Could she hit her back? See how the woman would like it when the tables were turned.