Mia tapped her thumb against the steering wheel, despite the shooting pain it caused in her wrist. She buzzed with anxiety over the time running out, but she was so close. Hopefully.

Audrey had her phone.

For a moment, she couldn’t believe the woman brought it with her; she must seem too unprepared to track a cut-off device. She glanced down at her laptop sitting on the passenger’s seat. The glowing red marker showed Audrey at the nearest gas station, and although Mia wanted to charge in and redeem herself, she controlled her excitement this time. Audrey was unpredictable.

‘If I see you again, you’re dead.’

Mia should have just fucked her and stolen her phone.

Waiting for Audrey to move, Mia parked on the side of the highway and pulled down her mirror. A gash adorned her forehead, like a wrinkle would, but much more concerning. She moved her eyebrows up and down to study the cut. Even the slow, purposeful movements caused her eyes to sting. No expression then, got it. She needed to get rid of her emotions anyway.

The red dot started its course. Mia turned on her music, listening to 2000s pop as she stuck three miles behind Audrey’s vehicle. Being high on pain medication, singing Christina Aguilera, and tracking a car set a pace she was appreciating. Though, the trip lasted longer than she expected: an hour and counting. She was only running on a forced nap, but there was no time to stop.

“Welcome to Massachusetts.”

The sign gave Mia the smallest boost to not fall asleep behind the wheel. Why would Lara uproot her life just for some drugs? She was living comfortably.

She didn’t know the lawyer’s destination, so Mia had changed into dark jeans and a gray sweater that concealed her bulletproof vest. Audrey’s promise sounded genuine, and Mia hoped the woman would aim for the torso.

Another two hours ticked by and dawn broke over the horizon. When Mia dreaded their journey’s end would be far, far away, the little red dot stopped.

A small town’s sign greeted her: old and graffitied, fading paint. Mia made out “Stawford”. Audrey’s car was parked half a mile in, right before the asphalt turned to dirt. Far from the road’s edge, a dense forest line stretched out of view and a quarter further from her lay a gas station. The lights were powered down, the lot barren.

Mia kept driving, slowing to the thirty mile-per-hour limit as she passed Audrey’s car—Audrey’s empty car.

“Where the hell...”

She parked a few yards ahead and back tracked on foot, only to confirm the Mustang was abandoned and locked, save for her phone on the passenger’s seat. She scanned the area, lingering over the also assumedly locked building before landing on the wood line.

Shit. She hated hiking.

Mia lined up with the fancy car’s passenger door and walked toward the forest. Maybe it would lead directly to a hidden path. It didn’t. She wandered down its edge a while, pulling any jutted branches to peak for a trail, and when that failed too, she turned around and went the other way.

Across from the gas station, Mia found an overgrown opening. She pulled back a branch, stepping over a dead mouse as she journeyed in without a second thought.

No one had maintained this walkway in a while. Branches hung in the path, a few lay broken and kicked away. Minutes later, she stumbled onto a fallen trunk, right in the middle of the trail. Mia jumped over it and landed next to a deep pair of footprints, fresh.

She picked up the pace, heart pumping in her ears.

Besides her heavy breathing, Mia could only hear the leaves rustling in the light breeze, birds chirping, insects buzzing and crawling around. The air was crisp, refreshing, which at least helped ease her headache.

Then voices carried down in the wind.

Two—two voices.

Mia froze in place, holding her breath. Once she realized, she drew nearer, silent as a deer. On her last step, a twig cracked under her boot, but a voice masked the betraying sound.

“Who did this to you!?”