ONE
Olivia Arshad
Events hadn’t gone according to plan for Olivia Arshad. She’d envisaged that, by this time, she’d be sitting by a fire drinking wine and making plans for the future with an old friend. Instead she was bruised, covered in shit and hiding up a tree from a band of rebels.
Amy was right, as usual. The bitch. Her admonishing expression flamed in Olivia’s mind: narrow eyes, scrunched nose and those thin, diagonal lips. She was desperate to go home, kiss that angry little face and hold the boys. And promise that she’d never leave them like this again.
She’d abandoned them all - for what? Connor’s mind was made up, and she’d not even come close to changing it. And to think she’d only made this trip to stop him getting into trouble. Now she couldn’t go home. Not yet, anyway. Coming this way might just have given her a head start.
A half-moon glowed gently in the cloudless sky, but the darkness felt hostile. A gentle breeze began to agitate its way through the forest, which at least helped to lift the oppressive stillness that had frozen her in position up here. Her legs were feeling like they were made of setting concrete, and she finally risked moving to stretch out the cramp.
She reckoned she’d made it ten miles out of Blackwell, which would put the first staging post another 15 miles to the east. But that would be under Connor’s jurisdiction. How far did his influence extend, and how many people were involved in his scheme? There was no way of knowing, and underestimating him had led her to this mess in the first place. No, she couldn’t ask anybody around here for help.
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Blood rushed back into her feet as she flexed, which stung as though she’d jumped into a hot bath. There’d been no further sign or sound of the search party Olivia feared she’d heard, and it must’ve been an hour since then. It was time to carry on. Every joint and muscle creaked and groaned as she eased herself off the scaffold and down the trunk of the grizzled old oak tree.
She checked each of her jacket pockets for the cheese and hunk of bread she’d managed to swipe as she was escaping. She was hungry, but her dry throat felt closed for business, so finding a stream would have to be the priority.
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Soggy soil clung to her feet as she stumbled through the night, equipped only with the thick straight branch she’d purposed as a walking stick-cum-weapon. This would probably be the last hurrah for the trusty trainers of her former life, but at least she hadn’t been wearing those crappy sandals when it all kicked off.
A soft but steady bubbling gradually became audible over the chattering of insects, until it was no longer in doubt: she could hear running water! Rolling a leathery tongue around a dusty mouth, she quickened her pace towards the merciful noise. Diving onto her stomach at the stream’s edge, she plunged her face in and gulped until she gasped. Then she filled her hands and splashed them aggressively over her head and into her eyes. It was gloriously cold.
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