Escape.

The only word that seemed important to us right now. Escape. The fire in our lungs ached, smoldering our breath until it was nothing more than short, harsh gasps. My legs were past the point of a pleasant burn, past a throbbing pain that made me cringe with every step, past the relieving numbness, and had adapted a sensation of detachment—movement was instinctual now, I didn't have to think about the recurring strides any longer. My side had been throbbing for a while, but we couldn't spare the time for resting. Our only goal—our only option—was escape.

“Shit!” Jake swore. “Emily, get down! They're coming around again!” he didn't wait for me to slow and duck behind one of the many bushes that littered the residential street, instead quite literally tackling me to the ground. He quickly rolled off of me and lay flat as well, just as a bland white car rolled slowly by, reminding me correctly of a hunting lion stalking prey. The sweeping headlights illuminated our savannah, our secret battlefield.

            Our panting filled the air, and we both struggled to stifle our need for oxygen. My breaths were hard and desperate, feeling like the air left in short gasps before really oxygenating my blood. Jake had more control: his breath came in shallow and rough instead. He reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it reassuringly as the window of the car rolled down and a flashlight bright enough to be a search light sneaking through the darkness surrounding us. My heart stopped when the beam hesitated right on the scant bush that we were hiding behind—the light slicing through the gaps in the leaves overpowering the thickened shadows—but after a moment it continued its path along the sidewalk. The car moved on at the same pace, and we waited until it was out of sight before sighing in relief.

            “Let's go,” Jake pulled me up by my hand—my legs hurt too much to do it on my own—and we were flying again. We had adopted the technique of shadow-hopping, decelerating from a sprint to a light jog in the cover of darkness and pulling a full-out panicked run when underneath a streetlight. I remember doing the exact opposite just days ago—feeling safe due to the visibility they provided, and the lingering uneasiness I had felt when the ray of light dimmed. But being hunted changes everything.

            “How far from the base are we?” I panted. We heard another car coming and simultaneously curled up in the fetal position behind a large bush, but it was just a red suburban. The woman driving it didn't even know we were in the area, much less watching her through the sparse twigs of the foliage. Once the car disappeared around the corner, we both simultaneously leapt up from our tight crouch and dashed into a sprint again.

Jake's head swiveled as he assessed our position, “Another mile, maybe.” He wasn't as out of breath as I was, but then again he was in better shape. “We have to get to the tunnel. Once we're there, we'll be safe from them for a short while.”

“But won't that be the first place they look?” I gasped between breaths, leaping over a large hole filled with water pipes.

“I don't think they expect us to make it that far, this fast,” he stated. “Pick up the pace—we’re visible.”

            We fell silent then, because another car was coming and the bushes were thinning out. Fear rose in my chest, dark and ugly, with the underlying thought of capture. And because of this, I followed Jake willingly to two thick pine trees, edging around the trunk as the car slid past, fighting the urge to stand perfectly still. My body pressed up against the rough bark, trying to mesh myself with the tree as the flashlight's beam once more lit up the stucco wall behind us. When it faded, Jake glanced across the street and nodded once.

            “Come on, sprint for the wall at the back of the park,” he ordered, grabbing my hand and pulling me along before I could respond. I kept up as best I could, but he slowed down for me when he realized how I was struggling. We made it into the grassy field, and promptly headed past the fading light and into the welcoming darkness. Only when we were out of the weak pools of light reflecting off the street did he push me to the floor and drop beside me, catching his breath.

“Won't they… see us here?” I demanded brokenly, my body shuddering with the force of drawing in air. It might have just been me, but this area didn’t seem as dark now as it had from the bushes.

“They still assume we're on the other side of the road,” he nodded back towards the street, where the white car was once more gliding by, flashlights sweeping continuously. The beam of light didn't turn our way, however, and I grinned breathlessly.

“Perfect.”

“I've seen this park from a car's standpoint before, and its pitch black over here at night. Plus, it dips down, making it even harder for cars on the road to see us.”

I leaned on my elbow, “How are we going to get to the road in time if they keep circling around here?”

Jake looked around the park with contemplative blue eyes, stopping at the white wall just a few feet from us. A giant two-story house was visible over the stucco fence. “We could try going through some people's backyards...”

“And risk having the owners call the police? No thanks.”

He chuckled dryly, “Either way, we have to get moving again. The base is only another mile; the tunnel's even closer. Once we get there, we should be home free.”

We waited until we were positive that the road was momentarily clear before following the wall of the park back to the main road. We only got about twenty feet before a car's headlights appeared behind us, closer than preferred, too close. Jake instantly shoved me down the slope that lined the sidewalk, and the hard ground mercilessly battered my sore body as I rolled. I waited for him to land on top of me, to push my head lower and quietly shh me into silence.

But he never came down.

Instead, I heard the sound of doors slamming, of a gruff voice ordering him to get inside the nondescript car. My heart raced as the flashlight cut through the darkness of the park, illuminating the place where we had stopped to rest just minutes before.

“Where's your friend?” the driver demanded in a loud voice. “We know she has to be here somewhere.” Guess they weren’t paying as much attention to this side of the road as I had originally assumed. Not that it mattered anymore.

“She's not,” Jake responded quickly, harshly. “We split up—she headed to the other side of the neighborhood through Yulin Avenue.”

I almost wished he would yell something to me before they took him away—a promise to see me again, reiteration of the directions, an apology, anything. But no, he said nothing more; he wouldn’t betray me like that.

Silence followed his claim, before the gruff voice grunted again, “Get in the car.”

I wanted to cry when the car door closed and the flashlight's beam disappeared from the park's grass. Sure, I was safe, and would be able to continue to the base, but my partner was gone. The loneliness of his absence wiped my mind blank, made me forget about the directions momentarily, reduced me to shock so deep that all I could do was lay there helplessly. The ache in my chest swelled, but for a completely different reason than before.

Self-sacrifice is a stupid idea, I decided bitterly as the grass poked at my skin, waking me up. The directions flooded back, and I settled firmly on the necessity of moving forward, already getting to my feet to continue on my own. No matter what, I had to get back to the base. I had limited time to reach the base, and losing wasn't an option now that Jake had already been captured.

I ran up the hill and though the bushes, continuing faster than ever now that Jake had sidetracked the white car from patrolling the street. In a state of numb desperation I raced for the tunnel, jumping over bushes and hiding behind trees whenever headlights appeared in my peripheral vision. There were no guarantees that Jake had succeeded in distracting them for very long.

I reached the main road and finally stopped running on my toes, the need to quiet the gravel ceasing to be an issue with the roar of cars tearing by. It was hard to think that while I was fleeing, escaping, they were continuing on their own business, oblivious to the perilous thrill of the hunted. I still ducked behind bushes occasionally, but it was an infrequent action now, more habit than anything else. The white car and its occupants could very well see me, but they couldn't exactly stop in the middle of traffic to retrieve me.

            After a few minutes of walking, catching my breath, I located the tunnel Jake was talking about. It dipped down below the street, identifiable only by the light green bar that kept pedestrians from falling down the small cliff-like slope. I skipped down the sidewalk and into the tunnel—a plain path wide enough for a golf cart, lined with ribbed metal and echoing of the engines above. Small lamps hanging from the highest point of the tunnel illuminated the grimy floor, dirty from the rain residue and footsteps of grade-schoolers.

            Here, at least, I was safe from prying eyes. But I didn't linger, because without Jake's comforting presence, the tunnel wasn't an escape so much as the ideal place for a murder. My mind, already worn out from the constant strain of capture, played tricks on me. Every moving shadow on the opposite end of the tunnel was a predator lurking in wait, every echo of footsteps a killer sneaking up behind me. I almost celebrated when I reached the end of the six-lane tunnel and skittered back into the almost-darkness of the decorative trees.

But now I was in plain view again. Though I stuck to the darkness surrounding the stucco wall, I knew I was quite visible, my dark clothes creating a black-on-white effect. I didn't want to run anymore—my legs throbbed after the leisurely pace I took through the tunnel—but knew that since I was so close to the base, it would be stupid not to give 110%. For Jake.

When I finally reached a hidden pathway that led right into a cul-de-sac of a new neighborhood, I let my guard down. I was in the home run—less than a three-minutes jog from the base. I could do this.

As I started to run, a car turned the corner and headlights flooded my vision.