Sweet as Pie Crimes Read Online Free Page B

My 8 th grade biology lesson about cheetahs, the fastest land animals on the planet, lit like a rocket in my mind, driving me to sprint even faster.  I imagined myself as a sleek, graceful cheetah with sunfire fur and raven spots becoming a blur as my speed climbed to inhuman levels.  Distantly, I heard Marcus yelling and cursing behind me, apparently caught off guard by my escape as well as by my wild speed. 
    Nausea crested in my belly and saliva gathered in my mouth as I heard Marcus calling in a broken, breathless voice, “Damn it, Becca! If you knew the whole story, you would never run away! You would want to help me!”
    ***
     
    Several pulse-pounding minutes had passed since I could hear Marcus’s footsteps pursuing me.  My throat was parched, and nausea persisted to stir around in my stomach like cake batter.  But still I ran, afraid that if I stopped  Marcus would catch up to me.  I kept my eyes peeled for a safe haven, someplace where I could hide without the threat of a rapist or murderer finding me before dawn finally broke. 
    I looked up at the sky, wondering when I had ever been so desperate to see the sun shine.  Living south of Seattle, I was used to rainy days and longing for the sun, but never had I so passionately craved the sight of that beautiful starburst in the sky the way I did as I ran like a cheetah.  Without my phone or any timepiece, I could only guess the hour of the night.  The fluttering of birds in nearby trees told me that perhaps sunrise was approaching, but I didn’t want to invest in any false hopes.  So I ran.  And ran.  Over a craggy hill until I thought my lungs would explode.  Down an empty road that turned out to be a dead end.  Back in the other direction that could have been north or south or who really knows.  I just ran.
    After perhaps half an hour, but what felt like beyond eternity, I stopped running because my legs simply wouldn’t take me any further.  My throat was begging for a huge gulp of cold water, but that was a luxury out of my reach.  My lips were chapped, and my breath swept into my lungs in painful spurts.  Lightheaded and disoriented, I looked around me, noting that I had stopped in what appeared to be a residential neighborhood.  Tidy houses in rows stared beckoningly at me, as I considered ringing a doorbell and explaining my crazy story to a stranger.  But that would make me even more vulnerable.  I wasn’t going to put myself at the mercy of another stranger after having just escaped Marcus.
    Bizarrely, his blue eyes flashed in my mind as I recalled his handsome features.  Could he have been telling the truth?  How could such a handsome man be a murderer?  Then I almost slapped myself for being so naïve, thinking of the movie American Psycho in which a gorgeous business man is secretly a serial killer.  Beauty could easily disguise evil, and I silently congratulated myself for not letting Marcus’s rugged good looks fool me.
    Banishing Marcus from my thoughts, I took a second inventory of my surroundings.  Perhaps I couldn’t knock on someone’s door and expect a kind soul to answer, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hide in someone’s backyard.  Tiptoeing past a cluster of forest green shrubs, I found myself next to a metal swing set.  Cringing as my arm hit one of the swings and it creaked loudly in the quiet darkness, I made a beeline for the next backyard, looking around desperately for a place to camouflage myself.  But the yard was empty except for a sprinkler hose and weird garden gnome.  I shivered, musing how anyone could find those ugly statues humorous or charming.  They scared the hell our of me for irrational reasons I couldn’t articulate.
    The next yard I crept into looked slightly more promising.  An elaborate tree house was situated a safe distance from the ranch style home.  Equipped with a wooden ladder and open doorway, the tree house looked like an ideal place for me to hide until morning.