Fight For Your Life by Catherine Holland (simple e reader txt) 📖

Fight For Your Life

Part Two

Prologue

The plane touched down at the Taos Airport, New Mexico and the four survivors de-boarded and gathered their luggage in the arrivals terminal. None of the teens had managed to get any sleep as they were constantly seeing flashbacks from two months before.
Poppy flicked her long silvery hair over her shoulder and turned to look at Thea and Sean. Thea’s small slender frame was shaking and she was clutching a tissue in her clenched fist. Poppy and Jamie gathered up the luggage and placed them on a trolley, they then wheeled it over to where Thea and Sean were stood. “I can’t stand it Sean, why did they have to die? Why did she have to die? I can still see Rashel’s body parts, and the bus.”
Thea was saying; Sean was trying to comfort her he had one hand on her shoulder and the other on her free hand. “I know Thea, I can still see it as well, and I’m sure Poppy and Jamie can as well. This place is a new start for all of us, the cops back home still have that traitorous bastard Detective and they know his sketch was a fake, they’ll catch this psycho.”
Thea then asked the question they’d all been thinking. “But what if they don’t Sean? What if coming here is a repeat of Ohio all over again?” For this Sean had no answer, and an awkward silence fell over the two teens as they registered Poppy and Jamie’s presence. “It won’t happen again Thea, I can’t guarantee it won’t because anything could happen, but this is New Mexico, and two things I can guarantee you.”
“And what are these two things Poppy?” Thea asked scornfully. Poppy took a deep breath and tried to control the hurt she could feel trying to be the central emotion on her face. “Number one, this psycho doesn’t know where we are or where we’re going, and number two; we are going to prepare ourselves so that in the event of something happening we can protect ourselves.”
Thea, Sean and Jamie gave Poppy skeptical looks and Poppy sighed. “I have a few ideas that I intend to ask these agents about when they get here, but I won’t say anymore about it now in case we’re overheard.” “that’s a point, where are these agents? They were meant to have been here for when we arrived.” Jamie said. The four friends looked around and found themselves astonished that the arrivals terminal was almost empty, save for a few people milling about and a business man reading the local paper.
Sean looked at his watch and sighed, “It’s still early guys, maybe they were delayed or something. How much money do we have on us?” The four friends took out their wallets and counted the cash they on them, in total they had just over two hundred dollars. “What do we do now Sean?” Thea asked, Sean looked around him and said, “We’ll go and get a drink to wake us up, and we’ll give these agents an hour to turn up.”
“And what if they don’t turn up? What then?” Jamie asked, “They have to turn up, because I don’t want to think about what could happen if they don’t.” Poppy replied, she then started to push the trolley over to a cafe and the four friends sat down and ordered mugs of coffee. Two hours later the agents still hadn’t turned up and no announcement had been made, another couple of flights had come and gone, but the teenagers still sat in the same spot as before.
Finally giving up on the agents, the four friends took their luggage off of the trolley and headed outside to the taxi rank where they asked the first driver if he knew of a local and relatively cheap motel. The driver assured them that he did and they stowed their luggage in the boot and then got in the cab. Fifteen minutes later they were standing outside a small but modest motel with a vacancy sign flashing in the window.
As they entered the motel and booked a room with two double beds, they wondered what had happened to the agents who were meant to have met them at the Airport, not knowing that the killer had indeed followed them to New Mexico, or the fact that the two agents had been killed in a car accident on the way to the Airport.


Chapter One

Two Months Later


Poppy had received her inheritance and had bought a large stylish four bed, three bath ranch in a secluded part of Taos, included with the ranch was roughly four hundred acres of beautiful land. Within the first week however a letter arrived, it was just a simple message that read;

I know where you are.

Poppy showed the note to her three friends, among the looks of shock Thea said “I thought you said the killer doesn’t know where we are Poppy? So much for your guarantees.” She had then stormed off to her room, Sean’s eyes had followed Thea out of the room, and he put one comforting hand on Poppy’s shoulder then followed after Thea.
Not being able to stand the disappointed look on Jamie’s face Poppy headed outside onto the porch and sat on the steps with her head in her hands, she felt like quite the failure to her friends. A hand on her shoulder made her look up and she saw Jamie sat beside her, his short black hair gelled and spiked as usual. “Don’t worry about Thea Poppy, she’s just upset.”
Poppy smiled sadly, “Nice try Jamie, but we both know that’s not the case, I’ve let you all down and I know I have, there’s got to be a way to fix this!” Jamie sat in silence for which Poppy as grateful, she had a few ideas floating around in her mind; self defence, moving home, upgrading the security systems. “What are you thinking about?” Jamie asked her. Poppy sighed, “I’m thinking that I could hire someone to teach us self defence, or maybe we should move home or upgrade the security systems, but I doubt any of that will help if the killer knows where we are.”
Jamie stood up and held out his hand, “Come on, we should at least tell Sean and Thea what you’re thinking, that way we can decide as a group of friends.” Poppy nodded and took Jamie’s hand, he then led her inside and they found that Sean had managed to coax Thea from her room. They sat in the lounge in silence for a few minutes then Jamie said, “Poppy has a few ideas on what we should do next, but would like us all to decide as a group as to what they should be and to see if any of us has any ideas of our own.”
Thea snorted but didn’t comment; Sean smiled encouragingly at Poppy as she stood up and said, “What do you all think of having someone come out here and teach us self defence? That way we can be prepared if we’re caught unawares, we also have a lot of land to manoeuvre in and was thinking we could come up with a plan to train ourselves.”
Thea remained silent, but she had a look of concentration on her face, as though she were deep in thought, Sean spoke first, “Well I agree with having someone come out here and teach us how to defend ourselves, and you’re right Poppy we do have a lot of land, I like the idea of turning part of it into a make-shift assault course, to increase our fitness. What do you think Jamie? Thea?”
Thea still remained silent, but Jamie said, “I also like the idea of being able to defend ourselves, and we could have someone come out here and create the assault course for us, all we’d have to is design it. I also think we should hire a personal trainer to make us run for a few miles each day to increase our stamina. Thea? What do you think?”
Thea sighed then sat forwards, “I’ll agree with defending ourselves, but I’m not so sure on the assault course or the personal trainer, there must be other ways to improve stamina and fitness without getting all dirty and sweaty?” Sean gently nudged her, “Afraid of getting dirty? I think you’d look rather hot being all sweaty and dirty.” He joked, Thea smiled and some of the tension left her shoulders. Thea finally laughed and said “OK, yes do it, after all this is aiming to make us safe isn’t it?”
Poppy smiled at her friend and sat back down, relieved that they’d finally agreed on something. Jamie abruptly stood up and said, Sean want to help me with designing the assault course?” Sean grinned and stood up, “Sure, why not?” The two boys left the room laughing and joking with each other, leaving Poppy and Thea alone together in the lounge.
Poppy stood up and moved to sit next to Thea, and then said, “Thea I’m so sorry, I know I made guarantees that the killer wouldn’t find us, and I thought he wouldn’t. I honestly have no idea how he did find us, but I will do everything I can to make us all safe again, I promise.” Thea glanced at her “It’s OK Poppy, I was being a bitch earlier, I know it’s not your fault he found us, in a way I should have expected it.”
“How so?” Poppy asked, Thea replied “It’d only been two months when we were in that safe house in Ohio before the killer found us, I know that we were all betrayed by that prick of a Detective, but it seems like a pattern is emerging here, it seems like we can only be safe for two months before all hell breaks loose.” Poppy thought about the logic in that. “Maybe you’re right, but this time no-one has betrayed us as no-one knows where we are.
“And we’ve all kept tabs on each other to make sure that we stay safe, and now that we have a few extra ways of staying safe being put into action we have a greater chance of surviving this.” Thea nodded and looked at Poppy, for the first time that day Poppy noticed dark circles under Thea’s brown eyes and her blonde hair didn’t have its usual shine. Poppy smoothed away a strand of hair and said, “You’re still having the nightmares aren’t you?”
Thea nodded and leaned into Poppy, “I just keep reliving that last night of camp, the fire, the explosion, Rashel’s body...” Poppy wrapped an arm around Thea’s shoulder and noticed the two pendants hanging from the chain, sorrow filled her heart as she remembered that all Thea had left of her twin sister was the pendant and memories.


Chapter Two

Six Months Later


The killer sat in a four wheel drive vehicle looking through high powered binoculars at the four teenagers sitting on the front porch; he was approximately five miles away from them and his stolen jeep was half hidden in a patch of thick bushes. He’d been watching the teenagers for some months now with a savage gleam