Reset

She quickly stood up and paced the room before grabbing her coat and keys and walking down the corridor, as she approached the doors to the Sheriff’s station she heard a noise and immediately she was on full alert. She pressed her back up to the wall and crept down the darkened corridor as she realised the sound was coming from outside. Once she was at the glass doors to the station she peaked around the corner to see someone in a dark hoodie spray painting the outside wall.

“Hey!” Emma shouted as she sprung from the station quickly.

The shock of her appearance caused the hood to fall and she quickly realised it was a boy in his early teens but as soon as she realised that he took off running. She knew she would lose him by the time she got in the car so she decided to chase him on foot and quickly followed him down an alleyway and over a chain link fence. He’d had a reasonable head start and used it to his advantage by quickly weaving in and out of people’s gardens and across alleyways that Emma hardly knew but she kept him in sight all the way.

Suddenly they were on the edge of town and Emma was worried he would head for the woods and she didn’t want the teenager to go running in there on his own, “wait,” she shouted through panting breaths but he ignored her. He speed up and headed towards the condemned apartment block, “no, it’s not safe!” Emma shouted after him.

The teen jumped over the police tape and then leapt up and through the plastic sheeting into the building site. Emma stopped by the police tape, not wanting to push him, “look, I’m not going to arrest you, you have to come out, it’s dangerous!”

She could hear the sound of the teen moving around in the building site and but she couldn’t see anything in the muted darkness, her only light was the moon and that wasn’t helping much so she used the small torch that was attached to her keys to illuminate the site.

A crack and a creaking noise came from the building and she held her breath as if that would help to steady the structure, “you need to stop moving,” Emma called out.

She waited quietly whilst peering into the darkness in the hope that she would hear or see something but suddenly she heard more movement inside followed by a low rumbling sound suddenly she heard the boy shout out in pain. She lifted the police tape and ran towards the area where she’d last heard noise.

“Help, please!”

Emma focused on the cries for help and lifted up a piece of plastic sheeting and climbed into the building site. In front of her she could see that a large chunk of concrete, about the size of her Bug had fallen into a sinkhole underneath the concrete foundation and the teen was holding onto a crumbling piece of concrete on the edge of the whole, his legs dangling over the edge.

“Please help me,” he whispered to her in terror.

“Hold on,” she said calmly as she edged her way around the hole and knelt down and reached forward for his hand. She could hear the underground stream that Doc had mentioned, the water was rushing below her and although she couldn’t see it in the darkness of the hole she knew the current must be strong.

He was struggling to reach for her outstretched hand and she leaned forward some more and managed to grasp his fingers, with an extra push she caught his hand and pulled him up. When he was halfway up he started to run to get away from the hole and it caused the crumbling concrete to give way.

“Stop!” Emma cried but he wouldn’t and pulled harder on her wrist to keep from falling. Suddenly she was pitching forward and he grabbed at her arm to pull himself to safety while she slide onto the unstable concrete that was beginning to crumble into the hole.

With their positions reversed Emma gripped onto the concrete that was rapidly disappearing from under her fingers and she looked at the boy with beseeching eyes, “please,” she whispered as she slipped a bit further into the gap.

The boy stood by the hole and looked at her, “I’m sorry, if my dad finds out that I’m in trouble with the police he’ll beat me again,” he took a shaky step back.

“Please,” Emma begged but he turned and ran, the heavy footstep causing the already unstable concrete to crack and the lifeline that Emma was holding on to fell away from the rest of the structure and she fell into the darkness.

Chapter 29

“Come on, Henry, time for school,” Ruby knocked on Henry’s bedroom door and then muttered, “and work..”

Henry opened the door and stood before the brunette in his school uniform with his rucksack on his back, fully ready for the day ahead.

“Whoa,” Ruby laughed, “keen much?”

Henry shrugged, “I couldn’t sleep.. where’s Emma?”

Ruby walked with him into the living room and started to gather her things, “she’s not called so I assume she’s in the middle of something, breakfast at Granny’s?”

Henry narrowed his eyes at her, “you’re not telling me something..”

“What makes you say that?” Ruby asked nervously.