Run from a Shadow

Casey glanced up as a black sedan pulled to a stop across the street. She held her breath, but let it out again when two men climbed out and started through the picket gate across the road. It was not Keir Jairon. "CORTNEY!" Chenin's voice was no longer singing, but filled with horror. "It is them," she cried to her brother. "It is Bruen!" Cortney's eyes flew in the direction his sister was staring and his glass slipped from his hand. His face went white. "Cortney?" His terrified eyes looked beseechingly up at Casey. "It is them!" he whispered. "The nadarb. They will take us back!" Casey's eyes again flew to the two men. No, three, she realized, for another was exiting the back of the black sedan and joining the others. The two had just reached the door and it would open... There wasn't a moment to lose. "Cortney," she ordered softly, "Get Chenin to the car." The boy didn't waste a moment. He grabbed his sister's hand and ran silently, Casey no more than a step behind them. A startled Karl Banning stared after them. Casey and the two children slipped into her brother's Ford and the engine flew to life instantly. But it was almost too late. The kind lady who had pointed them to Karl Banning was now pointing to them. The three men began to move -- much faster than Casey expected. Casey shifted gears and her brother's car tore away from the curb and down the street. She held her breath as she swerved around the corner, narrowly missing a taxi going in the opposite direction. Almost immediately she turned down another street heading toward the highway, hoping against hope... Hope died as she spotted the black sedan in her rear view mirror. She had acted instinctively, but they had reacted with training. She turned another corner and then sped onto the highway. "T'Casey!" "It's all right, Chenin," she told the child soothingly, surprised at her own calmness for her heart was thumping wildly. "They won't catch us." She glanced again in her rear view mirror. The black sedan was still a half-block behind them, caught behind a slow moving car. Casey used the opportunity to put distance between them knowing full well that shortly the two lane highway would become four lanes then merge into six as it became freeway. She had no conscious idea where she was going, only that she must somehow lose them. Quickly. Instinct told her to stay near the city. It would give her a better opportunity to slip away as long as she avoided the city itself with its mammoth traffic jams. The highway abruptly divided and the two lanes became four. The black sedan shot around the slower car and began to put on speed...more speed than Henry's small Ford was capable of. "They are gaining," Cortney stated tensely. "I know Cortney." Casey's hands tightened around the wheel. She watched as the black sedan slowly gained, her mind racing. The highway had merged into freeway making it harder to escape. Yet, was it possible to use the spaced out off-ramps to her advantage? She would have to time it just right and there would be no room for mistakes.