“Lily…” I began, my voice breaking, raising my hands. “That man… he has photos. He says you…”
Lily looked over my shoulder, towards the office door where the man was appearing, with blood running down his face.
Lily’s expression changed in an instant. The confusion vanished. The girl disappeared. The coldness returned, more intense than ever.
He raised the gun. He didn’t point it at me. He pointed it over my shoulder, directly at the neighbor’s head.
“I told you not to go near my mother,” Lily said, with terrifying calm.
“Subject 1, put the weapon down,” the man said, panting, leaning against the doorframe. “This is a deviation from protocol. You must eliminate the link, not the observer.”
“The protocol has changed,” she replied.
—Lily, no!—I yelled, throwing myself towards her to cover her line of fire.
“Mom, move it!” she bellowed, a military order.
—I won’t let you kill anyone!
In that moment of chaos, the sound of real sirens began to wail in the distance. Someone else had called the real police. Probably Mrs. Greene.
The man from number 42 smiled through bloody teeth. “Time’s up, Lily. The cleanup crew will be here in three minutes. If you kill me, they’ll kill you all. If you leave now, you might survive.”
Lily hesitated. Her hand trembled slightly. She looked at her friends, then at me, and finally at the man.
“This isn’t over,” he whispered.
He lowered the weapon, grabbed my arm with surprising strength, and pulled me toward the broken door.
“Let’s go! Everyone!” he shouted to his band.
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” I protested, digging my heels in. “We have to wait for the police!”
Lily turned to me. Her eyes were a storm of conflicting emotions, but for the first time, I saw a tear run down her cheek, wiping away a smudge of dirt.
“Mom, please,” she begged, her voice breaking. “The police aren’t the police. They work for him. If we stay here, we’re dead. You have to trust me. Please.”
I looked at my daughter. I looked at the gun in her hand, the gang of armed teenagers behind her, and the bleeding man in the hallway who looked at us with the satisfaction of a scientist watching his lab rats run through the maze.
The sirens were already on the corner.
I had to make a decision. Believe in the system that was supposed to protect us, or believe in the little girl I had raised, who had now become a dangerous stranger, but who was offering me her hand.
I heard the screech of tires screeching to a halt in front of the house. Car doors opening. Heavy footsteps running toward us. They didn’t sound like neighborhood cops. They sounded like an army.
“I trust you,” I said.
Lily nodded, angrily wiping away her tear.
—Run—he ordered.
And we ran. We jumped out the broken window, across the backyard, over the neighbors’ fences, and plunged into the woods bordering the suburb, leaving behind my quiet life, my spotless house, and everything I thought I knew about the world. As branches whipped at my face and I gasped for breath, I could only think of one thing:
My daughter wasn’t skipping school. My daughter was at war. And I had just been drafted.
The woods behind our neighborhood weren’t deep, but that night they seemed endless. The bare autumn branches lashed at us like invisible whips, and the ground, covered in dead leaves and dampness, threatened to make us slip with every step.
“This way!” Lily whispered, pulling on my hand. Her grip was firm, lacking the nervous sweat that I had.
Behind us, the voices of the men who had gotten out of the black cars barked short, precise orders. They weren’t shouting. There was no chaos in their pursuit, only predatory efficiency. The beams of their tactical flashlights cut through the darkness, sweeping across tree trunks, drawing ever closer.
“Lily, I can’t…” I gasped, feeling a sharp pain in my side. My office shoes weren’t made for this.
“You have to be able to do this, Mom. If they catch us, we’re gone. Literally.” She paused for a second behind a thick oak tree and looked me in the eye. In the dimness, her pupils were dilated, absorbing all the available light. “Leo and Sarah have split up toward the stream to draw them away. We’re going to the old mill.”
—To the mill? That’s a dead end.
“Not if you know what’s underneath,” she said, and resumed running.
We ran for what felt like hours, though it was probably only ten minutes of pure terror. The sound of our pursuers’ heavy boots began to fade slightly to the west, following the other kids’ false trail. I silently prayed that Leo and Sarah were as fast as they looked.
We arrived at the ruins of the old watermill, a graffiti-covered stone structure on the edge of the village. Lily didn’t head for the main entrance. She went over to a pile of rubble at the back, pushed aside an old, rusty metal sheet, and revealed a dark alcove.
—Inside. Quickly.
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