Page 60 of Runner 13

Adrienne

I don’t know how I manage it, but I land on the trail.

Somehow my feet find purchase and my hands clasp the dirt, even though pain is rattling my skull.

I glance down and see a rip in my shirt where the bullet has grazed my upper arm.

It burns like my arm’s been engulfed in fire.

The fact that I’ve been shot at barely registers – the thought is too ludicrous, too outrageous for my brain to comprehend.

But I do know that I am alive. My heart is still beating.

My lungs are still sucking in air. And that means my work isn’t finished yet.

I’m not dead. But I’m not safe either.

I hear another sound, like a series of clicks, then a roar of frustration. In the next second the gun hits the ground beside me – missing me by inches – and pings off the edge of the drop.

Then he’s running after me.

I force myself to stand. The trail is barely wide enough for my foot.

I realize my only chance for survival is to force him to slow down, so I rely once again on my balance and comfort with exposure to choose a precarious line on the ridge, where the risk of loose stones and unstable ground is much higher.

If he wants me, he’s going to have to come after me.

I keep my steps as quick and light as possible, bouncing from rock to rock. He’s following me, not even breaking a sweat. He looks experienced on this terrain as well. Sure-footed. Fearless. And there’s a determination in his eyes – a desperation – that is terrifying.

I’m desperate too. The trail is nothing but scree now, sliding and crumbling beneath my weight.

I drop down on to a lower section of the jebel, thinking I’ll be protected from the wind and can perhaps lose him amongst the boulders.

My feet keep moving but my eyes are focused on the path ahead, making a hundred micro decisions in a split second about where to place my feet and my good hand. My other arm is limp.

That’s why it doesn’t take me long to realize I’ve made a terrible mistake. There is no more trail. There’s nowhere for me to go. I edge out along the cliffside, my body clinging to the rock, but there’s no escape route.

No holds to grip.

No way to drop safely.

And now I can’t turn back.

He laughs as he looks at me, splayed like a fly caught in his web. ‘What did you think was going to happen?’ He starts to head back the other way.

He’s going to leave me to my fate.

I can’t let him go and finish the job with Rupert. I have to keep him near me. ‘Steve, why are you doing this?’ I shout.

He hears me and stops, turning his head a quarter of the way back. ‘Oh, so you recognize me?’

‘Rupert told me who you are. What you’ve survived. It’s amazing.’

‘Nothing you can say will change your fate, Adrienne, but I’ll take the compliment.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘You haven’t figured it out yet? This is part of Boones’s plan. I am his ultimate race! It’s me! The prize money is mine if none of you finish, just as it should have been mine for Long & Windy.’

My fingers shift along the cliff wall, my toes cramping up.

I don’t know if I’m going to be able to cling on for much longer.

I have to escape. This can’t be it. ‘What happened?’ I ask, trying to keep my tone light.

Keep him talking. I need time to figure this out – and it’s the one thing I’m rapidly running out of.

But he doesn’t respond.

‘What, you knew you couldn’t beat him so you faked your death?’

That riles him. ‘Fucking Rupert. “King of the Ampersands”? What a joke. I was the original Booneshound. I know everything about these damn races. I was prepared for any surprise, any eventuality. I was set to be the first winner of Long & Windy. All of what he has – the fame, the money, the glory, that place in history – they were supposed to be mine. Would have been mine. But then I fell. Destroyed my ankle. Got so much metal in my leg now it might as well be bionic.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘I couldn’t take the shame of it. No one remembers a DNF, do they?

Might as well be dead. Steve Parsons died that day and Dale Parker was born.

That’s who I became when I eventually crawled out of Alaska.

’ He slaps his hands together, and the sound resounds like a crack.

It makes me jump, dislodging even more of the path (if you can even call it that) beneath my feet.

I readjust by shimmying even closer to the wall and in doing so nudge my arm, which results in another starry explosion of pain.

‘Then Boones gave me another chance. He contacted me through the Booneshound forum. Told me it was time for his ultimate race. He needed someone who would be willing to go the distance. Obviously, I jumped at the chance. If I prevented all of you from finishing, then the money would be mine. Not only that, but the Ampersand races would be mine. I’d be the true King of the Ampersands – because I would be the next Boones.

I just needed to find a way to pick you off one by one. ’

The realization doesn’t dawn – it blasts me in the face with its heat and light. ‘Nabil … that was you?’

His expression falters, the barest flicker of humanity. Maybe I can play on that.

‘That wasn’t supposed to happen. They were supposed to discover illegal items in his bag, disqualify him like Farouk.

I put the sedatives in your water. Just enough to knock you out.

You weren’t supposed to share it.’ He shakes his head, then seems to find his nerve again.

‘I thought maybe what happened to Jason would be enough to scare you all off. But Boones brought you all back into his plan. And then definitely after Nabil’s death – who would keep on running?

I even called in to that damn podcast to try and drum up some fear.

But stopping wasn’t even a consideration for you, was it?

So why should I consider it either? After that, you all fell like fucking dominos.

Some of you made it easy, of course. Fucked yourselves up or dropped out of your own volition.

When he realized I was responsible for Nabil’s death, Boones tried to stop me after he set you all off.

Told me I’d gone too far. Can you believe that?

He’s supposed to be this puppetmaster, the mastermind behind the world’s toughest ultramarathons.

He didn’t even have the stomach to see his own plan through to the end.

He tried to shoot me! Stupid old man. So I had to shoot him instead.

Good thing I got his conditions in writing from a lawyer.

It’s watertight. I’ll blame all the deaths on that ex-con he brought out here and then the prize money and the races will all be mine.

’ He pauses then, blinking. ‘I did it.’ His voice is softer.

I don’t have to strain to hear, though. The wind carries his every word right to me. ‘I won.’

He spins on his heels, walks away.

Right then, my foot plants against ground that feels more solid. Enough to give me the boost I need to nip up the way I came – back to the top of the ridge.

I run now. Faster than I’ve ever run before.

I hear a roar behind me then, something primal and so dark it sends a bolt of terror through me.

He closes the gap between us in a couple of strides.

I jump to the next boulder but he snatches at my bullet-grazed arm and the jolt of pain as his fingers press against my wound makes my knees buckle, my weight colliding with the jebel.

He has the sleeve of my shirt in his hand, holding me up awkwardly.

I kick my legs out, trying to free myself from his grasp.

This is it.

The moment he kills me. I see it in his eyes.

‘Wait!’ I cry out, half strangled by the neck of my running shirt. My foot lodges between the boulder and the solid rock of the jebel. ‘You don’t have to do this.’

He grimaces in response, knowing I’m playing games with him. Trying to get him to talk. He’s not going to take the bait.

‘Of course I do. If I know anything about you, it’s that you don’t bloody quit.’

The pressure from my leg is enough. The boulder we’re standing on begins to move. It slides. He lets go of me to stabilize himself. But I kick harder. Push with all my might. The rock gathers speed, heading towards the cliff edge – the man with it.

Yet I am sliding too.

We’re both going down.

It’s my feet that save me. My ability to stay up, to keep moving, to run .

Momentum is in my favour. I manage to launch myself forward on to more solid rock.

I turn round just in time to see his expression.

The realization of what is about to happen to him.

He tries to run too, out of instinct. But something happens to him – to his ankle.

It folds, crumples, his leg collapsing beneath him.

I think I might be hallucinating, but it’s as if I see a thousand expressions cross his face in a single moment. Every permutation of anger, disbelief, sorrow and then – at the very last – fear. He reaches out his hand to me.

He looks like a boy then. Helpless. Small. Terrified.

I throw out my hand.

Our fingers brush. But it’s too late. The boulder gains momentum and he’s dragged down with it, off the edge and down towards the sand.

I scream.

There’s a crack as he lands. I wait there, my breath ragged, my eyes shut. Hoping this is all a terrible dream.

But it isn’t. It’s real. I creep towards the edge, daring to look over, but he’s so small from up here. I can’t tell if he’s moving. But he is hundreds of feet down and his body is bent at an unnatural angle. Even if he is somehow alive, he’s not getting back up here in a hurry.

It’s over.

I crawl back to Rupert and, willing my trembling hands to work, tear strips off the bottom of my T-shirt, using them to wrap round the wound on his leg. I press the buttons on his emergency beacon. I need to get him down.

My arm is throbbing, but I support him with my other side.

He moans.

‘Rupert, it’s Adrienne.’ I talk to steady him, to steady myself. ‘We’re not going to die today. It’s not our time. We’re going to finish this.’