Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller by Daniel Hurst (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

Or am I the only sane person in this marriage right now?

I’m expecting some kind of protest from Adam. Perhaps a referral to Samuel again and about how hard it will be for me to raise him if Adam is in prison. Or maybe a plea for help and about how scared he is to be punished for one stupid mistake. But I get none of that. Instead, my husband nods his head and starts the engine.

‘You’re right,’ he says as he puts the car into reverse. ‘Let’s go home.’

I’m surprised by his agreement, but I need something more from him.

‘No,’ I say, putting my hand on his leg to show that I’m on his side even though it isn’t going to seem like it when I finish my sentence. ‘Let’s go to the police station.’

7

LAURA

Maybe this is my fault for being a bad wife. Maybe I should have just gone along with the plan like Adam suggested. Maybe I wouldn’t be in this mess now if I had just kept my mouth shut.

Or maybe this was always going to happen, and now I’m trapped.

I had been surprised by how little Adam had protested when I had told him to drive to the police station, but it had soon become clear that he wasn’t just going to hand himself in as easily as that. We had been about five minutes away from the station when Adam had suddenly taken a sharp left turn and headed for the back roads into the countryside.

I begged him to stop. I told him to think of Samuel. I even threatened to leave him if he kept going. But he didn’t listen to me. He just kept driving, by which point we were going so fast that I didn’t dare to try and get him to stop by grabbing the wheel or hitting his body.

Now we have left the suburbs of Carlisle and are heading into the countryside, and I fear that the time for going to the police isn’t the only thing that has passed us by.

I fear that my chance to escape may have passed too.

‘Adam, you’re scaring me,’ I say as our car approaches a bend and slows down a little. I’d been too terrified to speak for the last few minutes as we drove out of fear of Adam becoming even more distressed and veering into the stone walls beside us. I don’t like to think that my husband would become so desperate to avoid prison as to be willing to sacrifice himself and his family, but I can’t risk it. Before tonight I wouldn’t have thought that my husband was capable of drink driving and fleeing the scene of a crime, so how do I know what is really going on inside his head? But now we are going a little slower, so I feel slightly more confident to speak.

‘Adam, I love you, but you’re only thinking of yourself,’ I say after he has ignored my first words in a while. ‘Think of me and Samuel too. What will happen to us if we keep running? I’ll be just as guilty as you are, and our boy will grow up without parents when we get caught.’

‘If we get caught,’ Adam replies, a little too confidently for my liking. He seems to be completely focused on where we are going and not on what we are leaving behind, which is terrifying because I’m thinking the opposite.

I don’t care where we are going.

I care about what we are losing to get there.

Not for the first time since this car journey began, I regret stopping my husband from calling the police when he had the phone in his hand. If only I had left him to make the call, then none of this would be happening now. Yes, the police would have come to the house, and yes, they probably would have taken Adam away in handcuffs, but at least Samuel and I would be safe and then we could have figured things out from there. Maybe Adam would have got a good lawyer, and maybe his sentence could have been shortened so that he wouldn’t have been away from us for too long.

So what if we had to move out of our house and go into some tiny flat while he was inside? I would have stood by Adam regardless, because it was an accident, and he is still a good man who had just made a mistake. Hundreds of people drink drive every day, and as wrong as it is, nearly all of them get away with it without incident. Adam had just been one of those who hadn’t, and it was a harsh lesson to learn, but it was one he needed to be punished for because it was a mistake all the same. But it doesn’t make him a bad person, and it didn’t have to spell the end for our family. But now we have fled, and I fear that everything that is going to happen from here on out is going to be much worse for us than if we had stayed and faced the music.

‘I can’t believe that you would put me and the baby through this,’ I say, trying to appeal to his sensitive nature. But he fires back with his own accusation.

‘I can’t believe that you would agree to run with me and then change your mind. I was willing to call the police, remember. You stopped me.’

‘I know I did, but it was a mistake.’

‘It’s a little late to say that now.’

‘No, it’s not. Just turn the car around, and we can go home. Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe they won’t see your car on the CCTV, and they will never know it was you.’

‘That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one facing a prison sentence.’

‘I am if we keep going!’

‘Why can’t you see that this is the best thing for our family?’ Adam asks me, taking his