Chapter 214: JUNGLE?
Outside, Erika couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The heavy green leaves and tall trees and water left her stupefied. "Is this a forest or a jungle?" She asked herself. She had been kidnapped for 2 weeks already and throughout all that time, she believed that they were probably in some remote place but not only was this a remote place, but it was also completely forgotten and no one would even think or believe that a huge mansion was built there.
It was nearing dark already and Erika couldn’t see things clearly anymore. "I need to move further away from the mansion," she mumbled under her breath as she continued her steps. "When everything becomes too dark for me to see, I will climb a tree," she added since climbing trees was one of the ways she was confusing her kidnappers from years ago.
The water from the river looked clean but she was far from being thirsty. The only goal in her mind was to successfully escape from the mansion and also from Adrian. That ex-husband of hers had been dreaming too much lately and so was his wife.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of a tweak breaking and instinctively, she raised the gun and pointed it in that direction. She walked towards the direction to find out what could be behind the tree and a white bunny suddenly popped out.
Erika could tell it was a bunny from its two pairs of teeth that stuck out. She crouched down and petted the head of the bunny and mumbled, "I wish I could take you home with me but I need to get out of here first." Without another word, she grabbed the gun and started walking away.
After taking some turns, Erika came to realize that she had been walking for quite some time now but still hadn’t reached the main road. "Where the hell is this place?" She asked herself as she continued to walk. Suddenly she heard voices,
"You go to the left and you to the right, the rest follow me," the person ordered. Her voice was faint, meaning that they were still a bit far from her and she needed to hasten up.
Running now, Erika searched for a tree since it was already getting darker. If she climbs a tree then those people wouldn’t be able to find her and she could stay there for the rest of the night and once it’s day again, she can continue.
After finding the perfect tree which was taller than the rest and a little harder to climb since there were only a few branches that grew from it, Erika hung the gun around her waist and started climbing.
Thankfully for her height which helped her arms to be able to grab the nearest branch, Erika was able to reach the top of the tree successfully while acquiring a few injuries here and there.
"I hope there are no snakes or poisonous bugs here," she hoped as she leaned towards the three to completely hide herself. Now she could see everything and everyone but no one could see her.
Erika watched as Adrian and his men walked reached the place where she had found the bunny earlier before she heard his question,
"Have you found her yet?"
"No boss," the man beside him responded.
Adrian hissed before he remarked, "Erika is smart and fast but she must be around here somewhere. She’s using foot so she must not have gone too far. Make sure you search every nook and cranny repeatedly before reporting to me. Do you hear me?!"
"Yes, boss!" The bodyguards replied in unison.
On top of the tree, Erika glared at Adrian’s figure and an idea popped into her head. She reached for the gun and pointed it towards Adrian. "If I can kill him, I’m sure that everything will be over," she mumbled to herself. "But if I make a mistake and miss, they will know I’m up here," she added with worry. A lot of men were standing by Adrian’s side and if she was to fire the gun, she would draw attention to herself, and the worst of all, there were many of them and she couldn’t fight them all by herself.
With a hiss, Erika dropped the gun. She needed to escape from here and killing Adrian could come right after.
Up in the tree, she watched Adrian and his men scatter some more, still trying to look for her but unbeknownst to them, she was up in the tree, looking down on them.
"Search everywhere!" Adrian demanded. He moved the flashlight that he held in his hand around the whole forest, looking everywhere but he couldn’t find anything helpful.
He flashed the lights up in the trees, and Erika skipped a beat again out of fear. You’d better not search the trees, she thought to herself.
"Search the trees too," he ordered as if he read through Erika’s mind and the men beside him glanced at each other.
"But boss, the trees are so high," one of them said.
"And so what?! Are you saying you can’t climb?" Adrian questioned him with a glare.
One of the men who spoke gulped down his saliva before he responded, "It’s not that boss. I just think that Miss is a woman and she probably doesn’t know anything about climbing. The trees are very high and one would need to acquire some skills to be able to climb them."
From where Erika watched them, she could only hope that Adrian would listen to that man and not make them search the trees also. Although the one she was hiding in was the tallest among them all, Adrian could still order them to climb it since he suspected that she would be hiding in one of them.
She heard him speak with an agitated tone,
"You are simply making excuses. I want you people to search the trees also. She could be hiding in either one of them."
