Her toes struggled to grip onto the slimy rocks. Slippers were not the right sort of footwear for this kind of thing, but she hadn't had much of a choice.

She's spotted him through the net curtains, hovering on the doorstep, ready to knock.

Not today, she muttered.

She scurried out of the back door. Leapt the fence. Hadn't realised she could still manage it, but then adrenaline did that to you. She heard the knocking as she dropped over the other side of the fence and into the woods beyond.

RAP RAP RAP.

She scaled the rocks down towards the stream, grabbing onto branches as she went. The smooth soles of her slippers almost letting her down as she navigated across the boulders; the moss.

She heard him calling her name.

MARIA!!

MARIA!!

Shit - he was in the house. She hesitated at the edge of the water. Then with a surge of power she didn't know she had, she jumped.

Maria... in the distance now.

She had no idea how he'd found her.

But there was no way she was letting him win.