30. A runaway carriage

Crystal Allen

My father's facial expression was so terrified when he saw me in those criminal conditions that for a moment he couldn't move or react, and I couldn't either. His face was covered with such sadness and disappointment that I almost couldn't look at him, remorse finally catching up with me because that man was still my father despite everything. "Why are you doing this?" He asked quietly and with a completely devastated expression, but I decided to take advantage of the moment of his sudden shock to react quickly.

I turned against my father, entering the pipe inside the wall, which was the path I had taken to reach my father's office, and then I quickly slid my body down, where I ended up falling carelessly and with my bag heavy for having so much wealth. Inside, it fell over me with everything. "Outch!" I screamed in pain when I felt my back hurt from the big fall, but I didn't have time to dwell on the pain; I was running away. So I quickly crawled to the secret door, where I hit it with my foot, using force to open it. The door gave way with three kicks from me, and then I slipped my body out and ran through the garden, not caring anymore whether I was under the moonlight or covered in the shadows; the heavy bag on my shoulder made it difficult for me to move. My heart was pounding so hard in my rib cage, and the wall of the Allen property seemed to get further away with every step I took towards it.

"Come quickly. The guards have already been called!" Ansel warned me when he was almost on top of the wall, with one arm resting on the platform to hold on and the other arm reaching towards me, so he could give me a hand and help me escape. It was true that a certain commotion was beginning to form in the mansion; lights were turning on, voices were shouting in warning, and they were certainly all coming after me.

But I managed to reach Ansel's hand before the guards and my father caught me, so Ansel practically pulled me up and jumped with me to the other side of the wall. "Let's go!" He was agile at holding the bag of money and took my hand, running so fast that I was practically not using my strength to move since he was pulling me so fast as he ran. He almost ripped off the door of the escape carriage, throwing the bag inside and telling me to climb inside with his hands on my waist, hoisting me inside, and then he grabbed the horse's reins and made them run out of the street onto the deserted road. Furthermore, he shouted at the horses, pulling the reins hard to encourage them to run faster, so the carriage was as fast as a hurricane, I even had to hold myself inside, so I wouldn't run into the walls of the carriage.

I looked through the rear window of the vehicle to see if we were being followed. At first, I was calm when I noticed that the road was completely deserted and there was no sign and no one following us, but suddenly two carriages appeared around the curve of the road at such a high speed that they would catch up to us at any moment. "Go faster, Ansel; they're almost catching up to us!" I shouted at him to go faster.

"Holy shit, damn it!" He screamed when he realized that what I had warned him was true. "Gallop faster, you slug sons of bitches!" I could now hear the sound of the whip cracking and the horses neighing loudly indicating clearly that Ansel was whipping the horses to go faster. I gripped the upholstered seat of the carriage with an apprehensive heart, I couldn't even imagine what my father would do to me if he caught me, he would certainly declare me a traitor and have me flogged in public, perhaps he would even kill me, but with Ansel, I had no doubt that my fatherwould kill, so I was afraid for his life.

"Faster, they're almost catching up to us!" I screamed in complete panic. It was barely possible to see anything because of the pitch black and the dirt road with bumps on which we were passing, and Ansel's act of whipping the horses only served to make them scared and the horses ended up panicking, so the carriage at high speed collided with theThere were holes without any care, making me jump on the seat inside the carriage. "Ansel, argh!" I screamed in terror, trying to hold on as much as possible to the carriage that felt like it was going to roll over at any moment.

"Hold on, we're going to hit!" He shouted, and with that said a thump was heard and my body was pulled violently forward by inertia, ending up colliding with the carriage wall so hard that my whole body cried from the shock. For a moment everything was silent when I blacked out, but the feeling that we had gotten ourselves into big trouble never left me.