He looks terrifying like this—broad-shouldered, black coat, balaclava hiding his face, only his eyes visible. Brown, beautiful, and dangerous. My chest aches just looking at him.
“I’ll even give you a head start,” he says, glancing at his watch. “Then I’m coming for you.”
I hesitate for half a breath, then take off running.
Miguel’s voice cuts through my heavy breathing as I make it to the tree line. “Four minutes.”
Fuck, this is going to be crazy.
I glance back, chest already rising faster than it should. The snow gives under my boots, deep and soft, slowing me down even when I try to move fast. The trees stretch out ahead like a wall of white and shadow. I shouldn’t look back, but I can’t help it.
Miguel stands in the middle of the yard, head tipped slightly as he watches me struggle through the snow. Calm. Patient. Like a wolf who already knows how to take his prey down.
It’s me.
I’m the prey.
“Three minutes,” he calls. “You’re wasting time looking at me, pretty boy.”
I take off deeper into the woods, snow kicking up behind me. My breath fogs in thick bursts inside my mask, my lungs burning from the cold. Every sound feels amplified—the crunch of my boots, the pound of my pulse, the faint rustle of wind through frozen branches.
Holy crap, this is… terrifying?
No, exhilarating.
I’m scared, but I know he would never hurt me.
I’m cold, but then my blood is on fire.
The cold claws at my cheeks and nose. My legs already ache from the resistance of the snow, but I keep moving, half running, half stumbling deeper into the woods. I can’t see much beyond a few feet—just endless gray and white.
“Two minutes.”
The sound echoes faintly behind me, carried by the wind. My whole body tightens.
I duck behind a thick pine, chest heaving. My fingers are shaking so hard I can barely adjust the balaclava. Pressing my back against the bark and letting out a shaky breath, I tried to listen for anything besides my own heartbeat.
Then I look around the trunk.
Miguel’s moving now—slow, deliberate. He stops, fumbles with something, and then slips the mask over his head. The same black one he used before, the one with the neon blue X’s over the eyes and stitching for the mouth.
It glows bright against the snowy dusk, electric and unreal.
My knees nearly give out. The sight shoots straight to my chest, then lower.
Fuck.
He knows what that does to me.
“Thirty seconds,” he calls, voice distorted slightly by the mask but still deep enough to rattle through the trees.
I turn and bolt.
I am not letting him win so easily. But I’m quickly learning that playing collegiate basketball means dick when it comes to running out in the elements. My stamina sucks ass. Snow kicks up around my knees. My body moves on instinct—ducking low, weaving through the trees.Do I know where the fuck I’m going? Absolutely not.Somewhere up ahead is that old hunting cabin.
Two miles of this.
Every muscle in my body burns, but the adrenaline keeps me moving. My breath rasps against the fabric covering my face, my heart hammering in my throat.
