I gave them both my love, my loyalty . . . my devotion. I was there when they needed me. And they’d done that to me as if I meant nothing to them.
Their betrayal scorched my veins.
I came to a sharp rise as every muscle in my legs screamed. My throat seized and thinned to a pinhead. Each breath came in and out with a pitiful whine. My eyes burned. The forest path blurred. I pushed on, chest heaving, muscles burning, heart breaking, until I reached the top of the incline. The sharp claws, which had clutched me relentlessly over the past few days, ripped, pulling and tearing at my heart until the torment overwhelmed me. My legs buckled. Sharp rocks sunk into my knees, but I barely registered it; there was no pain more powerful than the silent agony of a screaming heart.
I cupped my hands over my face and began to sob. Deep, gut-wrenching, ugly sobs.
The whole world seemed to darken and fall away. The birds fell silent. The trees stopped moving as if they, too, were caught in the depths of my despair. All that surrounded me was pain and a terrible emptiness. A feeling of isolation so deep I may as well have been sealed inside a coffin, lowered into the ground, and covered by six feet of heavy, dank soil.
I’m not sure how long I stayed there, sobbing. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been an hour—there was no way of telling—but slowly the world trickled back in. My sobs dimmed, then finally ceased. I drew in a deep, agonized breath, drained of energy, and rubbed my hands over my weary face, telling myself to get it together.
I felt it first—the energy of the stare. A shiver of inexplicable dread crawled over the nape of my neck. I jerked my head up, scanning the climbing sea of trees and rocks. Nothing out of place, nothing of concern.
And yet... I felt it. That terrible sensation of being watched.
Forests were normally a place of sanctuary for me, but suddenly this one had become as vaguely disconcerting as a New Orleans cemetery. Lurking, hidden amongst the trees was . . . what? Not the dead—the dead didn’t lurk. Maybe I was being paranoid?
Regardless, I fumbled for my phone, my fingers hot and sweaty as I yanked at the zip of my pocket and pulled it out. I glanced down at the screen. It stared back blankly, devoid of bars. I clutched it in my palm and stared hard into the wilderness.
I tried to tell myself it was just my imagination, it had always been vivid; alongside being able to recall events with detailed precision, I could also conjure up all kinds of hallucinations.
Always at night. Always in the dark.
Never in broad daylight. I was being foolish—there was nothing there.
Christ, get it together, Amy.
I placed my phone back in my pocket and wiped my sweaty palms on my leggings.
Ahead. A dark blur of movement.
A thought rammed through my mind:Shadow Man.
I tried not to panic. It was just a dream, not a premonition, if there even was such a thing. It was probably a deer, or a bird. I squinted into the shadowy depths of the woods. I could make out something. Something deeper than the shadows.
Something jet black.
My heart stuttered. My eyes bulged. I’d read somewhere that in times of terror, human eyes actually bulged to allow for a wider, lighter visual field. I strained to get a better look. The shadowy outline pulled into focus.
The image landed like a sledgehammer.
A wolf. A gigantic fuckingwolf.
Horror overwhelmed me.
Oh shit, shit, shit.
The missing faces on the board . . .
I’d heard stories of injured hikers attacked by hungry wolves, although it was extraordinarily rare. They were timid creatures by nature. They traveled in packs, so where there was one, there would be more, and if they were to circle me, I was down, defenseless. I realized my knees were bleeding with a sudden flare of panic. The blood had trickled out onto the gray boulder I had dropped on. The scent was probably what drew him, even though there wasn’t much. I considered trying to rise and shout to scare him off, but maybe if he saw me as a threat he’d switch to aggression. With a wolf that size, I’d hold no hope of fighting him off. I could lower my body in submission, but he mightattack. My mind scrambled with what to do. When no answers were forthcoming, I sat there frozen, mute, and terrified.
There was something strange about his eyes. They were amber and seemed to shine, and the way he looked at me was as if he held some kind of awareness, an understanding that belied his feral nature. It was an absurd notion?—
I noted with relief that his tail was low, not high, as was often a sign of aggression. The hair on his back was flat, and he wasn’t snarling. He didn’t move. His golden eyes held me transfixed. Strangely, the fear slowly trickled out of my bloodstream. We stared at each other for a long moment. He continued to regard me with reserved interest... or was it the appraising of a future snack? Maybe he was waiting for me to move, so he could chase down his prey.
Because I couldn’t think of anything to do that wouldn’t elicit my demise, I said in a wavering, low voice, “Hey there, boy.”
He stiffened. My heart stopped.
