“Deeper,” a low, masculine voice in the distance murmurs. “You gotta go deeper than that if you want to get the job done.”
Jesus Christ.There must be a couple who decided to come to the forest and fuck. That explains the panted breaths and weird commentary. I’m not keen to stick around like a peeping tom, so I hurry forward, trying to keep my stride as quiet as possible.
That’s when my foot catches on a rock, and I go tumbling head over foot, getting scraped up by sticks and pebbles before crashing with a loud thud and yelped, “Shit.”
So much for being inconspicuous. I push myself to my hands and knees, letting out a low groan of irritation at the pain radiating through my shoulder. I’m going to have one hell of a bruise tomorrow. I already feel it forming.
“What the fuck was that?” the very same voice who was telling someone to go deeper questions. “Did you hear that? There’s someone out here.”
Another male voice responds, his words too faint for me to discern. The back of my neck prickles with an oncoming sense of danger, giving a chilling warning that something deeply sinister is unfolding.
I didn’t accidentally bypass a couple having sex. No, something darker is going on here. Any time my neck gets this prickling pins-and-needles sensation, it’s always preceded me stumbling headfirst into danger.
The first time was when I was only six.
The last time was when I left my stepfather’s house and got the fuck away from that monster.
I have no interest in landing myself in more trouble, which is precisely why I push to my feet and start hurrying down the mountain. These woods are familiar to me; I’ve navigated them countless times, so I don’t need a trail to guide me. The moon, stars, and my instincts are enough.
The tingling on my neck swiftly morphs to a burn as I hear heavy footfalls following me. Someone,more than one person,is chasing me. My hear trate speeds up, sweat gathers on my brow, and every finely honed instinct I possess tells me that I need to get the hell out of hereimmediately.
The footsteps grow progressively closer, and my breaths quickly turn into pants—I amnota runner. I attempted to join track and field in high school and didn’t make it past tryouts.
“Hey! Stop!” A male voice calls,fartoo close for comfort.
Instead of listening to him, I try to speed up, but it’s futile. A moment later, a hand grabs my arm, and I find myself being ripped backwards with such force my shoulder pops out of its socket. Shooting pain eats through my arm, chest, and evenbackas my body tells me in every way possible that something’s horribly wrong. I bite my lip against the noise of pain that tries to crawl up my throat as I’m promptly tossed to the ground, jarring my shoulder. Agiganticmale form hovers over me. My backpack tumbles a few feet away, out of reach.
Tree-trunk thighs straddle my waist as the man descends. Firm hands pin my arms to my side, and this time, a small whimper does escape me, a product of pain and thetremendousfear that curdles my stomach. I stare, wide-eyed, up into two bright eyes, a peculiar shade of green. Verdant, I think. A flashlight is shined in my face, not by the man straddling me, but by someone else. I squint and turn away from the sudden, blinding light.
“What.The fuck. Are you doing here?” the man above me growls.
“Nothing!” I squeak.
A forearm lands on my throat. No pressure is applied, but the threat is very,veryclear: if I say the wrong thing, this guy will choke me. Then…then, he might bury me along with whoever else he was digging a hole for.
When he told someone to go deeper, it wasn’t sex talk. As well as I know my own name, I know two facts about the man pinning me to the cold forest ground. First of all, he’s a killer. Second of all, I just stumbled on him disposing of a body.
I often wish I didn’t have the intuition I do. It used to break my heart to realize just how many bad people there are in this world. Now,it all feels like more of the same. I’ve accepted that there are no truly good people left—or perhaps they never existed.
Now I’ve been caught by someone who isn’t just a bad person, but a bad person who might kill me. I squeeze my eyes shut, turning my head to the side.
“Hey,” green-eyes snaps. The word isn’t friendly; it’s threatening. “Fuckinglookat me.”
Breath shuddering out of me, I force myself to comply. I slowly pry my eyes open and look into the face of the man who might be the harbinger of my death.
Several things strike me at once. He’s beautiful; the sort of otherworldly masculine beauty that shouldn’t exist, especially not on an individual like this one. The flashlight casts a glow on the side of his face, and it illuminates features that are unreasonably stunning, especially for a killer. Dark sable hair, disheveled from his little run.Glowingverdant eyes that glimmer in the night. Angular chin with a small cleft; cheekbones that could cut diamond.
I never thought death would wear such a pretty face. I suppose it’s not the worst thing I could see before I go.
I crane my neck sideways to look at whatever dick is standing nearby and shining a flashlight in my face. Verdant Eyes removes his forearm from my neck, only to take my chin in an iron grip and force me to face him. “Don’t look at him,” he says warningly. “Look at me, and kindly explain what in the actualfuckyou’re doing here tonight.Who sent you?”
Sent me?If there was any doubt that he was up to something criminal, his words dispel it. “Nobody sent me,” I say in as calm a voice as I can manage, which comes out surprisingly steady. “I come here a few times a week for a night hike to clear my mind. There’s a wolf pack I visit nearby.”
The words spill forth in a frantic bid to convince them that I saw nothing and know nothing. The former is true. The latter isn’t, but I don’t feel like explaining my uncanny intuition or my unsettling knack for knowing things about people that I wish I didn’t. There’s no way to articulate it, and I don’t want to make this guy feel threatened.
“Bullshit,” Flashlight Guy says. “You tucked tail and ran—pretty fucking poorly, I might add. You’ve got a knife on your belt. Why thefuckwould you need a knife for a night hike? No, somebody sent you to spy on us.Who?”
“Check my texts,” I squeak. “They’ll confirm what I’ve said. I didn’t see anything, I swear. I heard someone saygo deeperand assumed people were up here to fuck, which is why I was hasty to get away.”
