“Noelle?”
She shook her head. Not no. Not yes. Just—overloaded.
“Hey.” I stepped in front of her, caught her chin in my hand. Her skin was cold. “Hey, darlin’. Look at me.”
She did. Barely. Her pupils were huge.
“I can’t—” she whispered. “I can’t breathe. I can’t—Beau, I think we’re stuck. I think we’re fucking stuck out here and there’s something moving and—and we don’t know what it wants?—”
“Okay. Okay, I’ve got you.” I wrapped both arms around her, holding her against my chest. She was trembling like a live wire. “Breathe with me, alright? Just like this. In and out. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
She clutched at my shirt like she was drowning, her forehead pressed into my collarbone. I could feel her heartbeat thudding against my chest, sharp and erratic.
“I believe you,” I murmured into her hair. “I believe everything you’re sayin’. But we’re gonna get out of here. You hear me? You’re not alone. We’re gonna get out.”
Her fingers curled tighter.
“I know this is weird. I know it feels wrong. But we’re not just wanderin’ out here blind, Noelle. That thing you saw—the Painter—it showed up for a reason. It didn’t hurt you. It warned you. So you tell me what you think we do next, and I’ll follow you.”
She took a breath. Then another. Her hands loosened just a little.
Delilah’s voice cut through the dark. “Y’all good?”
“Gimme one more second,” I said, not looking away from Noelle’s face.
She blinked slowly. Nodded.
“Alright,” I said. “Then let’s?—”
“Do you hear that?” Shane asked.
I looked back over at him, frowning…then I heard it, too.
Someone was whistling.
It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, the sound high and melodic and out of place.
Milo stopped dead in his tracks.
Noelle flinched in my arms, breath catching hard.
“Who the fuck is that?” Whit asked, voice razor sharp.
We all turned toward the sound. The forest looked the same in every direction, but the whistling was coming from the left, off the trail.
“Could be a hiker,” Holden said, but it didn’t sound like he believed himself.
“At two in the morning?” Shane snapped. “With perfect pitch and a soundtrack straight out of a haunted Appalachian banjo duel?”
The whistling stopped.
And before I could stop him, Milo bolted.
“Shit!” I yelled, taking a few steps after him before Holden grabbed my arm.
“We can’t split up?—”
“I know,” I said, dragging a hand down my face. My gut was twisting. Milo wasn’t the kind of dog to run unless something was seriously wrong.
