I don't take time to think.
I run.
The heels are a nightmare on the uneven ground, sinking into soft dirt, catching on roots and rocks I can't see in the growing darkness. I manage to kick them off without breaking stride, abandoning them somewhere in the third row as my bare feet slap against cold earth.
The silk dress rides up with every stride, offering no protection against the branches that scratch at my thighs as I push through the rows. The thick vines are everywhere, gnarled and twisted on their trellises, reaching out to snag the fabric, to slow me down.
But I don't slow down.
I run like my life depends on it, because I have a sickening feeling it does.
The music follows me, that haunting slowed-down melody drifting from speakers positioned throughout the property. It's the soundtrack to my nightmare, marking time, counting down...
After that... you're mine.
The words echo in my head as I navigate the endless rows. Every direction looks the same—vines and posts and pulsing red lights stretching into infinity. The black balloons bob overhead like dark omens, marking paths I don't know how to read.
Who is he? What does he want with me?
The questions pound through my skull in rhythm with my footsteps. He planned this. He went to enormous lengths to create this elaborate event—the decorations, the speakers, the costume I'm wearing. This isn't random. This isn't a crime of opportunity.
This is a hunt.
And I'm the fucking prey.
The realization hits me like a bucket of ice water being dumped over my body, and I push harder, forcing my burning legs to move faster. My lungs are already screaming from the cold air, each breath a knife in my chest. I'm not exactly out of shape, but I'm not trained for this either. I do yoga and occasionally pretend I'm going to start jogging. I don't run for my life through frozen vineyards in the dark.
A wicked laugh echoes through the night.
Low and amused, far too close for comfort.
I veer left, ducking between rows, trying to be unpredictable. The red lights blur past me in streaks of crimson. A balloon catches on my arm as I pass, and I slap it away with a strangled sound that's half sob, half scream.
"You're fast," the voice says, and this time I can tell it's not coming from the speakers. It's coming from somewhere behind me, somewhere in the dark. "I fucking love that."
Oh god. Ohfuck. He's close.
I cut right, then right again, trying to lose him in the maze of vines. My feet are beginning to numb from the frozen ground, toes catching on rocks that send jolts of pain up my legs. The silk dress is a flag in the darkness, a beacon screaminghere I am, come get me.
I know my sole focus should be about escape routes and getting the fuck out of here.
Instead, my traitorous body is doing something else entirely.
My pulse isn't just racing from fear. There's heat building low in my belly, spreading through my limbs despite the cold. My skin feels too tight, too sensitive, hyper-aware of every brush of silk, every whisper of wind. My nipples have hardened beneath the thin fabric, and I tell myself it's just the cold.
It's just the cold. Because it has to be just the cold.
It's not excitement. It's not anticipation. And it’sdefinitelynot some deeply buried part of me thrilling at the idea of being chased through the darkness by a predator who's promised to make me his.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
The music shifts, the distorted melody reaching what sounds like its final verse. The song is ending. My time is running out.
I push harder, ignoring the pain in my feet, the burn in my lungs, the way my heart feels like it might explode out of mychest. The vineyard has to end somewhere. There has to be a fence, a road, a building—something.
A black balloon drifts across my path, and I shove past it, stumbling slightly on a root hidden beneath the dead grass. My hands shoot out to catch myself on a trellis post, and for one terrible second I'm completely still, completely vulnerable.
That's when I hear him.
