one
Asher
It’s time to go home.
If I could, I’d wander out here forever. Alone.
But it’s not possible. I need to get back to the compound. To my brothers and new sister-in-law. To protect them. One threat may be gone, but there will always be another coming. I can’t lose anyone else I love.
Two weeks of solitude on the mountain.
Two weeks to get my shit together.
Two weeks to heal enough to interact with my family without going full caveman. Or maybe mountain man is a better word. Fuck. I should be doing better. Instead, the anger and guilt eat me alive.
Learning the truth of my parents’ deaths should have brought me closure. It didn’t. Remorse digs its claws into me, and shame strangles me in the middle of the night. I wake up dripping in sweat, pulse racing from the echoes of the screams and the acrid scent of the fire surrounding me.
Mom and Dad should be alive. Seeing their children living the life they wanted for them. Why couldn’t I save them? I can’t—won’t—forgive myself for not getting there in time.
Damn it, Ash, focus. Dwelling on the past isn’t helping. Not when I need to be around people again.
I inhale the earthiness of decaying leaves and sigh as the cool breeze sifts through the strands of my long hair. My happy place. Not that living with my brothers is awful, but after almost five years of living alone up here, with no responsibilities, it’s getting suffocating.
Sighing, I realize I’m stalling. It’s getting dark, and the forest is thick—full of trees, endangered plants, and a plethora of wildlife. Having spent years out here, I navigate in the darkness almost as well as any other animal. It makes me grin. Rebekah, my new sister-in-law, sure as hell thought I was an animal when I caught her on the property and tied her to a chair. Sure, Adam wasn’t too happy, too fucking bad. I didn’t remember her from years ago. She was just another trespasser sneaking around our compound. There isn’t much I despise more than someone with the balls to think they have a right to be on our land.
I’m stalling—and that’s not like me. My brothers won’t give me shit for running off, at least not too much. It’s kind of surprising they haven’t come looking for me yet. Still, I’ve put it off long enough. With my lungs full of fresh mountain air, some of my tension eases. It’ll be fine. If it isn’t, I’ll go hunting for a few days. An extra deer or two to help get us through the winter is always a good thing.
While concentrating on my path, I hear a sound that doesn’t belong in the forest. A voice? Fuck. It sounds like singing, though it’s not clear enough for me to make out. As I peer through the trees, everything appears normal. Even if I can’t see them, I know they’re where they don’t belong.
The tuneful noise sends a colony of bats circling overhead, squeaking and chirping to each other. They’re as disturbed as I am. An angry growl erupts from my throat. My tracking instincts take over. Silently stalking toward the clearing ahead, where it’s most likely they’ll be.
It’s one of the few places I arranged to be used by researchers and scientists who request to visit for their studies. It’s the perfect base camp for their study of the local flora and fauna. My brothers and I monitor it closely on the cameras we have placed out here. Why didn’t my brothers come looking for the intruder? Not like they all needed to, since security is Adrian’s job. Without me at the compound, he should have been checking out anyone on our land.
No one’s allowed on our mountain without our express permission. God help them if they hurt my family. I’ll take them apart bit by bit and bury their remains all over the mountain where no one will ever find them.
As I push through the treeline and see the campsite, my fists clench tightly. I barely hold back my roar of displeasure at seeing a tent, the prepped fire pit, and a car parked on the edge of the site. Fuckers. They aren’t even trying to hide their presence.
Running my hand over my face, I try to calm myself down. If I don’t, I’m liable to beat them to a bloody pulp. My brothers won’t appreciate having to hide the body, and jail won’t be my friend.
How should I handle this? My first instinct is to tear down their tent and shove it into the car. Or I could call Adrian on my satellite phone. A snapping branch catches my attention. It echoes loudly in the suddenly quiet forest. Looks like I get to confront them myself. I can’t say I’m upset about this. I probably look like a madman, grinning into the darkness, just thinking about punching the asshole.
Whoever is out there hasn’t reached the clearing yet. They won’t be long, and I take a few steps back to disappear into the shadows. As I wait like a sentinel, I already know they’re guilty. They shouldn’t be here. After the truth about our parents finally being revealed, this is the wrong time to be testing my patience. The words never again echo in my head as anger ignites my nerve endings, lighting a raging inferno inside me.
A lone figure appears through the trees and steps toward the tent. Between the near darkness and the distance, I can’t make out any features. They don’t look very tall, more like a teenager. But the car says it’s an adult, or maybe there’s more than one person.
Before I think twice, I’m stepping out of the shadows and growling in anger. The trespasser freezes, then turns around and runs back into the forest. Fuck. Of course they’re running. Why wouldn’t they? I don’t stop to think that I might appear scary. I’m six foot seven, and in the dark, I probably look like the boogeyman. I almost grin. Serves them right for being where they don’t belong. They’re breaking the law and will be lucky if I don’t break them.
Charging after them, my long legs cover ground a lot faster than they can. When I shove through the branches without care about the scratches they leave on my face and hands, I want to hurt the threat to my family’s safety.
I’m about ten feet away from getting my hands on them when, as if in slow motion, I see them pitch forward and hit the ground face first. There’s nothing I can do to stop it from happening, and realistically, it helps me out. No need to continue this. It’s over.
Time stops as neither of us moves. I’m waiting to see what they’ll do next. Will they give up, or wait for me to get closer and pull a weapon? Anything is possible, so I’m not taking any chances.
As I approach slowly, I hear mumbling in a high-pitched voice, but I can’t tell what she’s saying. It sounds like a woman? Gradually, I move closer. The voice is clearer—definitely a woman—and nearly hysterical.
I shouldn’t care, but I’m not a monster. Although my brothers might argue with me about that. She’s lying on the forest floor with a large backpack on that has shifted to her side. What the hell does she have in there?
My first instinct is to help her, but it wars with the need to know what she’s doing on our land. If I go through her pack, I’ll have a better idea of what she’s doing out here—alone. A runaway, maybe? Whatever her story is, she’s going to tell me everything, and then I’ll decide what I’m going to do with her.
