"It's Saige."
"That's what I said. It's been fun, but—"
Before he can finish the sentence, Arcadia jumps out of the car and runs into the woods. "Fuck," he mutters, slurring his words a little now. "Arcadia, no!"
He stumbles out of the car, closing the door behind him, and chases after the dog. Placing my hand on the gearshift, I almost leave.Almost.But I get a bad feeling in my gut—like I shouldn't leave this drunk guy out in the woods alone, chasing after a puppy, and that whatever happens afterward would be my fault. So, I turn off the engine and run into the dark forest after them.
I can't see more than just a few feet in front of me, but still, I move swiftly, keeping my hands out and dodging trees. "Elias?" I call out. "Arcadia!"
It isn't long before it unfolds in front of me—that deep, dark nothingness that's given me an uneasy feeling for as long as I can remember. All the air leaves my lungs as my feet slip over the precipice, nothing but void visible below, but I know exactly what's down there.
I can hear the water.
An arm wraps around my waist and pulls me back just before I go over, and I fall hard onto the rocky forest floor, seeing stars behind my eyes before I open them. Breath heaving and shaking with adrenaline, I sit up and shuffle away from the ledge until my back hits a tree.
"Oh, my god. Shit." I almost died. I almostfucking died. I think I'm going to pass out.
Elias moves toward me with the dog's pink leash around one of his wrists. Once he's at my side, he sinks down onto theground beside me, facing me, and places his hand firmly over my heart.
"Hey, look at me." My eyes meet his in the darkness. "Breathe."
I shake my head. Iambreathing, but it doesn't feel like it. It doesn't feel like air is actually filling my lungs before violently forcing it out.
"Slower," he says, pressing that hand harder into my chest. Something about that pressure brings awareness back into my body, and even though I'm still shaking hard enough to cause my teeth to chatter, my breath slows.
"There you go." Elias holds the flask out to me. "You want a drink now?"
I nod, taking it from him. After watching me struggle with unsteady hands to unscrew the top for a few seconds, he does it for me, and I bring it to my lips.
It's gin. I've only had it once before, but I recognize the familiar burn.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah," I finally say. "I just need a minute."
He stands, holding his hand out to me. "Come on. Let's go inside."
Taking it, I allow him to pull me to my feet. It's the first time I'm able to assess his height relative to my own, and at 5'4", this guy has at least a foot on me. I cross my arms in front of my body and follow him into the old cabin, waiting just inside the threshold while he turns on a small, dim lantern on the other side of the room, illuminating the space just enough for me to make out my surroundings. It's mostly empty, aside froma wood burning stove at its center and a couple of dog bowls in the corner. Empty beer cans and liquor bottles line the back wall of the main room, the wood singed black and the glass absent from its windows.
"You're still shaking," Elias says. "That was really stupid, by the way. Even if you did survive the fall, the current would have sucked you out so fast—"
"I was just trying to help."
"I didn't need your help. You don't know these woods like I do."
I shrug and turn toward the door. "Okay, well—"
"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm a dick, but I'm not trying to be a dick right now. I just don't really need any more dead bodies on my property. More bodies, more problems."
He must be joking, but I don't laugh, and neither does he. He simply shrugs, taking another pull from the flask before sitting on a blanket near the far corner of the room and patting the space beside him. "Come sit. I'll show you something."
I realize everything that's happened in the past hour is nothing but a slew of horrible, sloppy decision making, and that when a strange man wants me to follow him into a decaying cabin in the middle of nowhere and then join him on a blanket so he canshow me something, I should run away, but I don't. I cross the space and sit beside him.
"So, are you homeless or something?" I ask.
A hand on my shoulder lowers me onto my back, and I freeze up. His eyes spot the fear in my own, and a smile creeps across his face. "Look up," he says.
My gaze moves from that look on his face to the space where the ceiling should be, but all I see is stars—stars gleaming in a dark sky and a full moon bright above me. Even through the thin layer of clouds, they're clear in a way that they never are in the city, where every billboard and neon sign competes with the void, drowning them out until they're nothing but background noise.
