A hand slaps around my mouth, a warm, rough palm sealing my nose shut. For a second, I smell pine trees.
Then he drags me backward until I slam up against his broad, solid chest. His arm wraps around me, holding me in place. His breath is ragged in my ear.
“Please!” I shriek into his palm. He doesn’t let go. If anything, he squeezes me tighter. I squirm against him, flailing my arms around, but I can’t get any leverage. His strength is like a metal vise holding me in place.
He pulls me backward. At first, I think he’s taking me to the bed, and a sick, horrifying panic surges in my belly, and I try to fight him again, more desperately this time. But then he keeps going, past the bed. There’s a whir of dizzying movement, and the next thing I know, he’s spun me around and shoved me against the wall, his hand still tight across my mouth to hold me in place.
The difference is, this time, I can see him. He stares down at me through a tangle of straggly, dirty-blond hair, his pale eyes gleaming with a coldness that reminds me of moonlight. His mouth is set in a firm line, and I breathe against his hand, squirming against the wall.
He lifts his other hand. His forearm is enormous, corded with muscle, and his fingers are thick and rough-looking.
And then he signs at me.
O,he spells out.L. I. V. E. R.
I go slack, my gaze crawling over his face. His long, unwashed hair. His bright eyes. I shake my head against his hand.
I was so fucking stupid. Oliver doesn’t have an imaginary friend. There really is a man living on the peninsula.
And what if he really is a Hunter?
The man makes a low grunting noise in the back of his throat and flicks his free hand at me. It takes me a second to realize he’s saying, “Don’t scream.”
I stare at him, my breath tight and constricting in my lungs. His eyes bore into mine. For a moment, I think they’re silver, but then he shifts his head a little, and I realize that they’re actually a very pale blue, the same color as ice.
Why the fuck am I noticing his eyes?
“Don’t scream,” he signs again, right before he takes his hand away from my mouth.
“Who are you?” I ask, my hands shaking so badly I’m not sure he’ll even understand me.
“I can hear you,” he says, forming the words slowly, his eyes boring into mine. “I just don’t speak. Like Oliver.”
Like Oliver. “You’re him,” I whisper, slumping against the wall. The man doesn’t move, just keeps staring at me. The intensity in his gaze sends an overwhelming heat to the center of my chest. It’s not exactly fear. It’s more like he has me trapped without even touching me. “The friend,” I say, signing the word as I speak. The man’s eyes don’t leave my face. “He has a name for you,” I speak, trying to approximate it with my fingers. “I don’t exactly remember?—”
He makes the sign, and my heart thuds around. “My name,” he signs. Then, he spells it out:T. H. E. O.
Blood pounds in my ears. I think of the gravestone, the name carved on the stone.
“Who are you?” I ask, speaking and signing at the same time. “Really?”
Theo tilts his head a little, still staring at me. His hands stay at his side.
“Why are you here?”
That gets a reaction. A small one. His expression flickers a little, and for the first time, his eyes dart away from me. That dread coils more tightly around in my belly.
“Is it about Oliver?” The question comes out strangled, and I don’t bother signing it. My fear has my thoughts so clouded that I can’t even remember half the words anyway. “Are you—you’ve been meeting with him, haven’t you? Why? Do you live out there? On the peninsula?” It feels like a dam’s been unlocked, and the questions spill out of me, one after another. Theo just watches me through the tangle of his hair, not moving. “Is your name really Theo?”
That question, out of all of them, gets a response. He nods his head once, a sharp jerk of his chin.
“Theo Shorn?” I whisper, staring up at him.
He doesn’t move. Terror spikes through my blood.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
This gets a response, too. He shakes his head with that same sharp, jerky motion, his hair falling into his eyes. He reaches up, distractedly, and pushes it away, sweeping it back so I can see his face clearly for the first time.
