No.
I slap both hands over my mouth, but the sound is already out there, hanging in the trees between us.
My stomach drops so fast it feels like I’m already falling.
He turns toward the brush.
And I know he heard me.
Chapter Two
Rafe
The tracks curve north, cutting through a patch of turned soil where the bear dragged its weight to scratch against a cedar trunk. Bark shreds litter the ground. I crouch and run my thumb along the groove left by its claws. Fresh. Hours old. Big male, too close to where the women forage this time of year. I’ll push him back toward the ridge.
The forest crackles with tension today. I rise and follow the trail. The bear favored its left side, so it’s nursing an injury. Makes it unpredictable. Most animals fall into patterns if you track them long enough. The injured ones don’t.
Mama Rue said the mountain gives you signs if you bother to listen. I used to think she meant weather and game. Turns out she meant people too.
A light shift in the air makes me pause. A sound drifts through the trees, faint enough that I’d miss it if I were anyone else. Not an animal. Not the bear. Not even a word. Something caught in a human throat, strained and thin, full of fear.
I turn slowly, letting my senses settle in the new direction. The bear can wait. Whatever made that sound can’t.
I move through the brush with careful steps, quiet enough not to spook whatever’s ahead. Branches sway overhead, restless in the breeze. My breath stays even as the forest tells me where to put my feet.
A new print catches my eye where the slope begins to drop, the toes dug into the soil like whoever left it was scrambling for balance. A second print lands crooked. Running. Hurt. Desperate.
My stomach tightens in a way I don’t let it do often. Someone’s out here who shouldn’t be. Someone who didn’t grow up knowing these trees.
I kneel beside the footprint and brush away the loose dirt. The size tells me it’s a woman. The depth tells me she’s weak or scared. The direction tells me she’s moving without aim, trying to stay ahead of whatever haunts her.
The stories Daryl’s clan spreads about us reach farther than I’d like. Every woman I’ve seen escape him runs—more afraid of the possibility of help than the certainty of harm. He poisons them long before he loses them.
I rise and step through the brush, my hands open, my pace steady. I’m not here to trap her. The mountain pulled me her way same as it always does when someone’s close to breaking.
Whoever she is, she’s not out here by choice.
I find her crouched in the ravine, pressed so hard into the earth she almost disappears. For a moment I think she’s part of the shadow itself—mud-streaked skin, tangled hair, limbs pulled tight and shaking. Then her head snaps up, and two wild, terrified eyes lock onto me. It hits me low and sharp—something protective, something territorial—and I shut it down just as fast.
She makes a noise low in her throat, sharp and vibrating, the kind a person makes when they’re too scared to breathe. Not an animal sound. Not madness. Older than both. A warning she had to learn the hard way.
She bares her teeth at me, clutching a long shard of bone in her hand, honed into a knife by someone with nothing left to work with but desperation. She’s covered in scratches, scrapes, bruises painted in fresh and fading tones. Her bare feet are torn open along the soles. Her ribs show through her shirt with every jagged inhale.
She spits toward me, quick and deliberate.
I hold still. No sudden movements. Everything in her body screams that she expects pain next, the way some creatures flinch before a blow even lands. Her eyes flick over my hands, over my shoulders, over the woods behind me, frantic and assessing.
I lower myself a little, angling my body so she can see my hands are empty. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
She snarls—a raw, guttural sound that shakes with exhaustion more than threat. She doesn’t speak words. And I wonder if her voice isn’t the only thing that’s been stolen from her.
Up close, I can see the truth in her posture: she’s waiting for the worst. It’s all she knows.
She glances at my head, and something strange happens. She tilts hers in the same small angle I make. Unthinking. Instinctive. A tiny, mirrored motion that slips through her fear before she can stop it.
That softens something in me I didn’t realize could soften anymore.
Her chest stutters with a trembling breath, and another sound rises from her throat—thin, struggling, not language but meaning. I feel it more than I hear it.
