Page 84 of Silent Shadows

My heart starts pounding so hard it hurts. I can see it in the Ridgefield crew’s smiles that they’re responsible for this.

“Can confirm. We’re with them right now.” Miles says back.

“Fucking hell,” I whisper.

Grant lifts both hands innocently. “Sounds like bad luck.”

“You slashed their tires?” I snap.

“No idea what you’re talking about.”

I start toward them. “You actual psychopath⁠—”

“Daisy.”

Miles’s voice cuts sharply through mine, and I’m taken aback. But when I look at him, something in his face chills me. He’s pissed, and protective.

The radio crackles again.

“Miles,” Taylor says quietly now. “It’s getting dark. We were just coming to get you, but we won’t make it now.”

The forest suddenly feels enormous around us.

Miles grips the walkie tighter. “We’ll be fine. You guys stay together. Seriously, we’ll be fine.” The second he stops transmitting, the walkie is crackling again.

“Miles—” Maya starts.

He keys up before she can finish. “There’s a ranger station a few miles east from where you are. Lock everything down and try to reach them.”

The line is silent for a few seconds before it reopens. “Got it,” Maya’s voice crackles through, then the static cuts with a sense of finality.

Grant smirks beside us and tuts. “Sounds like you little ghost hunters are having a rough time.”

Miles looks at him again. And holy shit. I’ve never seen someone look so calm while being this furious.

“You need to leave,” he says.

Grant laughs once under his breath. “Or what?”

Miles steps forward. Close enough now that even the other Ridgefield guys stop smiling.

And when he speaks again, his voice is terrifyingly soft.

“If anything happens to my crew,” he says, “I promise you won’t enjoy what happens next.”

The woods go dead silent. No wind. No birds. Nothing.

Then, somewhere deep in the trees, something knocks once against wood.

chapter

eleven

MILES

The knock echoes through the trees.

Close enough that every hair on my arms lifts.