Page 133 of Pretty Nightmare

They are both face down. Hugging pillows. Bare backs and asses. Breathing heavy and deep. Which makes me stifle a laugh.

I close the door back up, leaving it slightly ajar, and pad down the breezeway to the living room. “Donovan?” I whisper-yell it. But there’s no answer. I check the kitchen real fast and I’m just about to go upstairs when I glance out the living room window and see him disappearing into the woods.

“Donovan?” I say it, even though he obviously can’t hear me.

I jog to the front door and go out onto the porch, jumping down the front steps as I scan the woods. “Donovan!” One more whisper-yell for good measure.

But he’s gone.

I look back at the house. Should I go get Adam and McKay? But then I hear crackling in the woods. Like tree branches breaking. And it’s not far off. I know these woods by heart, and I’m not afraid of the dark. But we do have a creepy stalker called Carter. So I duck back into the house real fast and grab a gun from the top shelf of the hall closet, and then leave the house and head towards the woods.

There are two paths over on this side. One of them is a winding, overgrown trail that will eventually lead you around the duck lake and the other is well-worn and follows the river a little way and then eventually ends on the embankment of a shallow canal.

I choose the well-worn one along the river, walking deeper and deeper into the forest. Then I pause, hearing some shuffling. Which is faint, but it’s also far away. So it must actually be loud.

“Donovan!” I scream it. Not caring about stealth anymore. “Where are you? What are you doing?”

Then I hear a scream.

I stand there in shock, my feet stuck in place as I process that scream.

Because it’s Maggie.

“Donovan!” I yell again. And then I’m running. Running fast and hard. Branches and leaves slapping me in the face as I push my way through them.

My toe hits a rock and I fall forward, reaching out with the palms of my hands to break my fall, but there’s nothing there but air and I tumble, head-first, down the embankment and hit my head on a rock in the shallow river.

It’s a hard hit. The kind that stuns you into a state of unthinking.

Dirty swamp water pours into my mouth and I cough and turn over, just as my eyes close and everything disappears.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - NATHAN

I didn’t stop driving until I reached the road that used to be my driveway once upon a time. And then I cut the engine and left the truck on the side of the road.

It was a long, three-hour drive to get here, and even though I haven’t slept in days, my eyes are wide open. Literally and figuratively.

The pile of mail I stole was mostly junk. But there were two interesting pieces, neither of which solved any big mystery for me. I’ve always known what I was up against. But I’m sure Adam and McKay will both find this to be very interesting.

The first letter is an electric bill and the second is from Duke University Medical School Alumni Association.

Both of them are addressed to Dr. Carter Couture.

He has been running this show from the very beginning. And everyone but me fell for it.

I guess that’s not really fair. I knew him. I saw him that night in the woods on the island. And if I didn’t get picked up on the beach the following morning, and if I didn’t get taken off that island and brought to the little cottage adjacent to Old Home, and if I didn’t have a grandfather called Nikos Szabó who came from a long line of Company huntmasters and told me everything about Carter Couture the very day that Indie Anna Accorsi appeared on my river, then I would be just as fucked as Adam and McKay.

But I’m not.

I am running down my old driveway when I see Indie walk out of the house and head towards the woods. I want to scream her name. Make this stop. But he can’t know I’m coming. This secret—it’s the only thing I have left to hold over his head.

So I slow down. Be very quiet. And slip right back in to the boy I used to be.

I am not five years old anymore.

I am not afraid.

And I will make sure that Carter Couture never walks out of this forest alive.