Page 93 of Things Get Dark

“Which happens to be our territory.” His lips brush my ear.

A tremor crawls beneath my skin at the caress of his warm breath, and heat ignites in my core. It is so deliciously wrong.

The dark-haired one leans closer as if to tell me a secret. “Do you know what happens when little rabbits run into the wolves’ den?”

“No?” I squeak.

“They get devoured.” The other man snaps his teeth right next to my earlobe.

My pulse skips a beat. I hiccup and stumble backwards. I drop my shoes, arms flailing, trying to grasp at the flowers to stop my fall. I only tear them down with me. My ass meets the hard dirt with a thud. The dark-haired one chuckles, and the other licks his lips like he’s salivating for a taste.

“Poor lost little rabbit,” the dark-haired one coos. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a chance.”

The other one growls, eyes narrowed at him.

“W-what?” I stammer out.

“If you make it out that gate…” He points behind me.

I glance behind me, eyes catching on the small iron gate, nestled between ivy-covered walls, I passed through when I entered the field. I quickly look back at them.

“We’ll let you go free,” he says with a wave of his hand.

The white-haired tilts his head to me, his lips twisting. “But if we catch you first…” He bends over me, and the moonlight catches on his earring and the necklace around his neck. “Mmm, the things we will do to you…” He licks his lips.

“Better run. You have till the count of sixty,” the dark-haired one says, and his lips pull into a smirk.

“One.” His grin stretches.

“Three,” the other says.

I can practically taste their excitement clouding the air, and it only makes my heart race faster.

My fear-addled brain takes a moment to put two and two together, then I scramble, stumbling over my own feet and falling backward.

The shorter one grins widely, like he can scent my fear. “Ten.”

I stumble to my feet, crushing the flowers and grass in my wake. The once beautiful flowers scratch and nick my skin as I race through them.

“Twenty.” The single word rumbles in the air, followed by a deep laugh. It spurs me to go faster while also begging me to look back.

Run!Run!Run!

My feet slap against the hard dirt.

“Thirty,” a voice says from behind me, much too close.

What happened to giving me a head start? Or have I just not gotten that far? Fear licks my spine like the hot lash of a whip, and I jolt forward. My heart thumps loudly in my ears but not loud enough to drown out the deep laughter that echoes behind me.

I see the exit.

Five feet.

Come on.

Four feet.

Fuck!Fuck!Almost there!

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