Page 136 of When the Woods Go Silent

Ice licks at my calves like tiny needles, and I break into a sprint, angling myself back toward the bookstore. I’m not far. I’ll take charge of this weird game and lead him there instead.

“If I were you, I’d hide.”

The gravelly voice drifts to me on the fog, glittering around me now with ice crystals. The temperature has dropped twenty degrees, and it no longer feels like an early summer evening. Skin prickling with cold and anxiety, I dance in a quick circle, still not seeing Torrence, and even less certain now that I want to.

His voice is different tonight. Colder, less teasing than normal, and I wonder if what we did last night has made him more possessive over me.

I duck behind a wide tree trunk, crouching down between its rough bark and a tangle of brambles. I’m not hiding, exactly, but it gives me a chance to send Rose a quick message.

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left. Something isn’t right.

“If I were you, I’d be afraid.” His voice swirls toward me, closer this time, and the tone is more sinister than I’ve ever heard him. Our game suddenly feels like a trap, and I’ve gone from confident to terrified. I really shouldn’t have come out here.

I feel like I know him, but I don’t, not really.

He’s a magical creature that drinks blood. That eats flesh, if Kier told Rose the truth.

And maybe I’ve only made it this far because he was playing cat to my mouse. Maybe this is the night I finally get caught, pinned to the forest floor by sharp claws and teeth, ripped apart by an animal’s hunger. Maybe this is the night I get truly fucked.

I’m so sorry, Ros-

I don’t get to finish the text before he grabs my ankles and drags me out of the brambles, sharp twigs scratching at my bare legs. My phone goes scuttling across the leaves and moss, and my shrieks echo in my ears but no farther.

My screams don’t reach the trees, or the road, or the bookstore.

Because I’m being dragged underground.

Daggers of ice shove into the black earth, opening a deep chasm that I slip and slide down into, scrabbling my fingernails against the dirt and roots.

Screaming.

Sobbing.

Absolutely helpless to save myself.

Rough bark splinters into my palms as I desperately try to hold onto the roots as I slide past them, deeper, down into the freezing black earth. My nose and eyes and ears are filling withsoil, and my mouth is packed with crumbs of it, choking down my throat as I’m dragged even deeper down.

“If I were you, I’d be afraid.”

His voice croons in my head, barely even a voice at all, and I can’t deny its power. Iamafraid - I’m the most terrified I’ve ever been. I should have trusted Rose when I could. I brought this on myself with my stupid obsession with magic, and now I might never find my way out.

Never find my way home.

Never find my way back to Rose, the only person I’ve ever truly been safe with.

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