Page 4 of Not This Soon

She dropped the stone, clutching at her leg where two small puncture wounds marred her skin. The snake retreated, backed off into a coil once more, its mission accomplished.

"No..." Rebecca whimpered. She could feel a strange heat spreading from the bite marks, crawling up her leg like an insidious tide.

And then she spotted the figure.

Standing on the dune.

Watching.

Just watching.

Something gleamed in their hand.

A scope? A rifle, she realized.

But shock was setting in now. The figure moved casually on the slope. The rifle raised to their shoulder.

“No…” Rebecca muttered, her voice slurred strangely. The shock was now spreading… The pain immense.

She stared at the glinting, wicked eye of the scope. A sniper rifle… aimed right at her.

"No…" she pleaded again, but it was no use.

The figure didn’t move. They only watched.

Rebecca's vision blurred, the edges of her sight darkening as the venom took effect. She fought against the growing weakness, struggled to keep her eyes open. The rattlesnake was a dim outline in the dusk and dust now, obscured by her failing sight.

Her breath came in short gasps as she grappled with the pain that was spreading up her leg. Her heart pounded in her chest, a frantic drumbeat echoing in her ears as she struggled to hold onto consciousness.

She risked a glance toward the figure again and found them still there, watching from the dune.

“Please…” It was a whisper now. A prayer.

But the figure didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t react.

The sand underneath Rebecca began to feel cold. Her body trembled uncontrollably as shock set in, and she could no longer feel the bite on her ankle. All she knew was that she was growing weaker by the second.

"No..." Rebecca's voice was barely a whisper now, slipping through her dry lips as she fought to stay conscious.

She looked towards the figure one last time, pleading silently for mercy... for help... for anything but this cold abandonment. The wind howled around her, whipping her hair across her face and stinging her skin with icy gusts of sand.

And only then did he fire.

Crack.The gunshot tore through the night.

She knew no more.

CHAPTER ONE

Rachel Blackwood crouched low on a sturdy branch, the rough bark pressing against her palms. Her breath steady, she pressed her eye to the scope, the world narrowing down to the small rectangle of Aunt Sarah's farm below. The air was still, and Rachel tensed, noticing the slight changes in zephyr patterns and how it affected her line of sight of the surveillance target.

But she stood motionless, having chosen a sturdy branch for her vantage point.

The cool metal of the scope pressed against her forehead, and she peered through the glass.

The farmhouse sat silent, paint flaking from the wooden siding. A single wind chime hung motionless by the porch, its absence of sound unsettling. Rachel scanned the yard, searching for movement—anything that could break the eerie calm.

Nothing. No sign of Aunt Sarah. No Sheriff Dawes.

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