Page 2 of Inked Athena

Another crack of branches. Closer still.

I risk a glance over my shoulder and my foot catches on something—a root, a rock, it doesn’t matter. I stumble, overcorrect, and crash into a tree trunk. The impact drives the air from my lungs.

For a moment, I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can only press my forehead against the rough bark and try to remember how my body works.

That’s when I hear it. The steady crunch of leaves under deliberate footsteps.

He’s done running.

He’s hunting now.

Fear floods my system with fresh adrenaline. I push off from the tree, ignoring how my vision swims. The dense growth to my left looks like salvation—thick enough to hide in, dark enough to disappear.

My bad leg drags as I force my way through the undergrowth. Branches snag my clothes, scratch my face, but I keep going. The ground beneath my feet feels different. Softer. Less stable.

“I know you’re there,zaychik.” His voice is closer now, almost gentle. Like he’s trying to coax a frightened animal. “Stop running.”

The word slices through me. He taught me what it meant, late one night beneath a canopy of white bedsheets, his breath mingling with mine, skin on skin, heart on heart, closer than any two people have a right to be.

Zaychik.Rabbit. His little rabbit.

But rabbits get hunted. Rabbits get caught.

I push deeper into the thicket, where the branches are so tight they form a natural fortress. Just a few more steps. Just a little further. Just?—

The ground disappears.

For one suspended moment, I’m weightless. My stomach lurches as the world tilts. My hands grasp at empty air, at trailing vines that snap under my fingers.

Then gravity remembers me.

The fall is both endless and instant. My body pinwheels through space, through darkness. Branches whip past me. My shoulder slams into something solid. Pain explodes through my already battered body.

I think I scream. I must scream, because I hear Samuil shout my name. Not in anger this time.

In terror.

The sound follows me down into the ravine, chasing me all the way to the bottom where the darkness swallows everything whole.

My last thought before unconsciousness claims me is that maybe this is better. Maybe this way, he won’t have to live with pulling the trigger.

The black takes me before I can find out if I’m right.

2

SAMUIL

A FEW HOURS EARLIER

I crouch in the shadows, eyeing the cabin nestled in the dense Wisconsin woods. It looks harmless enough—all worn wood and moss-covered stone, like something ripped from a children’s storybook. There should be smoke curling from the chimney, the scent of fresh bread drifting through open windows.

Instead, there’s only silence and decay.

I move through the overgrown grass, avoiding the gravel path that would betray my presence. The late afternoon sun catches on the algae-slicked windows, nature slowly reclaiming what man abandoned.

At the back corner of the cabin, I find my entry point—a window partially hidden by decrepit shutters.

One sharp strike shatters the glass.

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