Page 17 of Hunting Pretty

Missed Call: Liath.

You have 1 new voice message.

At the sight of Liath’s name, her dimpled grin framed with bangs and shoulder-length auburn hair flashed across my mind and a smile tugged at my lips.

I hadn’t seen this bish since the first week of college holidays.

She, Aisling, Lisa, and I spent a week at the La Trinité-sur-Mer, in Brittany, France.

We’d been in the middle of pretentious sailing regatta and lots of cute, rich boys, but we’d spent most of our time on the front deck of her daddy’s yacht, tanning, drinking French martinis (cause when in France, ya know) and singing loudly and off-key to the latest Taylor Swift album.

Fuck, that was a ball.

About time she called me back.

She better be leaving me a message to say ‘sorry I’ve been such an MIA ho.’

I pressed play and set my phone to the Bluetooth speaker as I peeled down the driveway.

Liath’s voice filled the car.“Oh my God, Ava. Help me!”

I slammed on the brakes as goosebumps traveled across my entire body, like the sheer terror I could hear in Liath’s voice had crawled out of the speakers and was running down my arms like spiders.

“Ava, where are you? I need you. I need…”

Her panting filled my car, her footsteps erratic as her heels clacked on the pavement.

“Fuck, I’m so scared…”

A hollow pit opened in my stomach, a gaping void of dread that felt like it could swallow me whole, the weight of it pulling me down, deeper and deeper into the darkness.

“I’m being followed. He’s stalking me. Ava!”

Her footsteps broke into a hurried run, her breaths growing heavier until she screamed.

“Ava, he’s coming for me!”

AVA

Come on, Liath, pick up.

The ringtone sounded from my phone at my ear as I climbed the last few circular stone steps to the very top of the tower in an old building on Darkmoor campus.

My Chanel kitten heels echoed in this stone stairwell, my fingertips cold on the mossy stone, light filtering in from the notched windows that looked like places that archers would stand.

Darkmoor campus was old. Like over five hundred years old.

I read somewhere that when they established the school, they’d reclaimed several buildings of an old sprawling castle on these grounds.

So literal archers probablydidstand at those windows centuries ago.

I shivered, the air always colder up here, as Liath’s voice came over the speaker telling me to leave a message.

Just like it had every time I tried to call over the last two days since I got her terrified message.

“Dammit, Liath.”

I ran my fingers through my long dark hair. Did I even remember to brush it this morning?

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