Page 30 of The Girl and the Cobra

I step onto the grass and start my search for Tristan.

Chapter Thirteen – Tristan

I needed time alone, to cool down, to calm myself down, to stop myself from letting my inner demons take over. I don’t know why I showed Mabel the scars on my arm. She didn’t have time to ask, but I could tell the question was on the tip of her tongue: who’s Shay?

And then I would’ve had to fight everything in me to resist telling her the truth.

So I went outside. I went for a walk in the darkness—something I’ve done often since coming here. At first, it was to test the boundaries of the collar on my neck, but after a while it was simply something I did to pass the time on those nights when I couldn’t sleep.

By the time I find myself back at the house, it’s after eleven, and I strangely find Wolf waiting for me in the dining room, where our plates still sit and the two pizza boxes from dinner remain untouched. It doesn’t even occur to me right away that that’s odd.

The look Wolf gives me is one of troubled concern. “Where is she?” His arms are folded over his chest, making his dark shirt appear a tad too tight.

“Mabel?” I ask.

“After her father left, I believe she went after you. Don’t tell me she didn’t find you.”

“No, I—” Mabel tried to find me after her dad left? “She went outside after me? Are you sure she’s not upstairs?”

“Tristan, we both know I watch everything that happens in this house. The only time you can be truly alone is out there. I know you showed her Shay’s name on your arm.” Wolf, normally the emotionless one, sounds quite accusatory.

I glare at him. “What are you saying? You think I waited in the shadows out there in hopes that she’d try to find me, and then, what? Killed her? You think her fucking body’s out there somewhere?” The more I talk, the more irrationally furious I become.

Wolf has every right to believe the worst in me. The blood on my hands can never be washed clean.

But to think that I would hurt Mabel? No, fuck this guy.

“I’m saying that, perhaps, you regretted showing her that scar. Perhaps you decided to let her in a little too fast, too soon, and you figured you’d be better off without Mabel and the way that she—” Wolf pauses. “—cares.” The way he says that final word, with a slightly mocking tone, tells me he did indeed listen in to the conversation Mabel and I had while her dad was outside.

I bare my teeth as I chuckle darkly. “You? I’d kill you in a fucking heartbeat if I could. I’d pull out your heart while it still beats and show it to you before I run a nice, sharp blade across your throat. I’d watch and laugh as your blood pools across the floor, ebbing like a tidepool. Trust me, Wolf, I’d kill you in a thousand different ways… but Mabel?”

All of my fury toward Wolf vanishes when I think of Mabel out there, in the darkness, all alone.

“I would never hurt Mabel,” I whisper.

“Then go get her,” Wolf tells me. “Bring her back here and prove me wrong.”

I don’t wait a moment more. All this talk has already wasted too much time. I walk right back out of the house and into the cold night air. If Mabel’s in the woods… it might take forever to find her. She might’ve gotten lost, turned around in the pitch-blackness under the forest’s canopy. I might not find her right away.

I might not ever find her.

The possibility sets me off, and I take off in a run, wanting to waste no more time. A flashlight might help, but I know these woods like the back of my own hand. I’ll find Mabel and bring her back to the mansion, and then…

Then I don’t know.

What I do know is that it’s not safe for a girl like Mabel to be out in these woods alone. Not at this hour. Even during the day it’s not safe, but at night? At night the nocturnal hunters come out. At night animals get hungry.

And there’s never really a good time to come across a bear or a mountain lion.

The thought of Mabel being found by a vicious animal is not a pretty one. She’s the opposite of big and strong; she’d make easy prey for anything with sharp claws and teeth. Take it from me, from someone who knows and understands how hunters operate. She’s a sitting duck out here, wherever she is—and the thought fills me with dread.

No, it’s more than that. As I traverse through the dark woods, it’s more than simple dread. It’s a gnawing, creeping horror. It’s a sick and twisted anxiety I shouldn’t even feel. After all, who is Mabel to me? She’s no one.

She’s no one… but at the same time, she’s so much more than that. She’s a girl who treats me like a man, the girl who graced me with a smile, with her laughter, all things I never had before.

A new sense of urgency fills me. I have to find her. I have to. I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t, if I can’t. I’ll probably backslide, lose what little grip I have of my sanity. I’ll lose everything.

“Mabel!” I call her name out into the wilds, stopping to listen, to see if I hear her yell back. I don’t hear a single sound. The forest is eerily quiet, no snapping of twigs in the distance. Nothing at all.

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