Page 36 of The Hunt

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to dispel the dark images suddenly flooding my mind, but the eerie thoughts lingered anyway.

“Ms. Marlowe?”

I looked up to see a friendly-faced forensic technician looking down at me. She smiled. “We’re all finished. You can come in and pack your things now.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I rose to my feet. “Did you find anything?”

“A few prints that couldn’t be matched to you or your roommate, and a few fibers that we’re taking in for testing. The dean will let you know the findings.”

Tessa arrived a few minutes later, and we talked as we packed our stuff.

“It really sucks that they took your Taser,” she said, shaking her head as she looked at the spot on the shelf where it used to sit, tucked behind a thesaurus.

“Hey, at least you got to keep your kettle. Maybe next time I can throw boiling water on the guy.”

She snorted with amusement, and then her face hardened. “I really hope there isn’t a next time,” she said. “This one was bad enough. I feel responsible, too.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t here. I spent most of the day sulking at the mall after the fight we had.” She lifted a hand to cut me off as I opened my mouth. “The fight that was totally my fault. I know, trust me.”

“I wasn’t going to say that. I was just going to say it’s not your fault,” I replied. “Jake—or whoever he sent to do his dirty work—would’ve done this shit no matter what. Even if you were here all day and night, they would’ve just waited for another day when neither of us were in.”

“I guess so.” Tessa sighed heavily. Then her nose wrinkled. “I really can’t get over the police taking your Taser. It would besouseful for you to have right now.”

“Well, at least I didn’t get in trouble for it after that amazing act you put on. Have you considered going to Juilliard?”

A glimmer of amusement appeared in Tessa’s eyes, and she lifted her chin, one hand fluttering at her chest. “Dean Hopewell!” she said, mimicking her earlier indignation. “How could youeverthink that two sweet, innocent, young girls like us could have an illegal weapon in our possession?”

I laughed, and it felt damn good to do it after the awful day I’d endured. The weight of the tension seemed to lift with each giggle, and for a moment, I forgot about the gnawing worry in the back of my mind.

By nine-thirty, I was mostly settled in my new dorm, and exhaustion was taking hold, physical fatigue mixing with the emotional rollercoaster I’d been on all day. I turned the light off and sank into my new bed.

As I waited for sleep to claim me, I thought about Rhett, unable to shake the earlier encounter from my mind. When I thought back to the bonfire party on Friday, his words started echoing loudly in my head.

Are you sure we haven’t met before?

The question replayed over and over, each repetition gnawing at something deep inside me. He was right. I felt it now too—the strange sense that somehow, in some way, we were connected. But how? Jake had never introduced me to his friends when we spent our summers together. A huge red flag, I now realized.

So where could Rhett and I have met before?

I tried to push the question aside, focusing on the exhaustion that weighed heavily on my limbs. My eyelids fluttered, my thoughts blurring into hazy fragments, and just as I started to drift off, a fleeting image of a dark forest came to me like a distant echo.

It disappeared just as quickly as it appeared, and I snapped wide awake as the remnants of the image slipped through my fingers like smoke. I racked my brains, but I couldn’t pull it back.It felt like a piece of me had been lost somewhere. No matter how hard I tried to grasp it, it was just… gone.

I forced myself to focus on something else, and I finally drifted off again. My very last thought before I fell asleep was that I might actually have a peaceful rest tonight… until a strange sound jolted me awake again.

My breath caught in my throat as I blinked, struggling to focus on the dim, blurry room around me. I tried to sit up, but a firm weight was keeping me down.

When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness, a gasp tore from my throat, my heart hammering wildly in my chest.

A man—his face obscured by a black balaclava—was on top of me.

8

Rhett

It wasa good night for hunting. Dark and quiet; the kind of night where shadows swallowed everything whole. The kind of night where monsters thrived.

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