Page 76 of Mountain Mens' Curvy Obsession

I shift my focus back to the photo because I feel a thread there, just within my reach. I need to pull it.

I keep my eyes on my smiling face, the white and yellow dress with a satin bow tied just above my waist, my blonde curls combed and caught at the back with a banana clip.

I wore the same dress when Leo’s father brought him to visit us one time.

Wait,” I whisper, the images blending before my eyes.

“Deep breath,” Chance says, and I feel his arm snaking gently around my waist. The twins are quiet as they let me process this. I’ve had a few similar episodes so far, and they all lead somewhere.

Leo Sokolov emerges from the haze. He’s older. A grown man in a dark suit, smiling only with his lips, never with his eyes. Gunshots erupt around us. I’m on the ground. Fear takes over, and Chance can feel me quivering, so he tightens his grip on me.

“Breathe, Anya.”

Breathe.I tell myself the same thing, the weight of my cousin’s body damn near crushing me. I taste blood, but I don’t think it’s mine. POP-POP-POP. It goes on and on. People screaming. Some try to get away. Others are plowed down by bullets. Torn apart. I’m crying, hyperventilating, but I know if I move, I’m dead, too.

Above us, I see the letters printed on a large banner not far from my position.

DALTON FESTIVAL.

“I know where I am,” I mumble, tears streaming down my cheeks as I finally relive the worst day of my life.

Looking around, I see familiar faces. Bodies. The bodies of the people I love strewn across the ground.

Not moving.

Blood s everywhere, crimson red and luscious under the noon sun. I smell it. I can’t get rid of the iron taste in my mouth. The body on top of me is soft. Parts of it squishy as more blood drips over my face.

“Where is she?” Leo snarls.

“I can’t see her anywhere,” Max replies, holding an AR-15.

“Find her and bring her to me!”

I gasp, realizing…

“Oh, God,” I manage, crunching the photograph in my bare hands, while my younger version struggles to get out from under the dead body.

Leo is moving away from me. This is my chance. They’re spreading out, killing everything in sight as they look for me.

“Leo hit the Dalton Festival to take out my family and to retrieve me. He wanted me alive,” I tell the Hayes twins.

“How did you get out of there?” Booker asks.

I keep my eyes closed, my heart breaking all over again as I relive the entire scene, determined to follow this thread all the way through to the end. “I got lucky. Someone fell on top of me.”

Finally, I manage to yank myself out from under the body. But she rolls over, and I see her face. My cousin Ivana. Oh, God, she’s dead. Her eyes wide open, the horror forever imprinted on her pale, round face. I can’t scream. If I scream, they’ll know I’m here.

“I crawled away until I got behind a taco truck, I think. There were crushed taco shells all over the ground.”

I focus on the details. They help me paint the picture, scene by scene, frame by frame.

“The vendor was dead, too.”

“Did you see the shooters?” Chance asks.

“Yes. Leo was there. Max, too.”

“That’s why they’re so desperate to find her,” Booker mutters. “Anya’s an eyewitness. That’s why Max was so determined to kill her, against his brother’s wishes.”

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