Page 11 of Mate Night Snack
Just instincts.
Her jacket was still damp from this afternoon’s run-in with Emmett Hollowell, and part of her wondered if she was actually losing it, creeping out after sundown with a man like that stomping through her thoughts. But something had been tugging at her gut ever since she left the clearing.
A pull. Like a thread wound around her ribs, drawing her back.
It wasn’t logic.
It wasneed.
She slipped out the back door and cut through the inn’s garden, the moonlight soft and silver on her skin. HollowOak looked different at night. Less quaint, more alive. Fireflies winked along the trail edges. Trees leaned closer, as if listening. Every breath of wind felt like it had a destination.
She followed a narrow footpath past Moonmirror Lake, where the water reflected not the stars above butotherthings like glimmering lights that blinked in odd rhythm. She paused, watching the surface ripple once, twice, then still again like it had been startled into motion.
“You’re seeing things,” she muttered, and kept walking.
The trail thinned into underbrush, the roots thickening beneath her boots. A flicker of movement caught her eye near the base of a gnarled juniper, something metallic buried in the moss.
She knelt.
A rusted chain curled around itself like it had been there a long time. At the end of it, a locket. Oval. Dingy bronze, worn smooth in places like someone used to rub it for comfort. She brushed the dirt away with her fingers.
There was a symbol etched into the front.
Rough. Jagged. A triangle circled in flame-like lines. It wasn’t any language she recognized.
Her thumb ghosted over it and the world began to spin. Hard. Like the ground dropped out from under her.
She gasped and dropped the locket, but it was too late. Her eyes flooded with light. No—images. Flash after flash, bleeding through her vision like heatwaves on asphalt.
A girl in a red jacket running between trees. A voice calling her name. The taste of blood. A clawed hand reaching. A howl cut short.
Katniss stumbled back, breath hitched, throat dry. The trees blurred. The moss shimmered gold. Her legs gave out. And the forest swallowed her whole as darkness overtook her and screams fading into the background.
She came to with her face pressed into damp moss and her limbs twisted under her like a poorly assembled mannequin. Everything hurt. Even her eyelashes.
Someone said her name. Low. Rough. Familiar.
“Katniss.”
She cracked one eye open.
Emmett was crouched beside her, one knee in the dirt, his flannel sleeves rolled up again, that deep scowl back in place. Moonlight turned the edges of his dark hair silver, and his eyes—stormy, sharp—moved over her like he was checking for damage.
She groaned. “You really need to stop finding me.”
“You really need to stop wandering into places you don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t—” She winced, trying to sit up. His hand caught her elbow before she could fall sideways again.
“Easy.” His palm was warm. Steady. “You blacked out.”
“I found… something.” She looked around. The locket was gone. Or hidden. Or maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. “There was a—symbol. On a locket. And then…”
Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to say it.
“You saw something.”
It wasn’t a question.
