Page 94 of Nave
But a couple of blinks confirmed I wasn’t just imagining things.
He was there. Just a few yards away.
The same features.
The same hair.
The same cold eyes.
The same pristine white clothes. Too clean for this place. But there he was regardless. In my woods. On my homestead. My safe haven.
The air thinned, vanished.
I couldn’t breathe.
And all I could hear was the blood roaring in my ears.
Edith yipped, jerking me back from my shock.
My hand released her leash instinctively. If I couldn’t save myself, I could at least save her.
Edith had a solid sense of self-preservation, taking off at a dead run back toward the front of the property. She was completely out of sight within a few yards.
“Lolly,” Ben called.
I staggered back a step.
“How did you find me?” I asked, my strangled voice foreign to my own ears.
He smiled, tight.
“Did you think you could hide from me? You were cleverer than the others, I will give you that. But you had help, didn’t you?”
He stepped forward.
I moved back.
My foot wobbled on something round. An apple, probably.
“You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to come home.”
He was so calm, so confident, so sure that he would take me again.
He was expecting compliance.
He was expecting the girl I used to be.
But I wasn’t her anymore.
And I was never going back.
I ducked before I could think it through.
My hand closed around the apple, finding it wet and gritty from rot and dirt.
A part of me would have recoiled once.
This new me gripped it harder as I stood, cocked back, and sent it sailing.
