Page 32 of Ravens
“Bear,” he says finally. “The scratches on that tree are fresh. So is the scat beside it.”
“Should we go back and tell them?”
“No.” He starts walking again.
This guy is putting me on edge, and I don’t like being out here alone with him. Out of the three of them, August is the least predictable, although it’s probably naive to think I can predict any of these people.
“This is probably far enough.” He surveys our surroundings and points past me. “You go that way, and I’ll move around in the opposite direction. Don’t stop walking. Set an easy pace, and don’t make any major deviations.”
Darkness has fallen, and it’s going to be pretty difficult to move around out here at all, let alone not get lost or off-track in the process.
“Sorry about your balls,” I finally say. “I don’t like when people sneak up on me.”
“It’s my fault. I underestimated you.”
The tone of his voice makes me uncomfortable, and I slide my hand up under the back of my coat.
“Careful about that bear . . . It’s a big one.” He turns and walks off, his black raincoat melting into the darkness in seconds.
Shit. I slide out my gun and wait a few minutes, listening for footfalls, but I can’t hear a thing. He’s either the stealthiestperson on the planet, or he’s about ten feet away staring back at me. The temperature drops enough for my breath to fog slightly while I wait, and I can’t decide whether I should risk turning my back or not.
A branch cracks further off to my right, well outside of the perimeter we’ve set. If there is a bear out there, I don’t want to be standing here when it wanders through. I take a slow step back, careful of my footing, and then another. After a couple of tense minutes of indecision, I turn and begin moving.
It’s slow going. My eyes have adjusted, but I can only see a few feet in front of me, and every few minutes I pause, straining for footsteps or any other noise that feels too near as I squeeze the gun in my grip.
After about thirty minutes of paranoia, I start to relax. I’m not sure how long it will take us to cross paths again, but it could be a while at the pace I’m going. It’s eerie as hell out here at night, made all the worse by knowing I’m far from civilization among dangerous people, one of whom seems to be teetering on the edge of sanity.
“Hello.”
The voice comes from in front of me, and I raise the gun to the darkness as my heart hammers the wall of my chest.
“August?”
He materializes from the dark in front of me and pushes his forehead into the barrel of my gun. When I look down at his body, I can’t see his hands, so I flip the safety off and meethis eyes.
“Back up before I cure your crazy permanently.”
“Just making sure you didn’t get lost,” he says and steps back. “We wouldn’t want that . . .” He shuffles back and turns his face away, and I lose him in the darkness again.
Son of a bitch. I lower the gun and pull my hood up before moving in toward the campsite. If he can disappear, so can I. I step around a tree and lean into it, conscious of every breath sound I make. After a few silent minutes, I creep forward again slowly, careful of my foot placement until I reach the next tree and lean into it, too.
I’ve never liked the woods. They give me the sense of being trapped in a maze with a million exits, but unless you know which way to go . . . you’ll never find a single one of them. Some forests are just too big, like this one. Luckily, I know where I’m going right now.
I risk moving further inward and not stopping again for a longer period. When I do make a pause, the echo of a distant branch snapping makes my senses strain. It’s too far away to be August, but it’s got to be something. The next tree I tuck up against isn’t that large, but I can hear the crackle of fire in the distance ahead.
Some of the tension seeps out of my neck, and my shoulder aches as I press it into the tree. August might just be messing with my head, but I also think he has a few real screws loose.
The tree quivers against me, and I twist, looking behind me before checking around the tree. Nothing. Straightening, I step forward, and the sharp, loud sound of fabric tearing stops me. Ilook over my shoulder to find a knife in the side of the tree. My fingers find a tear in the side of my jacket, and my skin prickles.
I grab the knife from the tree and barrel toward the sound of the fire, losing all concern for how much noise I’m making. If that knife landed an inch or two further to the left, it would have been my skin tacked to that tree trunk.
By the time the soft glow of the fire comes into view, I’m sweating beneath the raincoat.
I crash into the camp, gasping for air as I drop the knife and gun, tear off the coat, and then grab the weapons and pivot toward the woods.
“What the—”
I turn my gun on the voice by the fire, and Carter stops speaking. August materializes in my periphery, and I retrain the gun on him.
