Page 118 of Kings & Corruption

“Not exactly identifiable,” Neo said.

He was right, but fury coursed though my veins anyway. I was holding proof that someone had dared to chase our girl through the woods, scare her, hurt her.

And when we found him, he was going to pay.

Chapter54

Willa

Iclung to Oscar, plastering myself against his side in my bed and closing my eyes against the memory of my pursuer at my back.

He kissed the top of my head and tightened his arms around me. “You sure I can’t get you anything?”

He’d asked more than once since we got home, the house eerily silent. Neo and Rock had stayed at the quarry to launch a search for the man who’d chased me through the woods, although I think we all knew he was long gone.

“And you didn’t see anything?” Oscar asked gently. “Even a mark on his hand might help.”

“It was too dark.” I’d been through this, first with Neo, then with Rock and Oscar. “And he was wearing the ski mask and maybe gloves.”

The memory of him was as black as the clothes he’d been wearing. I might have thought I’d imagined him if not for the crystal clear memory of him standing on the trail, blocking my way back to the bonfire.

I sat up, something new suddenly occurring to me. “He must have been following me.”

Oscar nodded, the stubble on his jawline making him look both sexy and menacing.

Older.

“I thought about that too,” he said.

I lay back down, resting my head on his chest as I turned over the new piece of information. The man had waited to approach me until Rock left. He’d known when I was alone, had known I’d try to get back to the party.

He’d intentionally driven me into the woods, and an icy finger traveled up my spine as I thought of all the reasons he might have had for doing it.

Was that what had happened to Emma? Was this the man who’d taken her, hurt her? Or was this my stalker making good on the threat in the package with the pictures and my earring?

Were they the same person?

My mind conjured images of all the things he could have done to me, all the ways in which I could have been taken or killed, the noise of the party masking my screams, the woods obscuring the crime.

I didn’t dare think about what might have happened if Neo hadn’t appeared when he did.

Something teased my mind, a thread I couldn’t quite grasp, but a few seconds later, the front door opened downstairs, the beep of the alarm arming immediately after.

“They’re home,” Oscar said. He slid out from under me. “I’ll be right back.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed, wincing as the skin around the bloody gash on my knee pulled. Oscar had bandaged it up with surprising tenderness, but it still hurt like a mother.

“I’m going with you,” I said.

I didn’t want to be alone, and I wanted to hear what Neo and Rock had found, if anything. It had happened — I had the scratch on my cheek and the bloody knee to prove it — but I was desperate for confirmation someone else could see, desperate to prove that I hadn’t just let my imagination get the better of me on a dark night in the woods, even though no one else had questioned my account.

Oscar nodded.

Neo and Rock were both in the kitchen swigging beer when we got there. Their shoes were off, shirts dirty as they leaned against the counter, but they both looked as delicious as ever, Rock’s hair tousled enough to be sexy and Neo’s face set in a hard expression that reignited the Neo-lust that always seemed to be simmering in my body.

Rock set down his beer and came toward me. “How are you feeling?”

I walked into his arms like it was the most natural thing in the world, like he was my fuckingboyfriendor something.

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