An Arcane Education (Arcadia Academy #1)
Chapter 1
Someone is following me.
Rocks crunch under my hiking boots as I make my way up the trail, breathing hard with the increase in elevation and the adrenaline spiking in my bloodstream.
The man behind me has matched my pace for the last half-mile after catching up just enough to keep me within eyesight. Now, he’s getting closer.
Dense thickets of creosote bushes and various species of trees flank me on either side as my mind races with options of how to get away.
Maybe he’s not following you, I tell myself. He might have just been planning to hike the same trail as you. But my intuition never lies.
When I had arrived, the man had been lingering in the small gravel parking lot beside his truck as if waiting for someone, his appearance ordinary and unassuming.
He had spoken to me when I passed him on my way to the trailhead and was friendly enough, but his line of questioning—asking if I was alone, which trail I was going on, if I was planning to do the full loop or turn back early—had set off alarm bells in my mind.
I had lied, claiming that a friend would be meeting me here but was running late. By now, I’m sure he knows I was lying.
I’ve tried slowing down, speeding up, and pausing to pretend I’m admiring the views, but nothing changes. He stays the same distance behind me, close enough to watch me but far enough away that he probably thinks I don’t notice him.
I can’t tell if he’s just being creepy or is biding his time for something more sinister, but I don’t plan to find out.
As soon as I round a bend in the trail, I scramble up the boulders to my left and avoid the branches clawing at my legs before ducking down behind a bush.
Beneath me, thick exposed tree roots climb over the dirt only to disappear back in, as though they’re tangled limbs emerging from water.
It’s cooler on this trail due to it being a canyon area, but the heat is still oppressive, weighing down on me as I crouch and wait.
Only seconds later, the man rounds the bend, squints ahead as if searching, then breaks out into a run. Not a casual jog, but a sprint, flinging rocks behind him as he races to the next bend in the trail and slows to a brisk walk just before rounding it.
When he disappears behind the trees, I let out a shaky breath and will my racing heart to slow. I should’ve brought that damn pepper spray my stepdad insisted I take with me on my hikes.
I stay crouched behind the bushes for five more minutes before deciding that the coast is clear.
My legs tremble as I stand, and branches scratch my arms as I navigate the thick brush.
My hike is ruined, but I’d rather head back to my car than risk encountering this man further ahead on the trail.
So much for a relaxing afternoon alone in nature.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck as I climb back down the rocks and start my journey back to my car. It’s less than a mile, though I can’t be entirely sure what the distance is considering there’s no phone service out here.
Every crack of a twig or rustle in the bushes has me flinching, snapping my head to the side and scanning behind me for any sign of the man, but I force myself to relax.
If he had come back down the path, I would have seen him from my hiding spot.
He’s probably still picking up speed and wondering where the hell I went.
For a brief moment, I stop walking, close my eyes, and inhale deeply.
The scents and sounds of nature have always had a way of calming me, but the opportunity for getting either of those things is rare at home.
To have an experience like this with real nature and not manmade parks that are packed with families, I have to drive the forty-five minutes out of the Las Vegas valley and come here to Red Rocks National Park.
It’s midday on a Tuesday, one of the rare weekday afternoons I don’t have to work and the perfect time to go hiking without too many others crowding the trails.
But God forbid a woman take some time for herself without a man ruining the experience.
Moving forward again, I recognize one of the large, misshapen boulders sitting off to the side of the trail and know I’m getting close to the parking lot.
It’s one of my usual landmarks that indicates I’m near the end of the trail.
A couple minutes from now, I’ll descend to an area that’s no longer concealed by trees on either side but open desert where I’ll be able to see the trailhead and parking lot in the distance.
But when I round the next bend, an arm shoots out from my right, and I’m yanked sideways, stumbling to stay on my feet as I’m thrown off balance and shoved against a tree.
“What the fuck,” I shout as I writhe against the arms pinning me to the tree. Rough bark scrapes my back through my thin T-shirt.
The man’s face splits open in a snide smile as he easily holds me in place, even as I lash out to kick him to no avail. “You shouldn’t have run.” His voice is eerily calm.
“You shouldn’t have been following me,” I fire back breathlessly as my mind races. How do I get out of this? This man is clearly unhinged if he’s following women on isolated hiking trails, so who knows what he’ll do if he manages to keep me here.
Think, think, think.
But I can’t.
His fingers latch around my throat, pressing against me with a force that takes away every potential thought as my desperation for survival kicks in.
With one hand free, I claw at his hand and forearm, desperate for the oxygen he’s depriving me of.
But his grip stays strong, and my vision fades to black around the edges.
No. I refuse to be another statistic of a woman who gets murdered in the middle of nowhere. I have to survive, if not for myself, then for my family. They need me.
A fire sparks inside of me as I use every ounce of my being to stay conscious and survive, and that spark morphs into a strange sensation unlike anything I’ve felt before. Beneath me, the ground rumbles.
I’m sure I must be hallucinating from oxygen deprivation when the sprawling tree roots beneath us begin to move, erupting from the dry dirt and snaking toward us to latch onto the man’s ankles.
“What the–” he starts, kicking at the roots that are coiling up his legs, but his words are cut off as he’s yanked backward and falls face-first to the ground.
As soon as his hand falls away from my neck, I gasp in deep breaths, my head pounding from the lack of oxygen as it fills my lungs again. I stumble to the side, away from the thick, serpentine roots twisting over the dirt as my mind races to catch up with what I’m seeing.
This is impossible. Every instinct screams at me to run, but I can’t move.
My heart lurches with the fear that at any second, the roots will wrap around my ankles and drag me down alongside the man, but they don’t.
That fire of survival within me grows stronger, augmented by rage as I watch the man scramble across the ground, clawing at the bushes in an attempt to free himself. Fuck that. He doesn’t deserve to escape this—whatever this is—after attempting to harm me.
More roots writhe from the ground and latch around his arms, his torso, his neck. He claws desperately at the ones around his neck, his face turning a bright shade of red as he chokes and struggles to breathe, and my fear intermingles with a sick sense of satisfaction.
Our eyes lock, and his expression is filled with the same primal fear I felt only moments ago and the same bizarre shock I’m feeling now. But his expression also holds something mine didn’t: the terror of knowing that fighting is useless.
I stand frozen, watching the impossible scene playing out before me as he’s raked across the sharp rocks, screaming in pain as he’s dragged into the brush beyond.
His screams are muffled as the ground opens up and swallows him whole.
The silence that follows is deafening.
The only thing I can hear over my unsteady breathing is the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears, and I’m left staring at the woods and wondering if I’ve completely lost my mind or if that really just happened.
There’s no way that could have happened… right?
I race down the rest of the trail, my mind whirling with possible explanations but coming up short. I know what I saw. I know I wasn’t imagining it, but I still can’t quite believe it.
When I reach the parking lot a few minutes later, my stomach rolls at the sight of the man’s truck a few spaces from mine.
It’ll only take a few days at most for someone to notice an abandoned vehicle, and it might be less time until the man’s reported missing.
I should report it, but there’s no way I could explain the impossibility of the events that just transpired.
Reporting this would peg me as not only the prime suspect, but the only suspect, and the legal process would be more tension on top of my already stressful life.
Collapsing into the driver’s seat of my old, sun-damaged sedan, I start the car, crank the air conditioning, and turn the radio volume off as I quickly exit the parking lot and head back toward the park’s entrance.
Exhaustion hits me hard, my limbs like lead and my hands shaking.
The adrenaline must be wearing off, and my mind is racing to make sense of the last half-hour.
A man is dead… or buried alive, which is even more terrifying. But if it hadn’t been him dying, it may have been me.
Whatever was out there protected me, though I’m not sure why or how.