Chapter 11 Ava
ELEVEN
AVA
Iwake to the steady thump of Scott’s heartbeat under my cheek and the low crackle of the fire still alive beside us.
For a moment, I don’t move. I just lie here, wrapped in his warmth, skin still humming with the afterglow. My core aches in the best way, and the scent of him—sweat and cedar mixed with a hint of me—makes my chest tighten in a way that has nothing to do with sex.
But something feels off.
Even with the heat at my back, my skin prickles with awareness. The room’s almost pitch black, the fire not doing much to keep my eyes from imagining movement beyond the curtains as I strain to look past Scott.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I scold myself for letting my mind constantly run away with itself up here. I’m not worried about the dark back on campus, yet up here it’s all I can focus on.
The fire’s occasional pop and Scott’s steady breathing almost wash away my incessant worries enough to lull me back to sleep.
But then I hear it.
It’s faint, a barely there scratch along the outside of the cabin. And now that I’ve heard it, I strain to listen closer. See if I can mark it for what it is, but it stops, leaving me just as unsure as I was last night.
My breath catches, my heart rate spiking with anxiety.
I stiffen, every inch of me on alert now. My eyes snap to the front door across the room, clocking the locks in place. It looks normal. Right as I’m about to write it off, the sound comes again, low and slow, like fingernails drawing down old wood.
I press my hand to Scott’s chest.
“Scott,” I whisper, shaking him lightly back and forth.
He doesn’t wake. A soft snore answers me, and he shifts, pulling me closer to his side.
I pinch him, hissing out his name this time. “Scott!”
Still nothing, the man’s dead to the world.
I sit up enough to look at him. His sculpted arm, not wrapped around my body, is flung over his head.
Those sinful lips that had me screaming his name are parted slightly.
The beard, which hints at his age with its salt-and-pepper streaks, is scruffy.
I bet if I leaned down to kiss him right now, he would still smell like me.
But the peaceful look across his face, like he hasn’t turned my world inside out, is what makes my lips tick.
He looks serene. Thoroughly used and deeply unconscious.
“Guess my pussy really did knock you out cold, old man,” I murmur.
He doesn’t even twitch, but my body shakes at my own joke. He probably wouldn’t have appreciated my humorous dig anyway.
“Should’ve warned you about the stamina gap,” I say under my breath, dragging the heavy wool blanket with me as I stand.
The fire throws a stretched shadow of my form across the floor. It creeps up the wall like a ghost come to join me in my investigation. I step carefully, minimizing the sound of my movements.
The scratching stopped the moment I sat up, and I wonder if it was just the quiet drawing me into its tricks. It was probably just the wind against the unsettled wood stacked on the porch.
The logic doesn’t keep my heart from crashing against my ribs as I reach the door. I lean in close, pressing my ear against the cold surface, listening.
Silence.
Just the fire crackling steadily behind me. My own shallow breathing bounces back off the door.
BANG!
Something slams against the door hard enough to shake it in the frame, while pushing my body from its place on the other side.
Raw fear claws up my throat, escaping into an ear-piercing scream. I stumble back, feet tangling in the blanket, before I crash into the small entry table. A ceramic lamp goes flying, shattering treacherous pieces across the floor.
“Scott!” I yell, voice breaking, tears threatening to pool on my lashes. “Goddamnit, wake up!” I beg.
He bolts upright, eyes wide, hand reaching for where my body should be. The other is scrambling across the floor for anything he can use as a weapon, but there’s nothing within reach.
“What? What the hell, Ava? What happened?”
I’m staring at the door, chest heaving, every breath too fast and not deep enough. My oxygen’s cut off, and blackness seeps into my vision as my panic takes hold.
“Something hit the door,” I manage to push out. “It slammed into it. Hard.”
He’s up in a second, fully alert now. His tense naked form’s an afterthought. His eyes sweep the room, then lock on mine. He moves with the swiftness of an agile hunter, stepping over the broken lamp to grip my shoulder, pulling me into his heaving chest.
The night outside is quiet now. Making a liar out of me, mocking my ability to show this man the truth.
But I know something’s still out there.
It wanted me to hear it.
“Are you sure?” Scott asks, his voice low like he’s trying not to spook me further. “Are you absolutely sure it wasn’t a nightmare? You must have been dead asleep, baby. Your heart’s still racing.”
I flinch at his words. Not because I’m scared—though I still am—but because that slight, careful doubt in his voice is undeniable.
My head snaps up. “You think I’m lying?”
He hesitates, mouth gaping like a fish out of water.
“You think I just dreamed that something pounded against the door, damn near hard enough to bust it off the hinges? That I screamed bloody murder and accidentally broke a goddamn lamp because of a nightmare?”
“Ava—” He stops, his voice placating.
His grip loosens as I jerk away from him, tiptoeing carefully between the shattered ceramic shards sprinkled across the wood floor.
“No,” I bite, wrapping the blanket tighter around my chest, covering my naked body. “Don’t Ava me. I know what I heard. I’m not imagining things, Scott.”
He runs a hand down his face, through his beard, and breathes out hard. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I—look, sometimes your brain doesn’t wake up with your body. Dreams bleed into reality. I’ve had it happen, too. I’m not trying to gaslight you, alright?”
I cross my arms, feeling the shake in my limbs even as I try to stand tall. The unease that settles deep in my stomach pulses stronger with every word he uses to pacify me.
Something did hit that door. I know it. I felt it in the way the air changed and in my bones—literally.
I get what he’s saying. I know that feeling, but this wasn’t it. This was real. And I can’t help the feeling that whatever’s going on out there in the dark hours of the night wants this. It wants us at each other’s throats. It wants to build a divide.
Scott steps toward me slowly, palms up like he’s well aware he fucked up. I’m two seconds from spinning on my heels and leaving him here with his bullshit excuses.
“Come here.”
I don’t move.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I didn’t believe you.
It’s just—” He sighs, pressing his lips together before continuing.
“There’s no one out there, baby. There can’t be.
It was likely a raccoon or coyote scavenging for food.
This place is remote. It’s not uncommon for animals to come close when they smell the potential for a meal. ”
His coaxing tone tries to soothe the anger swirling in my chest. But it’s not what breaks through my outrage. He called me baby, again. I can’t deny that one little word does something to me. It feels like a claim, in the simplest sense.
He ignores my obstinate stance and closes the space between us, drawing me gently into his strong arms. His bare skin is warm against mine, flaring the feelings of a couple of hours ago back to life.
I don’t fight it, even though I want to. But the truth is, I’m freezing, exhausted, and now turned on.
“Let’s get off the floor,” he murmurs into my hair. “Come lie on the couch with me.”
I let him guide me, my feet numb against the biting hardwoods. We step over the mess of debris and move toward the worn leather sofa. He grabs the extra blanket from our makeshift floor bed and shakes it off, then settles down, pulling me onto his chest.
The fire’s almost out. Only embers pulse with their remaining heat, but I’m not getting up to bring it back to life. It’ll be one more choice I’ll likely regret come morning.
“I’ll stay up,” he whispers, his lips brushing my temple. “I’ll keep watch while you sleep. You’re safe now, Ava. Nothing’s getting to you, not even the nightmares. I promise.”
I nod against him, but I don’t quite believe it, sincere as he sounds. How can he protect me against something he hasn’t acknowledged? Against something I don’t even understand.
I tuck myself tighter into his arms, trying to let the steady beat of his heart drag me into unconsciousness or trick me into feeling safe.
There’s no respite when I close my eyes. Because I know what I heard, and deep down, I know this didn’t start tonight.
My thoughts spiral back to the night before, when I woke up screaming, convinced I’d seen something through the threadbare curtains pulled across the window. Just for a second, a shape flickered there, staring in at me. I know it.
Yet, that time I believed him. It was just another nightmare. But at what point do I start putting weight into these convincing spectacles? Three times is one time too many to ignore.
What if something is out there? Something that doesn’t want Scott to know—to believe.
Just me.
What if it’s watching, waiting for something? But what?
The thought roots in my mind, slithering deep beneath the surface.
No matter how tight I clutch Scott or how steady his breathing stays beneath me, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m not imagining this at all.
Something’s out there.
And it’s not finished with me yet.