Chapter 5 （continued）
Nika
The first few days were spent sightseeing in Split.
The gallery, the palace, the cathedral. I bought little knick-knacks for my family—a small ceramic tile for my mum, something embarrassingly touristy for my dad that he would absolutely love and never admit to.
It was all so perfect. The people, the weather, the strange warm sense of familiarity I hadn’t expected and couldn’t quite explain.
Like something recognising me before I recognised it.
The first twenty-four hours I’d worried about Finley.
Checked my phone too many times. Felt the weight of knowing I’d have to go back and continue living with him for a while—because I was done, yes, absolutely done, but I wasn’t a fool either.
He was capable of hurting me. Not in ways I could easily prove.
Just in the slow, grinding ways he already had been.
But I forced it all to the back of my head.
Split had too much to offer to waste it on Finley.
I joined a tour and the guide was phenomenal—Darijo, who rattled off facts about Krka National Park with the kind of effortless authority that made you feel both educated and slightly inadequate.
The park was closed for swimming, which was a genuine tragedy, but the green-blue of the water was unlike anything I’d seen.
That shade that didn’t look real. The waterfalls throwing mist into the warm air while tourists stood in it with their eyes closed like they were being healed.
I understood the impulse.
The next morning I went back to Krka alone.
Armed with my inhaler, a printed map, two bottles of water, and the Soparnik I’d saved from the day before—a savoury pie that I was quietly very smug about discovering.
I’d planned my trail the night before, cross-referencing the map with everything Darijo had said, colour-coded notes in my phone like the deeply sensible woman my mother always said I was.
I was going to be fine.
Two hours later I was lost.
Properly, completely, embarrassingly lost.
The map made no sense. The trail markings had either disappeared or I’d stopped being able to read them, which amounted to the same problem.
There was nothing around me but trees—860 species of flora according to Darijo, none of which were helpfully labelled—and the silence of a forest that has no interest in your itinerary.
Every direction I tried to trek back led me to the same spot.
That’s when I saw the dog.
He reminded me of my neighbour’s husky. Big, fluffy, the kind of coat that would be an absolute nightmare to groom. He was just standing there between the trees, watching me with a stillness that didn’t quite fit.
But never mind the breed. Where there was a dog, there was an owner. And where there was an owner, there was a path back to civilisation.
I carefully folded my map and tucked it into the side compartment of my backpack. Adjusted the straps. Checked the dog was still there.
He was. Nose raised. Sniffing the air.
“Here, boy,” I crooned, stepping forward.
He didn’t move toward me. Just kept his nose up, reading something I couldn’t.
“Where’s your owner?”
Another step. Then another.
He turned away from me.
Oh no.
He bolted.
I ran after him like a complete lunatic, crashing through undergrowth, clambering over roots, disturbing what was probably a significant percentage of those 860 flora species. My backpack bounced against my spine with every stride.
“No, come back!”
I ignored the tightening in my chest. Ignored the fact that my inhaler was in my bag and stopping to use it meant losing him entirely.
He had to be leading me somewhere. That was how this worked.
Dog finds lost hiker, dog leads hiker to safety, hiker buys dog a treat and writes a lovely review of the national park.
The dog stopped.
I stopped too, hands on my knees, catching my breath.
He turned.
He wasn’t looking for his owner.
He was looking at me.
The growl came from somewhere low and chest-deep, nothing like a domestic dog’s warning bark. This was something older. Something that understood exactly what it was doing.
He bolted again.
Straight toward me.
I turned and ran.
Death.
The trees blurred. My lungs burned. I was going to be mauled to death in a Croatian national park and no one knew where I was — I’d told no one, I had no guide, I had a colour-coded map that had been completely useless, and I was going to die out here and feed the forest and my parents were going to receive decomposed parts of me through some sort of international—
His teeth sank into my calf.
The pain hit a half second after I hit the ground, white and total and overwhelming. He was shaking his head, tugging and tearing with a viciousness that my brain couldn’t fully process. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t think. I could only reach.
My hand found a piece of wood. Thick. Heavy enough.
I swung it.
He didn’t budge.
Up close he was massive—not husky-massive, something else entirely, something that didn’t have a breed name I could access right now—and the stick barely registered. I kicked with my free leg, swung again, felt my head bounce off the soft ground as I struggled.
I couldn’t catch my breath. Between the pain and the movement and the crushing weight of pure animal panic there was no air left anywhere.
The growth caught me as I started to lose consciousness. Soft underneath. Almost kind.
Would it eat my organs first?
Was it worth eating healthily all those years just to become dinner?
The tugging on my leg stopped.
Yeah. Bones were hard to chew.
Thankfully, the darkness took me and I didn’t fight it.