Chapter 3
Chapter Three
R uby had a bad habit.
She’d been reprimanded for it by Macy so many times she’d had to lie and tell her she didn’t do it anymore.
She’d never told Lena in the first place.
And if anyone else from town found out, they’d just use it as further evidence of her otherness.
But she couldn’t seem to stop.
Although, tonight, after her encounter with Rafe, she was having second thoughts as she stood at the trail head. Ruby had a bad habit of walking home through the dark woods, but tonight, maybe she should stick to the semi-lit streets of Maple Hollow.
Something rustled in the leaves and Ruby’s heart responded like she’d seen a ghost.
Or a monster.
“It’s probably a squirrel,” she muttered to herself, clutching her bag of leftovers tighter in her fist and pointing her cell flashlight on the trail ahead of her.
She could backtrack. She could walk back down the side street that led to this trail.
She could walk past the market with Clark behind the register and wave as she went by.
She could hurry past the post office and the police station and the laundromat all closed for the night.
She could walk through the tiny village, past the sleepy houses and the trimmed lawns until she finally got to her?aunt’s cottage on the edge of the woods.
Well, it used to be her aunt’s cottage. Now it belonged to her and Lena, split fifty-fifty in?her aunt’s will when she died last winter.
Ruby sighed, glancing up at the treetops and the stars shining above them.
Fuck it.
She started off down the trail through The Pines, as all the locals called the woods around here. This way was so much faster. She’d be home in no time, heating up these leftovers for Lena. Assuming she was still awake, which she often was these days.
Ruby had to get home to her sister.
She had to make sure she was okay, coherent, conscious .
Something hooted in the trees to her left and Ruby jumped; her sharp gasp was loud in her ears.
The whole forest was loud actually. The dead leaves rustled beneath her feet; the trees shushed in the wind above her.
The forest was alive at night and there was something Ruby loved about it. Even when it scared her.
In a weird way, she felt safe, enveloped in the darkness between the trees.
In the shadows. She could be alone with her thoughts here.
No one was watching; no one was judging.
She didn’t have to force a smile for tips or pretend she wasn’t worried about her sister.
No one could see her tears if she felt like crying.
A stick cracked somewhere off the trail, and Ruby clutched her chest.
“Jesus,” she breathed. Okay, so maybe she should have taken a different route tonight. Her love of the woods aside, she was still keyed up from her strange encounter with Rafe. He’d left her feeling?… jumpy. To say the least.
The way his gaze had tracked her around the bar?… she couldn’t help but feel like his eyes were still on her now as she?walked. Silver and intense. Otherworldly. She’d never seen eyes like that before.
She wondered if he’d come back into the bar like he said he would.
She wondered if she’d ever see him again.
She wondered what his hands would feel like wrapped around her…
Ruby spun around, swearing she could hear footsteps behind her on the trail. She waved her flashlight around but found nothing but the tall shape of the trees closest to her. Her light could barely penetrate the darkness. She couldn’t see what was out there. It could be anything.
Panic, raw and primitive, coursed through her.
Anything could be beyond the light of her phone, and it could be staring right back at her.
Every story she’d ever heard in this town, joked about over beers and whispered at sleepovers, all ran through her head.
Things in the woods.
Creatures.
With teeth and claws.
Things that love to chase.
And hunt.
And bite.
Her breath sawed in and out, and her heart pounded in her ears. She had to get home. She picked up her pace until she was nearly running.
Were those footsteps behind her or just leaves rustling in the wind?
Was that the rasp of a breath beside her, or did it come from her own lips?
Did she imagine the glimmer of eyes in the underbrush?
By the time she could see the lights from the cottage shining through the trees, Ruby’s heart was racing, and her lungs burned from the effort of half-walking, half-running. She was being silly, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being followed, that something was out there.
As she nearly tumbled into her own backyard, she could have sworn she heard a growl.
She sprinted for the house.
Up the old back steps, the wood creaking beneath her weight. She nearly tore the old door off the hinges before slamming it behind her.
She bolted the lock.
Turning, she thumped her back against the door and slid down to the floor.
Holy shit.
What was that? Who was that? Ruby squeezed her eyes shut and rested her forehead on her knees, waiting for her heart rate and her breathing to return to normal.
But when she did, Rafe’s silver eyes stared at her from behind her closed lids.
She blinked them open again, shaking the image from her head.
It wasn’t him. It was nothing . Squirrels or owls or the wind…
But squirrels didn’t growl and owls had never made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and she’d never felt like the wind was following her. Stalking her.
Her heart still rammed painfully against her chest, and her breath was ragged. She needed to get a grip before she passed out.
She ran her hands over her legs and then over her arms, convincing herself that she was fine. Alive and well. Completely unharmed. Totally fine, she repeated to herself over and over until finally she could breathe without panting, and the panicked beat in her chest lessened.
She rose from her seat against the door and stood on shaky legs. She might be immune to most fears, but apparently her flight-or-fight instincts still worked. Except when mysterious men were involved. Her flight-or-fight instincts had wanted to curl up in Rafe’s lap, not run from him.
What that said about her, or him, she wasn’t sure.
The stairs creaked, pulling Ruby from her thoughts.
“Lena?” she called, but it was Lucifer, their sleek, black cat that rounded the corner, not Ruby’s sister. Ruby leaned down to give the little demon a scratch between his ears before heading upstairs.
She had bigger problems than her own overactive imagination.
She had to check on Lena.