Chapter Four
She was so confused.
And terribly frightened.
And she had no idea why she’d chosen to follow the man who looked like the character from the movie The Count of Monte Cristo—just after his escape but before his revenge tour. But as he seemed to be running from something, she thought she should be, too.
He didn’t wait for her but moved swiftly through the woods.
Anna followed, her heart in her throat, having no idea how she’d gotten here; how one moment she’d been walking on Museum Street and the next she was in the middle of a forest.
She’d had some kind of breakdown, was all she could imagine, some dissociative episode that had made the world briefly feel... unreal, eerie—sinister even—and had wandered away from both Museum Street and reality.
She followed, pushing low-hanging branches from her path, her mind racing with questions.
It wasn’t his tattered clothes that had first caught her eye, but the old-fashioned handcuffs.
A thick, rusty manacle was linked to one wrist, the other half dangling free as if he’d broken it mid-escape.
An escape from where? An asylum? He was tall and broad-shouldered but lean, moving with a desperate speed despite an unsteady gait.
His strange, knee-length wool pants and long, stained shirt—stained with what she desperately hoped wasn’t blood—did little to protect him from the woods.
His feet were bare, his long black hair swinging as he ran.
She’d only seen his face for a moment, but the image was seared into her mind: long and lean, with a wild beard and intense blue eyes.
He was striking... but not in a good way. He was striking because he was unreal, because he was so out of place.
It dawned on her then—she was dreaming.
Strangely, she felt almost an instant relief. Oh, thank God, it’s just a dream. I’m inside a dream.
A dream that felt stunningly real, but only a dream.
It was the only explanation that made any sense.
One moment she’d been standing outside a bookstore on Museum Street wondering whether to accept a handsome stranger’s invitation to dinner, and the next she found herself chasing a barefoot man in weird clothing through a rain-soaked forest. Only a dream could make such a leap; reality certainly didn't.
And so she kept running, knowing she would wake soon, and this would all be done.
She remembered a dream she’d had as a child, of running from some unseen bogeyman, and telling herself inside the dream that she had to run all the way home and get into bed so that could wake up.
Oddly, Anna remembered her fright in that dream, but she didn’t recall feeling winded or getting scratched and slapped by branches.
But then after a while—honestly, she’d run too far in the strange man’s shadow to not have questioned more sooner—Anna stopped, her chest heaving.
She swallowed hard, trying to draw long, even breaths while she listened.
Above the bare noise of the man in front of her, who moved almost entirely without sound, rather confirming her belief that she was inside a dream, she heard nothing.
The muted distant voices she’d heard ten minutes ago, which had prompted her to run—to follow the weirdo in front of her—had vanished. There was no other noise.
Blowing out a hard puff of breath, Anna placed her hands on her hips and watched the Monte Cristo man as he continued on.
See ya, she thought with annoyance, unable to make sense of why she’d followed him so blindly.
Even inside a dream, that seemed like something she wouldn’t do, or at least as something she would have questioned more.
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, letting the rain fall softly on her face, telling herself to wake now.
But damn, she didn’t wake. Instead, she heard Monte Cristo man’s voice, understanding now as she hadn’t before that his heavy accent sounded more Scottish than British.
“Move, woman!” He commanded in a loud hiss, closer than he should have been.
Her eyes shot open.
He stood between two spindly trees, his hand clutching one slender trunk, staring at her, a dangerous gleam in his blue eyes. He was only ten or so feet away, must have backtracked a bit.
“What—who—are we running from?”
“Stand and stay, and ye’ll find out,” he warned. “But I promise ye, lass, ye dinna want to do that.”
Since this was only a dream, Anna felt a surge of annoyance rather than fear.
“Okay,” she said, holding up both hands. “But can somebody please explain why I’m dreaming about an escaped prisoner who looks like he’s from the Middle Ages?”
A deep, angry furrow creased his forehead. “Stay if ye wish. They’ll find ye soon enough.”
And with that, he turned and fled once more.
Anna rolled her eyes. Whatever.
She turned around herself, supposing she should at least pretend she knew where she was going, that her bed and her sleeping self were somewhere behind her, and began to stomp in that direction.
She remembered—just now—that she still held the instant picture in her hand. She paused and glanced down at it, frustrated further that the image was water damaged now, rain having splotched and stained the image until the gorgeous breakfast was no longer visible.
“Great,” she said, stuffing it inside her bag as she walked further.
She paused almost immediately, upon hearing something that made the fine hair rise along the back of her neck.
At first it came only as a faint vibration beneath the steady patter of rain, so distant she couldn’t decide whether she truly heard it or only imagined it. Then it came again, louder now, a deep, uneven pounding that seemed to belong less to the air than to the earth itself.
Anna frowned and stood perfectly still.
Thunder? She wondered. No, it lacked the rolling quality of a storm and came in distinct, rhythmic bursts that grew steadily nearer.
It wasn’t cars, couldn’t be cars out here in this dense forest. There was only that relentless drumming, accompanied now by something metallic she couldn’t identify, sharp little clinks and rattles.
She turned in a slow circle, searching the trees, but saw nothing but rain-soaked green and brown.
The sound gathered frighteningly fast, swelling until it seemed the entire forest trembled beneath it.
Birds burst from the trees somewhere ahead, disappearing into the gray sky, and for the first time since convincing herself this was all only a dream, Anna felt something far more unsettling than annoyance and confusion.
She felt afraid in a way that was far different from the vague, detached sort of fear dreams usually inspired, where some part of her always knew she’d wake before anything truly terrible happened.
This fear was something deeper, more instinctive and visceral.
Her pulse sped up and her throat tightened, every nerve in her body urging her to move, and she believed at that moment that Monte Cristo man had been right, that she didn’t want to meet whoever or whatever was coming toward her.
She turned again and ran fast in the direction Monte Cristo Man had taken, calling, “Wait!”
She stumbled before she’d taken ten steps, the wedge heel of her espadrilles sliding sideways on a patch of wet moss before catching against a root.
She windmilled both arms to keep from falling and cursed her shoes.
They’d carried her comfortably through England for three days, but clearly were not designed for sprinting through a forest.
Before she’d gone another twenty yards, the strange pounding she’d heard moments earlier grew noticeably louder, and whatever comfort she’d taken from convincing herself this was only a dream began slipping away.
“Wait!” she called, but the man was nowhere in sight. “Please, wait!” she cried, a bit more desperately.
As fright took a stronger hold, she ran on, considering her circumstance.
Here she was, running through the middle of what she still desperately hoped was a dream, her skirt catching on every thorny bush in England, her expensive sandals sliding helplessly over roots and slick patches of mud, her face and arms covered in scratches, and the only person who might be able to help her had now vanished.
Then, just as she’d begun to think he truly was gone, same as she was from Museum Street, she pushed through a dense thicket of trees and brush and saw him again.
He stood near a fallen tree draped in moss, his shoulders rising and falling with heavy breaths, watching her approach, his hand urgently beckoning her as if he’d been waiting for her, which, fantastically, offered a bit of relief.
“Make haste.”
There was something so different in his expression now that Anna obeyed without questioning him. The irritation she’d felt only moments before vanished beneath a fear she couldn’t fully explain, and she hurried toward him, slipping twice before reaching him.
He caught hold of her wrist when she reached the log and urged her to step over it, and then immediately pulled her sharply sideways.
Anna gave a startled cry as the ground seemed to disappear beneath her feet, and together they slid down the steep bank of what she realized was a narrow ravine carved into the forest. Wet leaves, broken branches, and black, saturated earth gave way beneath them until they came to rest at the bottom, where the smell of damp soil and decaying vegetation rose so strongly she almost gagged.
She had scarcely managed to push herself upright when he pressed one broad hand against her shoulder and urged her back down.
“Cover yerself,” he whispered urgently, as he turned and plucked wet leaves from the inner slope and spread them over the tracks of their descent.
She didn’t even think to hesitate but obeyed, and began covering her feet and legs, pulling the forest foulness over her favorite floral skirt.
The man finished his task and turned swiftly toward her. “Lie down,” he commanded, his expression fierce.