Chapter 3
Through the pelting rain, I catch the crooked outline of a run-down house ahead. Two stories of warped wood and peeling paint are tucked deep between the trees, its sagging porch lined with long tufts of grass pushing through the cracks.
We rush toward it, stumbling over the splintered steps before ducking beneath the overhang. I slip from his arm the second we’re covered, putting a small distance between us as I clear my throat. “Thanks.”
His eyes flick toward me through damp strands of hair. “It’s Manson.”
I blink. “What?”
“My name.”
Thin wisps of white drift between us in the cold. My hands linger awkwardly at my sides before slipping into my sleeves. “Thank you.”
The name lingers at the back of my tongue, resistance chipping away just enough for it to emerge. “Manson.”
The corner of his mouth ticks upward, faint enough that I almost miss it. The tight bundle of nerves inside me loosens slightly.
He glances over my shoulder for a second. “So—”
“Tatum,” I fill in, my voice an octave higher that I would’ve liked.
His eyes sweep back to me, his smile stretching a little wider, an invisible thread pulling taut in my stomach, spreading south.
Ignoring the unfamiliar churn, I drag my sleeve across my face as though I can wipe the feeling from myself entirely.
But it only smears deeper, like rubbing at a wine stain, so I mask it with more conversation.
“I’m sorry again about earlier.” I swallow, chewing at the inside of my cheek. “It’s just been…a night.”
My gaze ping-pong between him and the swaying trees, the heavy pour of rain doing a lot to fill in the brief silence.
Something about the way he looks at me feels distinctly sharp. Like he’s analyzing me or dissecting me or I don’t know what. At some point, I quit dodging his coffee-ground eyes and hold them despite the unease crawling up my throat.
It’s then that I notice the shadows under his eyes, the overgrown mop of hair spilling across his brow and deepening the tired grooves carved into his face until he looks worn down in the same way I feel.
Strangely, a ripple of relief unwinds through me. For a second, I convince myself he’s probably part of the trail crew. He has to be.
Except I didn’t see any other cars parked up front besides Dax’s Jeep. My mind scrambles for a reasonable explanation.
I could’ve missed it. Just like I almost did the first time.
His voice slices through the web of thoughts. “What are you doing out here this late? These woods get rough when the weather turns bad.”
My nose twitches as I brush my free hand over the side of my face, smoothing back strands I’d already tucked away just to give myself something to do under the weight of his stare, the sour stench thickening in the damp air.
Rotting wood, I think to myself, my boot scuffing along the uneven porch as I try to push away the memory of Dax’s betrayal.
To my horror, my eyes prickle with tears. The floorboards waver out of focus when something small twitches behind him, further down.
I gasp, my eyes rounding wide.
His brow furrows as he slowly cants his head, following my line of sight until he spots the heaving clump of fur wedged beside an old planter a few inches back, the white ceramic chipped and streaked with grime…and splotches of blood.
Acid burns in my throat.
Upon closer inspection, I realize it’s a squirrel, twisted at an unnatural angle with one leg bent wrong, the fur matted and tinged dark in places.
The edge of my phone drives the jagged teeth of my keys deeper into my skin.
Its eyes are crusted nearly shut, lifeless enough that I would’ve thought it was already dead if not for the slow, heavy intakes of breath, its sides shuddering weakly against the planter’s curved base.
“Poor guy,” Manson murmurs, the wood groaning as he kneels beside the injured creature.
I stiffen, my pointer finger returning to the hangnail on my thumb until it splits down the middle in a searing sting.
A hiss slips through my teeth as my hand flies to my mouth, sucking the metallic tang from the torn cuticle while my head throbs again, a dull ringing tolling in my ears. Louder. Louder.
My stomach drops when he reaches for a flat stone beside it, every trace of moisture vanishing from my mouth.
The gears in my mind shift and churn, moving into overdrive, and before I know it, the protest sparks off my tongue. “Wait!”
His neck cranks around, glancing at me over his shoulder. His eyes are still and unflinching, matching the stone in his hand.
A pulse jumps in my throat. “What are you doing?”
The squirrel spasms weakly at the edge of his knee, dread spearing through me with dizzying force.
He’s quiet for a second, something unreadable flickering across his face.
“It’s hurt,” he finally says, rainwater gathering at the ends of his pale hair before slipping into narrow trails along his jaw. “I’m helping it.”
As his attention turns forward again, bile climbs higher in my throat. My stomach twists violently as I lean deeper against the side of the house, one arm stretched behind me while every instinct in me strains to put distance between us. Quietly. Carefully.
A bone cracks. The whimpering fades.
Beneath me, the world shifts, tipping me off-kilter.
Cold metal grazes my back, and I gasp as the door gives out behind me, flying open hard enough to send me reeling backward with an uncontrolled yelp.
My car keys spring from my hand, plunging somewhere across the floor. By the time I catch my balance, my gaze feverishly skims across the floorboards in search of them before I fumble with the phone in my clammy grip, trying to swipe on the flashlight. The screen glitches, freezes.
Shit.
Around me, the walls seem to inch closer with every passing second as darkness crowds the corners. I jam my thumb against the frozen screen, silently pleading with it to work before the front door slams shut, the frame shuddering with the impact.
Maybe the breeze.
A flimsy excuse. One even I don’t fully believe.
Quakes of panic ripple through me, my knuckles aching around the phone clenched in my hand. I try to speak, force something out, but my voice snags on itself, my teeth chattering around the name before it finally leaves my mouth. “M-Manson?”
The name barely survives the hollow percussion drumming overhead. Mildew and decay saturate the air, worsening the nausea curdling in the pit of my stomach.
Rocking back on my heels, black spots begin to swarm along the fringes of my vision before a creak yanks me back into focus.
“Sorry,” he’s quick to amend. “It’s just me. Didn’t mean to frighten you again.”
My eye catches on his scuffed boot first as he steps from the shadows into a faint sliver of moonlight spilling through a cracked window nearby.
Throat constricting, I drift back a step. Something crunches under my shoe.
Glancing down, I lift my foot from a dust-coated shard of glass, my gaze sweeping across the floor before noticing dozens more pepper the warped planks around me.
Dread mauls through my chest and up my windpipe, but I ground myself by wedging the phone tighter between my palms, keeping it visible between us.
His eyes never leave mine. There isn’t a flicker of hesitation in him, not a single glance toward the device in my hand.
The realization unsettles me more than it should.
It’s not like I know for sure he intends to hurt me. There’s no reason for me to overreact.
Besides the fact that I just watched him cave a squirrel's head in with a rock. The grotesque image keeps flashing through my mind.
My vision clouds, trapped in an anesthetic-like haze.
I blink, and suddenly, he’s in front of me, hands closing around my shoulders as I seize from his touch. A slow, unreadable sweep passes over me.
“You’re cold,” he says.
Expression blank. Matter-of-fact.
I wet my lips, pausing for a second to collect myself. “We probably shouldn’t be in here.”
Something beyond me tugs at his attention, a faint shift crossing his expression before fingers trail down my arm, squeezing once before releasing their hold as he steps around me. “Give me a minute.”
Pressing my teeth into my lip, I hold myself rigid as I turn to watch him move farther into the house.
His boots thump softly past an old table before he stops near the staircase, silver light filtering through the shattered window beside him onto a strip of moss-colored fabric gathered at the bottom step.
Hesitation gnaws at me, urging me to leave.
Run.
Never glance back.
But panicking won’t do me any good right now. Not when every instinct in me already knows I wouldn’t make it far.
A glint flickers between the floorboards beneath the table, pulling my attention away from him.
My keys.
Snapping into action, I move toward them, wincing at the crackle of glass underfoot as I duck under the table. My fingers close around the tattered lanyard just as a dull sterling sheen catches along the cracks in my periphery.
A ring.
Letting the keys fall quietly against the floor, I pry it out, tension throbbing in my throat as his legs stay turned toward the end of the staircase.
I set my phone on the slanted chair beside me before my attention snags on frayed ropes sprawled beside another chair, overturned on its side.
Fear thickens in my chest. Warning bells ring in the back of my mind, screaming for me to leave.
Get out.
Get out.
My arms shake and my knees throb, but I move, fingertips tracing the coarse fibers darkened with what I’m almost positive are old bloodstains, the dried reddish-brown staining the entire surface around it.
I can’t breathe.
Long grooves gouged through the dust-coated floorboards run beside the ropes, jagged and eerily deliberate, like someone had clawed at the wood, trying to escape.
Dread unfurls in my stomach as the pieces begin to form in my mind, sending panic skittering across my skin, but despite the rattling fear, I stay frozen, lips parting around a silent cry I don’t dare sound.
When movement flickers at the corner of my eye, I quickly slide it onto my ring finger before lurching upright, my head knocking painfully against the underside of the table, my thighs burning from being crouched for so long.
His eyes dip briefly toward the space beneath the table before lifting back to mine, too calm. A fresh wave of unease cinches tight in my chest as he approaches. “Here. This should help.”
My gaze drops to the wool blanket in his hand. It’s patched and threadbare, and I dig my fingers into my palm to keep from recoiling away from him, afraid flinching will change something between us.
The fabric is rough and cold against my skin, doing nothing to chase away the chill buried deep into my bones.
His motion is slow and careful, completely unlike the way he handled the stone earlier. Reflexes take over and I shudder.
Hardly an inch separates us. His grasp stays gentle as he smooths the blanket over my shoulder, bringing his arms down between us.
Time stills.
My head swims.
Both of us go quiet as we hold each other’s stare. Something twists low in my stomach as his gaze drifts over my face, lowering gradually before lingering a second too long at my jaw, enough to make my skin itch.
Even then, I don’t pull away.
Somehow, his irises darken the longer he looks at me.
The attention clings to my skin, equal parts unnerving and suffocating, and I immediately want to shove it off me. “Is there something on my face?”
His brows pinch slightly, tongue darting out across his lips before his expression falters. “No…sorry. It’s just…” A nerve ticks in his cheek. “You look like someone I knew.”
One of his hands slides from the blanket at my shoulder to cup my chin, his thumb tentatively smoothing over the small birthmark there.
Muscles at my core tighten and flutter, but I don’t pull away, afraid to even blink with him up this close. Part of me wants to ask who, but the words stay clogged in the back of my throat, impossible to reach.
I ball up my fists, clenching them so hard it almost makes the tremor in them worse. Our faces are inches apart. The space between us sparks with restless energy, eroding whatever sense I have left until it wears dangerously thin.
My gaze drifts to his lips as I swallow hard. But before anything else can happen, a sudden crack splinters through the broken window near the front of the house, tearing the moment apart.
Snapped twigs.
Low, careless laughter I instantly recognize.
The dizzy pull from seconds ago evaporates, replaced by the raw ache left behind earlier. I’d almost forgotten they were out there.
Forgotten we weren’t entirely alone.
My legs shake as my attention jerks toward the window, tracking the sounds wrapping around the house, inching closer to the front door until Dax’s voice finally sharpens into focus.