Prologue
IDIDN’T GRAB ENOUGH.
I knew that as soon as I zipped the duffel closed. Half of it was stuffed with random clothes, the necklace my mother gave me before she died, and two expired protein bars I’d found in a drawer.
I didn’t grab my passport, which was locked in the safe in my office. I didn’t grab my grandmother’s quilt I folded at the end of the bed. I didn’t grab the photograph tucked into the mirror frame, its edges curled from years of sunlight…my smile frozen in a moment I would never get back.
There wasn’t time.
There was never time anymore.
I stepped back from the bed, and the floorboards groaned, making me wince. Every sound felt too loud, too sharp, too exposed. My room was dim, any light warped by the dresser lamp that flickered with a dying bulb.
I lifted the heavy duffel and pulled the strap over my shoulder, and it bit into my collarbone like punishment.
Good.
I deserved it.
I wasn’t running on courage. I was running on fear. Raw, blinding fear…and all I could do was pray it made me faster than him.
The storm outside had broken an hour ago, but the wind still howled through the eaves like a warning, rattling the glass as if it wanted in.
The power had already failed more than once.
Ten endless seconds of darkness before the lights had sputtered back to life.
Even worse, my phone was dead, and no charger on earth was going to revive it fast enough.
I stepped out of my room, into the hallway steeped in darkness. Shadows puddled along the floor, stretching toward me like fingers as I crept toward the stair, a gaping mouth leading down into deeper dark.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My pulse pounded in my ears. Really damn helpful when I was desperately listening for any strange sounds.
I hesitated, squinting into the dark like maybe I would suddenly learn night vision.
Was that…?
There was a faint stir in the air, like a ghost brushing past, and then the barest suggestion of weight on the boards below.
I froze, my breath locked, every nerve straining for proof. Maybe it was just the wind…or the house settling.
Yeah. That was it. Just the house. Please, let it just be the house.
I ticked off the seconds…ten…twenty.
There was nothing but silence.
I had to take a chance.
Forcing myself to move, I clutched the duffel tighter and crept down the stairs, skipping the third step that always groaned.
My shoes touched the hardwood, its shine hiding a merciless bite.
The same surface that had kissed my cheekbone when he’d slammed me down on it.
Every squeak of rubber on the polished floor felt loud enough to give me away.
Keys. Door. Car.
That was the plan. I’d never been good at planning, though. My plans never worked out.
But this one was simple enough to be foolproof. Or at least that’s what I kept telling myself.
The kitchen was dark and quiet, and I moved quickly, grabbing the key ring from the counter with a trembling hand.
As I turned, heading back down the narrow hallway toward the laundry room and the back door, something stopped me cold.
The hallway door, the one that separated the living area from the back of the house...it was cracked open.
Just a few inches. Just enough to bleed darkness through the gap.
It had been shut, though. I knew it had. I’d passed it only a minute ago.
That sick feeling pooled in my gut as I once again reassured myself it was nothing.
Maybe the wind had done it. A draft through the old frame. Hinges that never sat right. A hundred explanations stacked themselves up, one on top of the other.
But the longer I stood there staring at the open door, the flimsier the excuses became. Because even though he’d just been released, and there was no way he could be here yet…
The house was too quiet. Not empty, but quiet like it was holding its breath. Quiet like it was…waiting.
I crept forward, slow enough that every step felt like it took a year off my life.
The knife block sat on the counter to my right, right where it always was, ordinary and menacing all at once.
My hand slid out before I could second-guess it, and my fingers trailed across the cool wooden edges until they found the handle I wanted.
The biggest blade.
My grip tightened, and I pulled the knife free as quietly as I could. The weight hit my palm with a jolt of déjà vu. His hand had pressed this same knife to my throat once, the blade so steady I’d felt my own pulse beating against the sharpened edge.
I forced my attention back to the dark slit of the open door. Inch by inch, I raised the knife and nudged the gap wider with its tip, every muscle wound tight, braced for what waited on the other side.
The hinges creaked as the door gave way, and I peeked inside.
The laundry room stretched out before me in that same muted cream color that I hated, every surface heavy with stillness. I peered into the room, my eyes locked on the back door. Still bolted. Still shut. Relief started to bleed in…
And the hallway light behind me flicked off.
The room dropped into gray, my breath seizing as I whipped around. Back to the hallway.
But I found nothing there. No watching figure, just a thick, creeping darkness that felt far too interested in me.
A small whimper escaped, and I pressed my back to the wall, fighting the urge to hyperventilate. I fumbled for the switch, and the lights blinked on again, bathing the hallway in a soft white glow. The storm roared outside, the wind battering the glass.
The lights flickered again, then died, plunging me into total darkness.
That’s when I heard it.
Steady breathing that wasn’t mine…threading through the shadows around me.
My eyes darted frantically down the hallway one way, then the other, straining to catch the smallest shape, the faintest movement.
But all I could see were black walls and deeper shadows.
I kept searching anyway, jerking my head from side to side, certain that if I stared long enough, something would rise out of the dark to stare back.
But nothing revealed itself.
There were no footsteps, no movement…no sounds of anyone there. Only the fridge humming in the background and the sharp, smug tick of his family’s heirloom clock above the stove, a sound I’d hated from the moment I moved in.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
I walked down the hall, one slow step at a time, keeping my back against the wall so nothing…and no one…could sneak up behind me.
The knife handle was still gripped tight in my fingers.
I wasn’t going to be a headline on the news. At least, no more than I already had been.
Not tonight.
The window over the couch rattled hard in its frame as a gust of wind crashed against it, and I jumped, my heart slamming into my throat.
I tried to convince myself that was the only thing trying to get in. Just the wind—
“Hello, Sienna.”
Time stopped. I couldn’t breathe. Even the ticking clock seemed to disappear.
The voice had slithered out of the dark, smooth and mocking, echoing the tone he’d used the night I’d clawed at him and dialed the police with shaking, fumbling hands. The night I thought maybe I could get rid of him forever.
It had sounded almost amused then, too…like my struggle was nothing more than his entertainment. Now it came from near the living room, by the front door.
I needed to run. Move, Sienna… Run!
A scream tore loose as I bolted, swinging the knife wildly in front of me, carving at shadows as I ran. The blade cut nothing but air, but I kept slashing, desperate, frantic, as if steel could hold back the darkness chasing me.
I ran to the back, yanking the door open the rest of the way, knife in one hand, keys in the other…my hastily packed bag dropped and abandoned.
The screen door slapped against the siding as I tore into the night.
Mud slicked under my shoes, and my feet slid, but I didn’t stop.
I ran through the wet grass, across the yard, aiming for the dark wall of trees at the property’s edge.
Their shadows looked like salvation if I could just get there first. I’d circle around the fence, make for a neighbor’s house…
maybe my car…anywhere that put distance between his breath and my neck.
A hard gust of wind slammed into me, flinging my hair across my face. I staggered forward. Darkness crowded close, swallowing everything except the faint outline of the shed up ahead.
But I heard him.
The soft crunch of methodical footsteps behind me. He wasn’t running. He didn’t have to. Predators didn’t chase…they stalked, and then closed in.
A sob broke past my lips, wild and ugly. I slapped my palm over my mouth, strangling the rest of it as panic spiked. The half-formed sound lingered in the dark like bait.
Don’t be prey. Don’t be prey. Don’t be prey.
I kept chanting it like it would make any difference. Like it would suddenly give me superhuman speed…or at least enough to outrun a man who had always physically bested me.
I veered around the shed, my heart thundering, and my foot caught on a rut in the ground.
My ankle twisted, white-hot pain shooting up my leg.
Biting back a cry, I stumbled the last few steps before dropping low behind a rusted wheelbarrow.
The knife shook in my grip, clenched so tight my knuckles burned.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The moon slipped free of the clouds for a heartbeat…just long enough to spill light across the yard.
And there he was.
A silhouette cut from shadow, broad-shouldered and unhurried.
He was always like that. Controlled. Calm. Like he had all the time in the world to ruin me.
He stood in the yard, his head tilted like he was listening. I didn’t dare make a sound.
“Sienna…” he called again, low and coaxing. “Come on, sweetheart. I just want to talk.”
Sweetheart.
I clamped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming and curled tighter into the shadows, willing myself invisible.
Rain fell again, soft at first, then steady, pelting the tin roof of the shed in a rhythmic beat that almost masked the sounds of his boots moving closer.
I held my breath.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” he said, his voice seeping into the night like smoke under a door. “You always were stubborn.”
That voice. I felt it in my bones before I even processed the words, a cold clamp closing around my spine.
No.
I wasn’t doing this.
I wasn’t falling apart. Not again.
I crept backward on hands and knees, away from the shed, deeper into the shadows, where the trees started. My injured ankle rolled on a branch, but I bit down on the cry of pain.
I was almost there.
If I could just get to the neighbor’s fence line—just far enough to scream, to be seen—
A twig snapped behind me, and I twisted toward the sound, my palms scraping the dirt.
Nothing.
Dragging my gaze back…I collided against a nightmare.
“There you are,” he murmured as he bent over me. Too fast, his arm snaked around my waist, and he hauled me off the ground. His other hand clamped around my wrist. My nerves shrieked as bone ground beneath his grip.
The knife slipped from my hand, and desperately, futilely, I reached out after it. “No, no, no, no… NO!”
“I said stop running,” he growled furiously. His breath flushed hot against my ear.
I thrashed, kicking and clawing…but he only cinched me tighter. My twisted ankle screamed as he dragged me toward the woods, rain sluicing over us both, his hold unyielding, my breath breaking out in staccato gasps.
The security light on the next property burst on, flooding the night with a bright, artificial glare.
“Hey!” a throaty female voice called. “What the hell are you doing?”
It was Mrs. Callahan. The widow next door, who sometimes marched over with a ruler to measure the grass at the edge of my lawn, just to make sure I was cutting it short enough.
Her porchlight snapped on next. God bless nosy neighbors.
His grip loosened for a breath, just long enough.
I seized the knife from the mud and turned, adrenaline roaring in my ears.
A strange calm swept through me, cold and absolute.
And then everything went black.
Keep reading Dark Horse here…