Feral Hush (The Feral Ones #6)

Chapter One

Briar

I move through the underbrush with my hands out, pushing branches aside, keeping my steps light.

Silence taught me to survive. My throat aches from thirst, and every swallow burns.

I listen for water even though the sound could be memory lying to me again.

The mountain shifts with wind and birds and settling night, but none of it helps me find what I need.

The forest doesn’t want me, but it hides me anyway.

I tilt my head, searching for the faint rush of a stream. Anything. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. When I open my lips to breathe, a low hum slips out—quiet, involuntary, like something wanting to wake inside me. I press my fingers to my neck until it stills.

No sound.

I reach a break in the trees and crouch low, scanning the ground. No dog prints. No drag marks. No careless boot scuffs. The absence of threat means nothing except danger took another path.

A gust of wind hits the back of my neck and a small clicking sound escapes before I can stop it. I slap a hand over my mouth, muscles locking tight.

That sound doesn’t belong to the forest.

A dark room. Pants unzipping. A strap falling hard. His voice slithers through memory.

Quiet girls live longer.

My fingers tremble. Shoving the memory away, I rise slowly, following the slope. Streams run downhill. My body remembers what my mind keeps losing.

Soft soil gives under my foot and another hum rises in my throat. I swallow it down, but a tiny pulse leaks out anyway. Not loud. Still enough to scare me.

I crouch again, knees to my chest, listening.

The forest answers with nothing.

Good.

I push myself upright and keep going. Bare feet find uneven ground, sending jolts up my spine, but I don’t stop. Not until I hold water in my hands. Not until the shaking leaves my limbs.

The trees close in as the path dips lower. My breath steadies. My throat loosens. The ache pushes me on.

Survive one more hour. One more night.

Everything else comes later—if it comes at all.

A dog barks somewhere behind me.

Not close. Close enough.

My whole body locks. I crouch low and listen hard, every muscle straining. Wind moves through the trees. A crow startles farther up the ridge. Then I hear it again. Faint. Ragged. Answered by a man’s voice too far away to make out the words.

He found my trail.

He’s close enough to send the dogs after me.

My legs quake from too many days without rest. Scratches stripe my shins.

One foot drags more than the other, but stopping is worse than pain.

Stopping means remembering. Stopping means letting him catch up.

And if he catches me this time, he won’t drag me back alive just to make an example out of me later.

He’ll do it slow. He promised that the last time I ran.

Hunger aches, but thirst is louder. My world narrows to one command.

Find water.

A break in the trees opens ahead and I scan the ground before I step into it. No fresh dog prints. No deep heel marks. No drag through the mud.

That should calm me.

It doesn’t.

My memory swims with the voice that taught me what happened to girls who made men repeat themselves.

I shove the fear down and keep moving. Bare feet find uneven ground, sending jolts up my spine, but I force myself onward. If I can reach water, I can keep going. If I can keep going, I might make it to morning. If I make it to morning, maybe the mountain will hide me one more day.

Another bark rolls through the trees behind me. Closer now.

I drop fast, knees pulled tight to my chest, and listen. The forest goes still around me in a way that feels wrong. Waiting. Holding its breath with mine.

Then I hear it.

A man shouting in the distance. Sharp. Angry. Certain.

Not a search anymore. A hunt.

I push myself upright and stumble downhill, branches scraping my arms, panic rising so hard it turns my vision white at the edges. The trees close in as the path dips lower. Another hum presses upward. I bite it back so hard my jaw aches.

One more hour. One more night. One more stretch of ground between me and him.

Everything else comes later.

If it comes at all.

Something cracks behind me—too close, too heavy to be wind—and my heart slams so hard I taste copper.

I stop so fast my bad ankle nearly folds under me. The barking behind me fades for a second, swallowed by distance and trees. Another sound takes its place.

Footsteps.

Not crashing. Not drunk. Not careless.

Slow. Certain. Ahead of me.

My whole body turns to ice. They stomp when they hunt. They break branches. Curse. Laugh when they think they’re close. This is different. Quieter. Worse in its own way.

I drop behind a stand of saplings and press one hand to the earth, steadying myself. The cold mud bites into my skin. My throat tightens around a sound I do not let out.

A shadow moves between the trees.

Broad shoulders. Slow stride. A man who knows these woods well enough not to fear them.

For one wild second, I think evil somehow got ahead of me. Panic claws straight up my spine. I pull my knees in tighter and make myself small, hidden by brush and shadow, trying to become one more dark shape in the undergrowth.

The man pauses.

I stop breathing.

He is turned partly away from me, scanning the trees as if he heard a noise and is trying to place it. His hands hang loose at his sides. No rifle raised. No dog at his heel. No restless twitch that says he’s chasing prey.

Still dangerous.

All men are.

Behind me, far off but real, a dog barks again. Too far to save me from the man ahead. Too close to let me run back. I am trapped between one danger I know and one I don’t.

My mouth goes dry. I try to swallow and fail. A thin choke escapes before I can stop it.

The man goes still.

No.

I slap both hands over my mouth, but the sound is already out there, hanging in the trees between us.

My stomach drops so fast it feels like I’m already falling.

He turns toward the brush.

And I know he heard me.