Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Annie
A weathered wooden sign up ahead marks the Pine Valley Trail, the letters carved deep enough to survive years of rain and cold. The parking area is half full: a couple of trucks, one SUV with a dented bumper, and my car.
I sit there with my hands still on the steering wheel, staring at the tree line like it might offer some kind of reassurance if I give it long enough.
The trees stand tall and close together, dark green needles swallowing light in a way that makes the trailhead look more tranquil than it should.
Like once you step past that first line, the rest of the world stops following.
“Okay,” I murmur, because saying things out loud sometimes makes them feel more manageable. “It’s a trail. Gorgeous, apparently, and a great place to photograph.”
I grab my camera before I can talk myself out of it.
That’s the whole reason I came out here in the first place. To see some beautiful nature… and to forget the past week where my brain has decided to start a highlight reel of bad decisions.
The air hits different the second I step out. Colder, edged with pine and damp earth. It fills my lungs in a way that makes me realize I’ve been breathing too shallow all morning.
Better.
That’s better.
The first stretch of the trail is easy. Packed dirt, covered with pine needles, expanding into wide paths, with plenty of people in sight.
Sunlight filters through the branches in broken lines, catching on dust and leaves and the edges of things I wouldn’t notice if I weren’t looking for them.
That’s the part I like.
Looking for things, framing them, choosing where the focus goes.
I lift my camera and start shooting.
A curve in the bark of a tree that looks almost like a face if you tilt your head the right way. The way the light cuts across the ground in uneven stripes. A cluster of mushrooms pushing up through the dirt like they’ve decided to exist whether the forest asked for them or not.
Click.
Click.
Click.
Each shot brings a smile to my face.
It’s peaceful out here. There’s movement layered under the quiet, wind through the branches, a small creature shifting through the undergrowth, the distant call of a bird I can’t name.
Alive.
That’s what it is.
Alive and uninterested in me, which is ideal.
I move farther down the trail, following the curve as it dips and narrows, the light changing as the trees grow thicker. The sounds from the parking area fade until they’re gone completely, replaced by that peaceful breathing of the forest.
My shoulders loosen a little more.
I stop near a fallen log covered in moss, the green bright against the darker bark, and crouch to adjust my angle.
The light here’s softer, filtered enough that everything looks like it belongs exactly where it is.
Click.
I shift, focusing on the way the moss climbs over the wood.
Click.
My thumb taps lightly against the camera body while I think, the familiar rhythm grounding in a way nothing else has been all week.
Work has been a mess.
I mean, not so much the numbers. The numbers I understand. Patterns, inconsistencies, things that don’t line up the way they should.
It’s everything else that’s complicated.
Duke acting like we’re just… fine, like what happened between us can sit neatly in the past if we both ignore it hard enough.
Cody…
I stop that thought before it goes any further, because no, absolutely not.
We aren’t unpacking Cody Harlan in the middle of the woods like that’s a reasonable thing to do.
I straighten, lifting my camera again and scanning for something else to focus on. That’s when I hear it.
A crack behind me.
I pause, the camera still halfway raised.
It’s probably nothing. A branch, an animal. Something small and normal that belongs here in a way I don’t.
I don’t turn right away.
There’s no reason to.
If I turn, it means I think there’s something to see, and there isn’t.
There’s just…
Crack.
Was that closer?
My stomach tightens before I can stop it. Slowly, I turn… but I find nothing.
Just trees.
Tall, straight, spaced unevenly enough that the shadows between them feel deeper than they should. The kind of shadows that don’t quite let your eyes settle.
“You’re fine,” I say, because I apparently need the reminder. “It’s a forest. Things live here.”
Very logical.
Very convincing.
I lift the camera again, more out of instinct than anything else, and bring the viewfinder up to my eye. The lens narrows everything down, cuts out the edges of my vision, and gives me more to focus on.
Tree, shadow light… movement?
It’s subtle. Just a shift between two trunks, far enough back that it shouldn’t catch my attention and somehow does anyway.
My finger presses the shutter without thinking.
Click.
The shape moves again. It’s definitely not an animal.
My breath catches.
“Hey?” I call, the word leaving me before I’ve decided whether I want it to.
It sounds wrong in the peace, too loud and too thin at the same time.
No answer.
Of course there’s no answer.
Because when I lower the camera and look properly, there’s nothing there anymore.
Just trees, shadows, the same stretch of forest that looked completely normal ten seconds ago.
I stand there, trying to convince myself I imagined it. That it was a trick of the light. A branch moving. Something small that looked bigger through the lens.
Except my body doesn’t buy it.
My pulse has picked up, that slow thud turning faster, like it’s trying to tell me something my brain hasn’t caught up to yet.
“Okay,” I say. “We’re… done here.”
I don’t run.
Running would feel like panic, and I’m not panicking. I’m just making a decision. A very reasonable decision to leave.
I turn back toward the trail, retracing my steps with more awareness than I had on the way in. Every sound feels louder now, every shift of wind catching my attention in a way it didn’t before.
I keep my pace steady, even when another faint rustle comes from somewhere behind me but this time I do everything I can to ignore it.
The path widens again after a minute that feels longer than it should, the light shifting just enough that I can see the edge of the clearing ahead.
My car sits exactly where I left it.
The sight of it loosens the fear in my chest, even if it doesn’t fully settle the tension that’s built up under my skin.
I step out of the trees and onto the gravel, the sound of it under my boots grounding in a way the forest suddenly isn’t.
A couple stands near one of the trucks, talking quietly. Someone farther down is loading something into the back of an SUV.
People, normal, everything is fine.
I head straight for my car, keys already in my hand, my focus narrowing down to something simple and familiar.
Open the door. Get inside. Leave.
That’s it.
That’s all I need to do.
I’m close enough to see the windshield when a new shape catches my eye.
A piece of paper, tucked under the wiper.
I stop.
My brain tries to offer up a reasonable explanation. A flyer. Someone advertising something. A note left by mistake.
Except nothing about it feels accidental and I can’t pinpoint why…
A slow, uneasy feeling curls in my stomach.
I step closer, my movements more careful now, like that’s going to make a difference.
The paper doesn’t move when the wind shifts, it just sits there. I reach up and pull it free, my fingers brushing the glass as I slide it out from under the wiper.
It’s folded once.
I unfold it.
The letters are written in thick, dark strokes, the kind of writing that presses hard enough into the paper that you can feel the grooves of it under your fingers.
YOU DON’T BELONG HERE.