Chapter One #2
I have no interest in landing myself in more trouble, which is precisely why I push to my feet and start hurrying down the mountain. These woods are familiar to me; I’ve navigated them countless times, so I don’t need a trail to guide me. The moon, stars, and my instincts are enough.
The tingling on my neck swiftly morphs to a burn as I hear heavy footfalls following me. Someone, more than one person, is chasing me. My hear trate speeds up, sweat gathers on my brow, and every finely honed instinct I possess tells me that I need to get the hell out of here immediately.
The footsteps grow progressively closer, and my breaths quickly turn into pants—I am not a runner. I attempted to join track and field in high school and didn’t make it past tryouts.
“Hey! Stop!” A male voice calls, far too close for comfort.
Instead of listening to him, I try to speed up, but it’s futile.
A moment later, a hand grabs my arm, and I find myself being ripped backwards with such force my shoulder pops out of its socket.
Shooting pain eats through my arm, chest, and even back as my body tells me in every way possible that something’s horribly wrong.
I bite my lip against the noise of pain that tries to crawl up my throat as I’m promptly tossed to the ground, jarring my shoulder.
A gigantic male form hovers over me. My backpack tumbles a few feet away, out of reach.
Tree-trunk thighs straddle my waist as the man descends.
Firm hands pin my arms to my side, and this time, a small whimper does escape me, a product of pain and the tremendous fear that curdles my stomach.
I stare, wide-eyed, up into two bright eyes, a peculiar shade of green.
Verdant, I think. A flashlight is shined in my face, not by the man straddling me, but by someone else.
I squint and turn away from the sudden, blinding light.
“What. The fuck. Are you doing here?” the man above me growls.
“Nothing!” I squeak.
A forearm lands on my throat. No pressure is applied, but the threat is very, very clear: if I say the wrong thing, this guy will choke me. Then… then, he might bury me along with whoever else he was digging a hole for.
When he told someone to go deeper, it wasn’t sex talk. As well as I know my own name, I know two facts about the man pinning me to the cold forest ground. First of all, he’s a killer. Second of all, I just stumbled on him disposing of a body.
I often wish I didn’t have the intuition I do. It used to break my heart to realize just how many bad people there are in this world. Now, it all feels like more of the same. I’ve accepted that there are no truly good people left—or perhaps they never existed.
Now I’ve been caught by someone who isn’t just a bad person, but a bad person who might kill me. I squeeze my eyes shut, turning my head to the side.
“Hey,” green-eyes snaps. The word isn’t friendly; it’s threatening. “Fucking look at me.”
Breath shuddering out of me, I force myself to comply. I slowly pry my eyes open and look into the face of the man who might be the harbinger of my death.
Several things strike me at once. He’s beautiful; the sort of otherworldly masculine beauty that shouldn’t exist, especially not on an individual like this one.
The flashlight casts a glow on the side of his face, and it illuminates features that are unreasonably stunning, especially for a killer.
Dark sable hair, disheveled from his little run.
Glowing verdant eyes that glimmer in the night.
Angular chin with a small cleft; cheekbones that could cut diamond.
I never thought death would wear such a pretty face. I suppose it’s not the worst thing I could see before I go.
I crane my neck sideways to look at whatever dick is standing nearby and shining a flashlight in my face.
Verdant Eyes removes his forearm from my neck, only to take my chin in an iron grip and force me to face him.
“Don’t look at him,” he says warningly. “Look at me, and kindly explain what in the actual fuck you’re doing here tonight. Who sent you?”
Sent me? If there was any doubt that he was up to something criminal, his words dispel it. “Nobody sent me,” I say in as calm a voice as I can manage, which comes out surprisingly steady. “I come here a few times a week for a night hike to clear my mind. There’s a wolf pack I visit nearby.”
The words spill forth in a frantic bid to convince them that I saw nothing and know nothing.
The former is true. The latter isn’t, but I don’t feel like explaining my uncanny intuition or my unsettling knack for knowing things about people that I wish I didn’t.
There’s no way to articulate it, and I don’t want to make this guy feel threatened.
“Bullshit,” Flashlight Guy says. “You tucked tail and ran—pretty fucking poorly, I might add. You’ve got a knife on your belt. Why the fuck would you need a knife for a night hike? No, somebody sent you to spy on us. Who?”
“Check my texts,” I squeak. “They’ll confirm what I’ve said. I didn’t see anything, I swear. I heard someone say go deeper and assumed people were up here to fuck, which is why I was hasty to get away.”
Verdant Eyes tilts his head to the side as he appraises me. “I know you,” he says after a long beat.
“No you don’t,” I say hurriedly.
That makes him release a dark chuckle. “Yes, I do. Mira. Mira Greene, right? I’ve seen you around Greywood.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I do go to Greywood University, but I don’t recall ever seeing this male around.
Then again, I tend not to pay attention to faces; a skill I learned when I started getting overwhelmed as a child.
Looking into faces serves as a direct line to seeing a person’s true nature, and I am sick of learning things I wish I didn’t.
“I ran into you at the library once,” he goes on. “I helped you get a book from a high shelf.”
“What?” I breathe. I don’t ever remember seeing this guy before.
My befuddlement appears to irritate him. “You don’t remember? I asked you for your number.”
Flashlight Guy releases a snort of disbelief. “You did what? Asked a girl for her phone number?”
“Shut up,” Verdant Eyes snaps at Flashlight Guy. Back to me: “You said you have texts to prove you’re here for a hike?”
“Doesn’t matter if she’s here for a hike,” Flashlight Guy says. “Even if she wasn’t sent by anyone, she saw something. If she didn’t see something, she heard something. That’s a loose end.”
I have a dreadful feeling that these guys are not the sort to let loose ends walk away.
“What I heard was someone saying go deeper,” I say, trying to keep the tremor from my voice.
“I’m not a fan of watching public sex, so I tucked tail.
As far as I’m concerned, the two of you could’ve been fucking under the cover of darkness.
I heard nothing important. Please let me go—I guarantee I won’t say anything. ”
“Maybe you didn’t hear or see anything,” Flashlight Guy says, “but then we chased you. You’re currently pinned down on cold soil.
You could report that. If you report that, it could cause someone to take a closer look at us.
They won’t find anything, of course, but I’d prefer not to be under investigation.
Investigations are headaches, and I don’t react nicely to potential headaches. ”
“I am not going to report you,” I say firmly. “What I want is to go home so I can get up in time for my 9 a.m. class. I already stayed way too late with the wolf pack.”
“Okay,” Verdant Eyes says. “Everyone calm the fuck down. Mira, I’m going to back up enough for you to grab your phone. Is it in your back pocket?”
Maybe I’ll still get out of this alive. Flashlight Guy doesn’t seem to want to let me go, but Verdant Eyes is slightly more reasonable, even though I’ve shirked him by not remembering him.
If he asked me for my phone number, he probably liked me; if he likes me, he might hesitate to see me as a loose end.
I usually have no problem gauging someone’s emotional state—in fact, I can’t seem to stop—but right now, my fear is overwhelming my ability to get a good sense for him.
“Mira?” he prompts, arching an eyebrow.
I clear my throat. “It’s in my back right pocket, and I can’t move my right arm. I’ll need to sit up to grab it.”
His brows furrow. “What’s wrong with your right arm?”
“I think my shoulder’s dislocated. Not sure yet, but it hurts a lot.”
Flashlight Guy scoffs. “Bullshit. If it was dislocated, you’d be crying and screaming in pain.”
I contemplate informing him that I have experienced far worse pain than a mere dislocation, so a shoulder out of its socket is very manageable, but decide against it. He won’t care, and I don’t feel like talking about my past. “Okay.”
“She could lunge at your throat with a knife,” Flashlight Guy comments. “She has one on her belt.”
Verdant eyes runs his hands along my belt, swiftly unclipping my knife and tossing it toward Flashlight Guy. “I’ll pull back. You’ll sit up and grab your phone. Don’t make any sudden moves. Agreed?”
I nod. “Yeah, agreed.”
He does exactly as he said he would, leaning back.
I prop my left hand on the ground to push myself up, grimacing at the pain shooting down my right arm, then awkwardly reach for my phone with my left hand and wriggle my ass until I’ve managed to retrieve it.
Before I can enter the password, Verdant Eyes snatches it from my hands. “Password?” he asks—demands.
I frown. “Can I put it in?”
“No. It wasn’t a question. You are treading on extremely thin ice, Mira. I’d highly recommend you cooperate.”
I swallow my pride and tell him the six digit code.
He spends several long minutes tapping around my phone, probably going through my texts, social media messages, and who knows what else.
Meanwhile, I try to move my right arm around without much success—it’s definitely dislocated.
I do not feel like paying the medical bill to get it fixed, so I’ll need to ask Valerie to help me relocate it.
She’s a pre-med major, so she’ll probably be able to help.
That is, if I make it home tonight.
“She’s telling the truth,” Verdant Eyes says. “There are texts with her friends confirming her story.” He looks back at me. “The fuck were you doing with a wolf pack?”
I lift my functional shoulder in an awkward shrug. “Animals like me.”
He gazes at me for a beat. “Huh. Okay. I’m going to talk to my friend for a few minutes. You’re going to stay right where you are and keep quiet.”
I swallow. “Are you going to kill me?”
“What makes you think that?” Flashlight Guy asks suspiciously. “If you didn’t see anything, that is.”
“I inferred,” I respond. “Your line of questioning has been very particular.”
“You’re unnervingly calm,” Verdant Eyes observes.
“I’m really not,” I assure him. “This just isn’t my first life or death scenario. I’ve learned to dissociate.”
Flashlight Guy releases a disbelieving grunt.
Verdant Eyes frowns, staring at me in silence.
After several beats, he comes to a stand, grabbing my backpack and swinging it over his shoulder. Pointing at me, he instructs, “Stay. You move, we’ll assume you’re a threat. Got it?”
I smile grimly. “Trust me, I’m not going anywhere.”