22. Lena
Chapter twenty-two
Lena
Marcus was extra hungry. Something was weird with his appetite. I shouldn’t have stayed at his mansion so late.
That’s the thought that keeps time with my pedaling as I leave the last light behind quickly and take the narrow path from The Cliffs down to the harbor. The path that skirts the edge of The Wilds.
I should have paid attention to the time.
The Cliffs have a way of doing that to you. Especially when you’re making good money. Especially when it’s gorgeous Marcus.
Time feels … stretched there. Softened. You walk in with the afternoon still bright and walk out thinking it’s only just beginning to dim—until you reach the turn in the road and realize the harbor lights are already on and the sky has gone that flat, colorless gray that means the bell isn’t far behind. The fog is rolling in.
I grip the handlebars tighter and pedal faster.
“Stupid,” I mutter under my breath. “Sometimes I’m just stupid.”
But then the envelope in my pocket crinkles when I shift. There’s a lot of cash. It’s how I can make it.
Money has a way of making decisions for you.
The first time after I accepted and was in the ceremony, I told myself it was just a test. Easy. Quick. A little blood for more than I make in a week at the shop. If I didn’t like it, I would tell Mr. Hunt and he would release me.
But the second time I did it, it was “just until I catch up.” I mean, I took a vow but I still had choices.
It’s isn’t all that bad, being a blood donor, giving in a nice setting, have a beautiful man suck on your wrist. Sometimes your neck.
Now I don’t think that it’s bad. Now it’s just part of things. Part of my life. Part of my routine.
Part of living here. Part of surviving.
I pedal faster.
The path dips slightly, the trees closing in tighter on either side. The air changes here—cooler, heavier, the fog slipping down between the branches like it’s been waiting for me.
The Wilds.
No one says you can’t pass through.
They just … don’t. Definitely not after the bell.
I glance up. No sound yet.
But the light is fading faster now, the sky pressing down into the tops of the trees.
“I’ll make it,” I say out loud, like the words might push me forward. “It’s fine. It’s just a shortcut.”
The gravel shifts under my tires. The bike wobbles slightly, then steadies. The trees seem closer.
I don’t remember them being this close.
“Just keep going,” I whisper to myself, starting to feel frantic.
The wind dies suddenly. It just … stops.
And the bell tolls. The first ring, deep and hollow.
“No!!!” I say, pedaling with all my might.
The second toll sounds.
Now the sound of my tires feels muted, like I’m riding through something thicker than air. My chest tightens. I pedal harder. The path curves. For a second, I lose sight of where it leads.
Then it opens again but not the way I expect. The trees ahead look … wrong. Like they’ve shifted, just enough that the path doesn’t quite line up with the memory of it in my head.
I slow for a minute. Am I going the wrong way?
“Okay,” I say, louder now. “No. Isn’t this the same path I usually take?”
The words don’t help.
The fog thickens, curling low across the ground, catching in the spokes of the wheels. And then something moves.
I freeze.
It’s just beyond the trees. A flicker, moving too fast to track.
My breath comes quicker. “Hello?” I call, my voice sounding small and wrong in the stillness.
No answer. Of course there isn’t.
“Just an animal,” I whisper. “Deer. Fox. Something normal.”
Something normal.
The words hang there, thin and fragile. The bike shifts under me. I realize my hands are shaking.
A sound cuts through the silence. A wet sound. I turn my head towards the sound. There, between the trees, I see a shape.
Low. Moving. Not quite walking. More like gliding.
My heart slams into my ribs. “No!”
I push off hard, pedals spinning and dirt flying, the bike lurching forward. The path narrows again, the trees pressing closer, branches brushing my shoulders as I ride.
Now something, that thing, follows me. I can hear it. And it’s moving fast.
My legs burn as I push harder, lungs tight, the air refusing to come in clean.
“Go, go, go—”
The third and last deep toll rolls through the trees, vibrating in my chest, in my bones. I risk a glance over my shoulder. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t. But I do.
And I see it.
For a second the fog parts enough to show a body. Twisted. Odd. Low to the ground as it leans forward to run. Limbs too sharp, too deliberate. Head tilted at an angle that makes no sense.
And the eyes catch the light. Reflect it, actually. Not like an animal. Like something that understands what it’s looking at. Something that recognizes me as prey.
The sound of the bell seems to agitate it. It surges forward closer. I scream, the sound tearing out of me without permission as I pedal.
“Help—!” I scream out though no one can hear.
The bike jolts. The front tire catches on something—root, rock, I don’t know—and I lose control. The world tilts and seems to move in slow motion for a moment as I fall.
Then I’m on the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of me, gravel biting into my palms and knees.
The bike clatters beside me. For a second, I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t think.
Then I hear it, that dragging sound, a kind of wrong movement.
My body reacts before my mind catches up. I scramble backward, hands slipping on the dirt, heart pounding so hard it feels like it might tear through my chest.
“No,” I whisper. “Please—”
The fog thickens. It swallows the trees, the path and everything except the sound.
It’s right there now. A shape looms through the gray. I squeeze my eyes shut—
And then something crashes between us!
A blur of motion. A force that hits with enough impact to shake the ground beneath me. A sound tears through the air—sharp, furious, nothing like the wet dragging noise from before.
I don’t understand it. I don’t need to. I roll to the side, scrambling for my bike, hands shaking so badly I can barely grip it.
The shapes move in the fog—too fast, too violent to follow. I don’t look. I drag the bike upright, half-run half-stumble back onto the path.
I keep pedaling to get out of The Wilds. I don’t think. The bike rattles under me, barely controlled, my legs burning as I push forward, forward, forward—
Until finally the trees break. The path opens. The harbor lights spill toward me from the distance like something real, something solid.
I stumble out of The Wilds and onto the edge of town, gasping for air, my whole body shaking.
Behind me there is silence. But I don’t turn around. I don’t want to see if anything followed. I don’t want to know.
“I should have stayed over up there, or left earlier,” I whisper, over and over again.
But the words don’t matter now. Because something is in those woods. Something that moves wrong. Something that almost caught me. And something else that saved me.
I’ve got to get to the doc now, looking at my bloody knees, palms and elbows. Her house and clinic are nearby.