Chapter 10 #2
“Cute.” His eyes slide toward me. “Who’s this little bird?”
My entire body reacts in disgust before my brain does.
But Miles steps slightly forward first.
Tiny movement. Clear message.
“She’s with us.”
Grant’s grin sharpens. “Podcast girl, right? Saw something about that online.”
How did that get out? He spits on the ground, still focused on me.
“You know these people are full of shit, right?”
Miles’s jaw tightens. Looking between them, I understand something unsettling: This man isn’t dangerous because he’s smarter than Miles. He’s dangerous because he’s an idiot, and he wants attention more than the truth.
“Please leave, guys,” Miles says calmly.
Grant laughs again.
Then one of the Ridgefield crew members starts backing an ATV down the trail carelessly fast. Too fast.
The ATV fishtails hard against the loose gravel.
Miles reacts instantly, an arm coming out in front of me.
“HEY!”
Too late.
The driver guns the engine like he’s filming a stunt reel instead of operating heavy machinery with two functioning brain cells. The back tire catches a rut in the trail and sprays dirt and rock violently outward, and the ATV slams sideways into a fallen pine hard enough to crack part of the frame.
Metal screeches. The guy laughs from behind the wheel. Actually cackles.
“Oh my God,” I blurt.
Miles’s entire body goes rigid beside me. Not fearful. Controlled and ready. Like a lion waiting to pounce.
The driver hops off the ATV grinning like this is all one big joke while his buddies crack up behind him.
“Little slick out here!”
Miles stares at the bent frame for one long second before looking back up at them.
“You’re idiots,” he states.
Grant smirks. “Careful, little Adler. You sound emotional.”
And there it is again. That weird little shift in the air every time they talk to him.
Like they know exactly where to poke.
Miles steps slightly in front of me without seeming to realize he’s doing it.
Tiny movement. Clear instinct. Protective. Grant notices too. He looks between us with this ugly little grin.
“Ohhh,” he drawls. “Now I get it.”
“Get what?” I snap.
“This isn’t research anymore.” He looks at Miles. “This is like a sexy little field trip.”
Miles doesn’t react. That somehow makes him scarier. But Grant keeps going anyway because apparently self-preservation skipped him at birth.
“You know she’s laughing at you, right?” he says casually.
“All those entertainment people do. They come out here, get their dumb little footage, make you look crazy, and laugh all the way to the bank. Better to lean into it. It’s made us loads of cash,” he winks, running a tongue over his yellow teeth.
I hate this. Because for half a second, half a horrible second, I can see the thought hit Miles too.
The fear underneath belief. That everyone sees him as a joke eventually.
“You done?” Miles asks, bored but coiled tight enough to strike.
Grant shrugs. “Just trying to help you out.”
“By acting like an ass in the woods?”
“That’s rich coming from Cryptid Boy Scouts.”
The other two laugh behind him.
One adjusts the rifle strapped across his chest like he desperately wants everyone to notice he owns a weapon. And I hate that. I hate knowing he does have some power right now.
Power shouldn’t belong to the kind of people who mistake cruelty for confidence.
Miles takes one slow breath through his nose.
“You need to leave,” he says calmly.
“And if we don’t?”
There is no sound other than the wind blowing softly through the pines overhead. And suddenly I realize how isolated we are out here.
No roads nearby. No cell service. No witnesses.
Just six people in the middle of miles and miles of wilderness. Cold crawls down my spine.
Grant steps close, threatening.
“You think you own this territory?” he seethes. “You think because you play a wilderness scientist that people owe you respect?”
Miles doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Grant takes another step closer
“You’re nothing,” Grant hisses. “I heard your funding’s about to run out, too.”
Something flashes across Miles’s face.
Grant’s grin sharpens as he leans back. He almost got what he wanted. A reaction.
“You done now?” Miles asks.
“Not really.”
Grant’s eyes cut toward me again, raking over my body. Slow and deliberate.
“You should come ride with us instead, sweetheart,” he says. “At least we know how to handle ourselves out here.”
My entire body recoils instinctively.
Before I can answer, Miles steps fully between us.
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
Grant laughs, backing up with his hands raised. “Jesus Christ. Relax.”
But the thing is, Miles isn’t overreacting. I can feel it. The threat sits underneath the conversation like a rattlesnake in tall grass.
Grant tilts his head slightly. “You know what your problem is, little Adler?”
Miles says nothing.
“You care too much.”
That lands. I see it land. Grant sees it too, which means he digs in further.
“You treat this whole thing like it means something.” He gestures at the woods around us. “Meanwhile, the rest of us are smart enough to know it’s all just content.”
The word hits me too.
Content.
Something ugly twists low in my stomach.
Because that was how I arrived here.
Not anymore. Not fully. And I hate hearing him say it out loud.
Miles’s gaze goes hard as flint.
Then, static crackles loudly at his hip.
All of us freeze. Miles grabs the walkie.
“Maya?”
Nothing but fuzz at first.
Then a voice cuts through. “…Miles?”
Taylor. But her voice sounds off. Thin and breathless.
Miles straightens fast enough that my pulse spikes.
“Taylor? What’s wrong?”
Static crackles through the trees—someone on the other end keying the mic.
Before Taylor can answer, Jax’s voice bleeds through from the background, distant and frantic: “Tell him exactly what happened!”
My stomach drops instantly.
Then Taylor’s voice, closer to the mic, unsteady: “We’ve got a problem.”
Every instinct in my body goes cold.
“What kind of problem?” Miles asks sharply.
Silence.
Then: “We were out checking a wash and came back to find our tires slashed.”
Everything inside me stops.
“What?” Miles shouts.
“All four.” Maya’s keyed up on the walkie now, voice clipped but calm. “We came back from the ridge line and every tire on the 4Runner’s shredded.”
The blood drains from my face, and the Ridgefield guys chuckle behind us.
Miles turns slowly toward them.
“We’re over twenty miles out from your coordinates,” Maya continues through static. “AAA can’t get here. No spare situation fixes this.”
Taylor’s voice is back on the line, higher now with panic she’s trying badly to suppress. “And before you ask, yeah, we found ATV tracks near the clearing. We’re assuming this is Ridgefield and his guys making a statement.”
My heart starts pounding so hard it hurts. I can see it in the Ridgefield crew’s smiles that they’re responsible for this.
“Can confirm. We’re with them right now.” Miles says back.
“Fucking hell,” I whisper.
Grant lifts both hands innocently. “Sounds like bad luck.”
“You slashed their tires?” I snap.
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
I start toward them. “You actual psychopath—”
“Daisy.”
Miles’s voice cuts sharply through mine, and I’m taken aback. But when I look at him, something in his face chills me. He’s pissed, and protective.
The radio crackles again.
“Miles,” Taylor says quietly now. “It’s getting dark. We were just coming to get you, but we won’t make it now.”
The forest suddenly feels enormous around us.
Miles grips the walkie tighter. “We’ll be fine. You guys stay together. Seriously, we’ll be fine.” The second he stops transmitting, the walkie is crackling again.
“Miles—” Maya starts.
He keys up before she can finish. “There’s a ranger station a few miles east from where you are. Lock everything down and try to reach them.”
The line is silent for a few seconds before it reopens. “Got it,” Maya’s voice crackles through, then the static cuts with a sense of finality.
Grant smirks beside us and tuts. “Sounds like you little ghost hunters are having a rough time.”
Miles looks at him again. And holy shit. I’ve never seen someone look so calm while being this furious.
“You need to leave,” he says.
Grant laughs once under his breath. “Or what?”
Miles steps forward. Close enough now that even the other Ridgefield guys stop smiling.
And when he speaks again, his voice is terrifyingly soft.
“If anything happens to my crew,” he says, “I promise you won’t enjoy what happens next.”
The woods go dead silent. No wind. No birds. Nothing.
Then, somewhere deep in the trees, something knocks once against wood.