Chapter 2
The silence had claws.
It crawled under my skin, biting, tasting, devouring. The kind of silence that felt too alive to be safe.
The Christmas lights were the only thing that dared breathe color back into the dark. The generator outside coughed and rattled, keeping them alive. Red and green bled across the walls, soft at first, then pulsing as if the lights had learned how to mimic a heartbeat.
My laptop screen dimmed to a ghostly glow. The cursor blinked at a slow, steady rhythm of something patient. Something waiting. I told myself to move, to do anything. Instead, I stood there listening.
The storm screeched, throwing itself at the cabin as if it wanted in. The wind howled down the chimney, a hollow, hungry sound that made the flames dance wild in the hearth. They swayed and bent under the invisible force, stretching long and thin, but they never went out.
Then came the crunch. Footsteps. Not wind this time. Definite. Deliberate. Every part of me went rigid. I counted to three, then paused, and started counting again. Whoever was outside… They were pacing the porch, making sure I heard all of them.
For a breath, everything died… the lights, sound, even the air froze. All I could focus on was the blue glow of my laptop because it felt like the only proof I was still alive.
I moved to the sink, yanked open the cabinet, and grabbed the flashlight. Its beam carved a trembling path through the dark, catching on the frost, webbing the corners of the windows.
“Who’s there?” I shouted, but the storm devoured the words instantly.
I snatched a butcher knife next, gripping it tight in my other hand. The light shook across the glass, landing on the blurred shapes now standing closer, now only barely a foot from the window.
Snow clung to their coats, to the edges of their masks, like frostbite that belonged there. One of them turned his head. It was slow and calculated. My pulse spiked so hard it hurt.
“You need to leave,” I called out, my voice cracking. “You picked the wrong fucking cabin, assholes.”
The generator backfired, a sharp bang that echoed and jolted me. Then it caught itself again. The Christmas lights blinked back to life, red and green bleeding across the glass like veins.
The men didn’t move. They just stood outside, carved from the storm, the colors sliding over their masks as if they were bleeding—terrifying yet arousing all in the same breath.
One wore a mask that was matte black with angular cutouts and a faint metallic sheen. It hid the lower half of his face, but his eyes were trained right on me.
The second one’s mask was a skull, weathered and distressed. And absolutely bone-chilling.
And the third wore the most terrifying one to me… one reminiscent of a stag with violent-looking antlers, each tine sharp and caked with something deep and dark.
I wasn’t the kind of woman who panicked easily. I’d written about murders, obsessions, and men who wore masks for love or for the thrill of fear. I was an erotic romance author. I’d turned danger into desire a hundred times on the page.
But writing it hadn’t prepared me for this… for the sick thrill crawling under my skin now.
I told myself it was adrenaline. It wasn’t. When I pressed my thighs together, heat pulsed sharp and undeniable, and I hated myself for feeling it.
I should’ve been terrified. And I was. But not enough. And under the terror was something else. Something… darkly curious. The air in the cabin felt thicker now the more I thought about what I was feeling. I could almost taste it on my tongue.
I was in front of the window and pressed a hand to the glass before I realized I’d even done it. The cold shocked me straight to the bone. Outside, the tallest one tilted his head. That simple movement sent a tremor down my spine.
“You’re not real,” I whispered, not for them but for myself. “You’re words on a screen. My story come to life.”
Behind me, the generator’s rumble grew louder, laboring against the wind. Every few seconds, it coughed, keeping those damned Christmas lights alive. I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled the curtain shut just as violently as the storm warred outside.
The cabin felt smaller instantly.
I moved back until I hit the table, my gaze finding the laptop. My document was still open, the last words frozen mid-sentence:
The masked man stood at the tree line. He watched, waiting as the storm erased his footprints as fast as he made them.
The cursor blinked, waiting for me to continue. I lowered my gaze to the paragraph below, one I didn’t remember writing but was there regardless.
She doesn’t see him yet, but he watches her. The cabin glows like a spotlight, pulsing with every beat of her rapid pulse. He can go to her now. Touch the glass. Leave a mark she’ll never wash away.
But the waiting made it sweet, which turned him on and got him hard. He likes the thought of her trembling.
I slammed the lid shut. The sound cracked through the cabin like a gunshot. “Stop it,” I whispered to no one. “You’re losing your fucking mind.”
Something thudded on the porch. It was heavy, deliberate. Wood scraped and my mind filled in the rest—a masked man dragging an ax across the planks.
I clutched the knife tighter. “I have a weapon,” I shouted, my voice fraying on the edge of hysteria.
The wind slammed against the roof, the generator groaned, and then the Christmas lights died.
Darkness swallowed everything. I stood blind, breath shallow, every nerve straining for the next sound.
My fingers ached around the knife’s handle.
Then there was the sound of tapping fingers against glass.
Tap… Tap… Tap.
My throat closed. I aimed the blade toward the window, though I couldn’t see a damn thing. I knew they were there. Waiting. But for what?
My heartbeat filled the silence of the room, thunderous and alone. I took a step toward the door before I realized I’d moved. Then another. The floorboards groaned beneath me. Cold bled through the wood, climbing my legs. The door loomed only feet away.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why me?” No answer.
My hand shook as I reached for the handle. The moment my fingers brushed the metal, three sharp knocks split the dark. I jerked my hand back as if I’d been burned. The knocks came again, slower this time. Rhythmic. Intimate.
Knock… Knock… Knock.
“Go away!” I screamed, my hands trembling, heat pooling low and shameful. Rage hit so fast it stole my breath, and before I could think, I yanked the door open—knife raised ready to strike.
The porch was empty. Snow whipped wild and clean, the world untouched. I couldn’t see them, but I knew they weren’t gone.
I stood there until my fingers ached around the knife handle. Then, softly, the crunch of boots in snow. Closer. Circling. Left. Right. In front of me. Taunting.
I slammed the door shut, the echo loud enough to shake dust from the beams. The air thickened, heavy with cold and something electric. Every instinct screamed for me to run.
But the other part of me, one that was reckless, the one that wrote men like these, kept me rooted.
I tore open the curtain. Dark shapes moved beyond the glass. A shadow. Then two. Then nothing. Adrenaline hit my veins like acid. My pulse thundered. Every nerve burned awake.
It would’ve been easier if they’d broken in. At least then, I could’ve fought—proved they were real. But this… this waiting was worse.
I grabbed my phone. Still no signal. My hands shook too much to hold it, anyway. Silence stretched long and thick, and for a second, I let myself believe it was over, that the storm and my mind had played me for a fool.
Outside, the snow slowed to a whisper. Gentle. Almost human. The sound brushed against the windows like fingertips. I told myself to breathe. To let it go. Then something caught the firelight, gleaming on the floor just inside the door.
A strip of garland, red and metallic, lying where there hadn’t been one before.
I crouched, touching it. The tinsel felt cold, almost brittle, as if it had been outside. I looked over my shoulder toward the Christmas tree… and froze. A strand hung torn and uneven, one end curling down like a wound that hadn’t healed.
They’d been inside.