Chapter 3
The strip of garland glinted in my palm. I curled my fingers around it, then let it fall. It fluttered to the floor with a faint metallic whisper and slid an inch toward the door, like the cabin had exhaled.
I stepped back slowly. The fire threw restless light across the walls, shadows writhing and reforming.
The wind howled, bending the flames until they licked sideways.
Red and green bled over the floorboards, the tinsel sparkled red like it was alive, and frost crept deeper into the corners of the windows.
I stood still and just listened.
The storm had changed. Its violence was replaced by a hushed, relentless sweep. The kind of quiet that buried everything. No porch creaks. No boots crunching in the snow. No taunting knocks. Just the generator’s hum, the crackle of the fire, and the soft ticking of the cabin settling around me.
I checked every lock. The deadbolt on the front door. The back. The little window latch above the sink in its place. The narrow sliding door off the bedroom that opened to the deck. All sealed. All secure.
Back in the living room, I stared at the fire for what felt like minutes, hypnotized by the flames curling through the logs. Yellow, orange, and blue at the base. “You’re fine,” I whispered, but even I could hear the lie. “You’re inside. They’re not.”
A whisper of sound cut through the air. I spun, every muscle tightening. The bedroom door stood slightly ajar.
Just an inch. Just enough.
I knew I’d closed it.
“I must not have pulled it shut all the way,” I murmured, but my pulse didn’t believe me.
I took a step toward it anyway because, apparently, survival instincts meant nothing tonight. The floor moaned beneath my foot, the sound rippling outward like water. Another step. The fire hissed and popped, and my shadow leapt across the wall like a long, bent monster.
Then something else moved in the room.
A shadow taller than mine, wide and imposing. My body froze, breath shallow, heart hammering. Then I saw the shape above it. It rose, curved. First it was a crescent then it branched wider.
Antlers. Like the mask one of them had worn.
Every hair on my body lifted. I didn’t step closer. I wasn’t that stupid. When I turned back to the table, something else had changed. The chair I’d been sitting in was no longer tucked in. It had been pulled back and angled slightly toward me.
Across the seat lay several strands of silver tinsel, shaped into a crooked heart.
“Why don’t you bastards come out here and face me!” I screamed, knife tight in my grip. “Stop with the games.” My voice cracked, thin where I wanted it sharp. The sound came back to me smaller, weaker, swallowed by the cabin’s stillness.
I lifted the tinsel from the chair, the metallic strands crackling under my fingers. It was cool, felt faintly oily. Then I threw it to the floor, daring the cabin to fight back, to give me something I could destroy and prove I still had control.
The bedroom door loomed open. No one could be inside. Everything was locked. I exhaled, rolled my shoulders, and shut it with a hard click that sounded too final.
I checked the kitchen again because, well, that’s what people did in movies before they were killed. The knives were all in their block except the one in my hand. Every drawer, every cabinet, perfectly in place.
I passed the fireplace. Heat licked my ankles. Wind moaned down the chimney, bending the flames until they thinned then straightened again.
I walked over to the front door. The deadbolt was still set. I pressed my fingertips to the cold metal just to feel something solid. Breathe, I told myself, but the taste in my mouth was sharp and metallic as adrenaline bled through me.
Shaking, I went back to the table. The laptop glowed against the dark, a square of cold light. My stomach dropped. A new paragraph had appeared… one I hadn’t written.
I counted to ten and stared, heart hammering hard enough to bruise. Someone was here. Someone had written the words to terrify me, and they’d succeeded.
“Count to ten again,” I whispered, trying to anchor myself. But the air around me filled with something I couldn’t name.
“One, two, three.” The longer I counted, the steadier I felt. “Four, five, six.” My shoulders eased, the world snapping back into focus by inches. “Seven, eight, nine, ten.” I exhaled.
“Good girl,” said a voice from the bedroom—low, muffled, a vibration in the air more than sound.
I didn’t scream. Couldn’t. The air shifted against my neck, and every nerve caught fire.
“Who’s there?” I forced the question out, calm only because I willed it.
Silence. Then the lights went out again. They were playing games.
I gripped the knife harder, the handle biting into my palm. I couldn’t see a thing, only felt the thunder of my heartbeat in my ears.
Something brushed the back of my sweater. It was so faint it could’ve been imagined. A fingertip tracing the nape of my neck, testing the softness of my skin.
I spun, slashing the air, but met nothing. The blade sliced through emptiness, a whisper of violence swallowed by the dark. The touch didn’t return, but the air shifted again. Breath skimmed my jaw. Close. Intimate.
My body betrayed me. Heat pooled low, electric and wrong. My lungs forgot how to breathe, and shame threaded through the shiver that rolled down my spine.
“Leave me alone,” I repeated, softer this time. I hated that, too.
Then the lights flared back on. Definitely intentional, as if someone wanted to remind me they could take them away just as easily.
In the new wash of shadow and glow, something moved across the far wall. A long curve—an antler’s silhouette, maybe? Quick. Metallic. Gone in a flash.
The fire cracked, spitting sparks that threw my shadow high onto the ceiling. For a heartbeat and a half, it wasn’t alone. Three others joined it.
My skin prickled. “Cowards,” I said.
The room answered with a soft tap. It wasn’t on glass this time but wood. It came from the short hallway leading to the back door. Another tap followed then a third, each one farther away. Like a metronome ticking in the dark.
Of course, I followed.
The hallway swallowed light. The Christmas bulbs and fire couldn’t reach this far. The bathroom door on the left was shut. The closet on the right… slightly ajar. I was sure I’d closed it.
Shadows warped. The air heavy. I could feel movement but saw nothing. Was I losing it? Was the isolation unraveling me?
I pressed my fingers to the closet door and nudged it open, knife forward. It was ridiculous and brave in the same breath. Cleaning supplies. Paper towels. Nothing else.
I let out a shaky breath and shut it. The latch clicked, and another click answered behind me. Soft. Precise. I spun so fast my vision blurred.
Another click echoed through the cabin, then silence pressed in again. The knife I held was raised, every muscle locked. The hallway yawned open into the living room, and for a heartbeat, the only thing I saw was firelight and a red and green glow.
I moved slowly, feeling the hair on my arms stand on end, my heart racing, and sweat beading at my temples.
When I rounded the corner, I saw them.
Three men stood between me and the door, filling the small space as if the cabin had shrunk around them.
The first was half shadow, half flame. He was broad-shouldered, all quiet control and contained power. His short black hair was mussed at the crown. His mask hid his mouth but not those piercing gray eyes. They watched me as if he already knew how this would end.
The one next to him stood a fraction shorter, leaner in build, his body all definition and taut lines that could be seen through his dark clothing.
Dark blond hair falling across his forehead in messy strands.
His mask was shaped like a stag’s, dark antlers branching up and back, the gleam of pale blue eyes catching through the cutouts.
Twisted mischief lived there, threaded with something sharp enough to cut.
The third towered over them both, broader, heavier, his strength impossible to ignore. His dark brown hair curled at the nape, and deep green eyes nearly vanished to black in the low light. His skull-shaped mask was weathered and cracked.
All three looked wrong—too large, too ominous. Their very presence shifted the air like a tide.
I should have felt cold fear run through my veins. But I didn’t. Blazing heat licked down my body and straight to my throbbing pussy, and my pulse thudded in my ears. Both sounds belonged to them now.
I opened my mouth, but no words came forth. My hands shook, the knife trembling in my grasp.
None of them spoke. They simply watched.
Their presence was a weight, and God, it was terrifying but also magnetic.
The room felt alive with it. I should have screamed, run…
anything, but my body wouldn’t obey. My fear and something else, darker and low, braided together until I couldn’t tell which was which.
The man in the skull mask took a step forward. The other two stayed back. My breath hitched. The air vibrated with a kind of command and dominance I couldn’t name. I wanted to move, but the stillness pinned me harder than being held down by hands ever could.
The Skull stepped closer and then stopped a foot away. The knife slipped from my grip and struck the floor with a dull thud. His voice vibrated low, skating over me though he hadn’t touched me.
“Just breathe,” he said in a voice so deep it had goosebumps moving over my skin.
The world tilted. The edges of the room blurred like spilled ink being washed away with water.
Heat crawled up my throat, a fight I couldn’t win.
The cabin swayed around me, too bright even through the darkness, too alive even if I felt like I was in a grave.
Reality thinned as fear folded inward, turning into something else entirely.
He moved inches forward, and only a hair’s breadth separated our bodies from brushing.
I held my hand out. “Don’t,” I whispered, though I didn’t know who I was talking to.
He didn’t touch me. He didn’t have to. His presence was a weightless press, the precision of someone who knows he holds a hell of a lot of power.
When he spoke again, the deepness of his voice was like gravity weighing me down and quiet enough to thread through the electrified air that filled the room.
“You wrote us here, Gwen,” he whispered, so close I felt his body heat seep into me. “And we’ve come to give you what you want.”