Prologue
The darkness was all she knew. It surrounded her, seemed to suffocate her. It bound her as deeply, as securely as the ropes around her wrists.
Fear coiled around Noelle Evers as she waited in the dark. She was waiting for her own death, and she knew it. That certainty was there, filling her mind—that and nothing else. So when the door opened and she heard the squeak of wood, Noelle tensed.
The light spilled forward. The wood squeaked again.
Someone was coming toward her....
The beam of a flashlight slit through her eyes, blinding her because it was such a sharp contrast to the darkness.
“Found her!” A man’s voice called. It was deep and rough, heavy with relief. “She’s alive!”
Noelle squinted as she tried to see past that bright light.
More footsteps thudded toward her. Then hands were on her. Rough, strong hands. They pulled at her ropes then yanked her out of the chair and to her feet.
“It’s all right,” that deep, rumbling voice told her. “You’re safe now.”
She didn’t believe him.
There were more lights then, sweeping into the room. It looked like...a cabin? She was in a cabin? In the darkness, she hadn’t been able to tell anything about her surroundings, but she could now see glimpses of an old, log-lined cabin.
She licked her lips. Her mouth felt so dry. She had to swallow three times before she managed, “H-how did...I g-get here?”
His face was in shadows, but he was tall, with broad shoulders and a gun strapped to his hip.
Noelle backed up when she saw the weapon. Her feet slipped on something. She glanced down and saw a twisting mass of rope near her feet.
“Easy,” he told her, and his grip tightened around her arms. “I’m a deputy. We’re all with the Coleman County Sheriff’s Department, and we’re here to take you home.”
She’d...she’d been at home...sleeping in her bed... Noelle remembered that. She’d gone to sleep—and awoken to darkness.
“Sheriff!” Another voice cried out then, breaking with what sounded like fear.
The deputy pulled Noelle close as he hurried toward that cry.
The flashlights all hit the far left corner of the room. They fell on the man sprawled there. A man who was dead—his throat had been cut. The man stared sightlessly back at them while his blood formed a dark pool beneath him.
The deputy’s hold on Noelle tightened. “Who is that?” he demanded.
Noelle star
ted to shake.
“Ms. Evers...” His voice gentled a bit. “Is he one of the men who took you?”
Tears leaked down her cheeks. “I don’t know!”
Voices rose. Shouted. More men and women came inside the cabin. More lights.
Too bright.
Noelle’s shoulders hunched. She looked down at her wrists. They were bloody and raw. And her hands—her hands were stained with blood. So was her gown. The gown she’d worn to sleep when she climbed into her own bed.
This isn’t my home. But she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Noelle only knew darkness.
The deputy pulled off his coat. Carefully, he put it around her shoulders. “Tell me what happened.” He was leading her from the cabin keeping his fingers around her arm. “Get me a medic!” He called out to another one of the men swarming the area.
Then she was outside. The night air was crisp, but she could still smell blood.
Because it’s on me.
“I want to go home,” Noelle whispered. “I want to see my parents.” Noelle was seventeen. She was a sophomore at Coleman High School. She was cheering at the football game on Friday. She was—
Noelle’s knees gave way and she would’ve hit the ground if the deputy hadn’t grabbed her. He lifted her up against his chest, holding her tightly. “Medic!” the deputy yelled.
She wasn’t just shaking any longer. Noelle’s eyes rolled back in her head as giant shudders jolted through her.
The deputy carried her to a gurney. He and the medic strapped her down. “What the hell is happening?”
“Noelle!” She heard the scream distantly, but she knew that voice. It was her mother’s voice. Noelle tried to respond, but she couldn’t speak.
“She’s seizing,” the medic snapped. “We need to get her stable!”
The darkness seemed to close in again. She didn’t want to go back into the dark.
Something bad waited in the dark.