Crack.
Crack.
The sound of footsteps drawing near.
My pants were loud in my ears, so I held my breath, glancing around in case I needed to run.
Had they found me? Or was that an animal lurking by? My instincts told me it wasthem.
A throat cleared too close for comfort. Whoever was there was close—too close. I slowly began to stand, cringing at every sound I made. The forest had never felt so still, so dead. Even with the rain gently pattering, every noise was loud and exaggerated.
I looked around, searching for movement. My eyes had long adjusted to my surroundings. While it was dark, the moon offered enough light as it streamed between the branches over me. I saw the shape of the world around me, the silhouette of branches swaying overhead, the shape of the bushes and tree trunks—
A figure moved from my left, emerging from the bush next to me.
Oh, my God, he was right here.
He stilled—I stilled.
I couldn’t see his eyes, but I saw the twist of his head as he turned to look at me.
It was the thin man. The one with the gun. He had come looking for me.
In a blink of an eye, I was running, and he was after me, this time he was so close, I knew it was only a matter of time before he caught me. I screamed when his hand grabbed at my arm and pulled me back. I fell to the ground, my ass slamming into thorny branches. I buckled from his touch, twisting around as he tried to snake his arms around me. In that frenzied moment, I felt myself detach. I could see everything play out. He was holding me down, trying to subdue me, and I was raking my fingers down his masked face, pushing and kicking and screaming at the top of my fucking lungs because that was the only sort of defence I had.
I would scream until the bitter fucking end.
I would not go quietly into that good night.
I must have hurt him because he made pained sounds, and then he was angry, his touch aggressive and rough. His hand shot to my head, and he pulled my hair so hard, I felt my eyes sting from the pain—
And it was then I heard the flood of words pouring out of me.
Get off me.
Get the fuck off me.
In the back of my mind, I wondered why he hadn’t used the gun on me, why he hadn’t threatened me or spoke. I also damned myself for stopping, for resting, for blacking out and letting fear overwhelm me.
Get off me.
Get the fuck off—
Then he was suddenly off me, and I was punching and clawing at the air. His pained cries sounded out again, louder, and then he was begging;he was begging for mercy.
I sat up, trying to catch up, but my heart was beating so hard, and my vision was so spotty. I started to vomit again, and I hated it, I hated that this was my fucking automatic reaction to danger. To vomit and shake and act fucking defenceless.
On my hand and knees now, I looked up, making out the large shape of a naked man as he overwhelmed the thin man and beat him mercilessly on the ground. I went still, my breathing stopped as I understood what I was seeing.
Hunter.
He was silent as the dead, not a breath expelled from his lungs as he beat the man with bone breaking punches. I could hear the crack of the man’s body, the pleas falling from his lips, and then he said nothing at all.
Hunter rolled off him, his chest moving up and down rapidly. He immediately crawled to me, his face visible to me now under the moonlight streaming through the tree. His eyes were wide, his face covered in blood splatter that looked black in the dark. He looked beastly. He grabbed at my arms, squeezing at them tightly as he came closer.
“Skye,” he whispered.
I was still shaking, still nauseous. All I could manage was a quiet, “Hunt?”