Wrong Way Home - Taken (Criminal Delights 1)

As he neared the narrow track leading between dense bushes, Colin slowed down until his car came to a halt. The asphalt ended here, but in the glow of the headlights, Colin spotted tyre marks, which meant that the dirt road would surely take him somewhere.

“When do you think you’ll be there? I need to put the casserole into the oven on time,” Mom said, coming up with yet another deadline.

Colin chewed on his lip, glancing at a rusty sign partially obscured by thick leaves. It read, Do not enter. Private road.

Just fucking great.

He put the car in reverse and backed away until the glow revealed more of the uneven road with pebbles scattered in the grayish dirt. Narrow and spooky, it might have led to a witch’s house. But since it might just take him where he needed to be, he had to count on luck.

“Give me an hour and a half,” he said, and headed into the tunnel of greenery. The moment his hind wheels slid off the asphalt, there was no way back.

This was just another shortcut to keeping everyone happy. No one would find out about this dumb venture. Neither his parents, who he’d keep in the dark like he kept them in the dark about his sexuality, nor the owner of the road. He probably didn’t care either way, and if Colin stumbled upon someone’s cabin, he’d just say he was lost. What was the big deal anyway?

He couldn’t see far in the dense woods, even with the high-beam headlights on, but the road was clear enough, so he drove on with growing confidence. Just because the area looked as if he’d entered an episode of The X-Files didn’t mean there was actually any danger other than a deer passing in front of his car. To soothe his nerves further and ease the sweat coming out of his palms, Colin itched to turn on the pop playlist again, but decided the audiobook would be more of a distraction.

The greenery around him seemed to thicken more, with long fern stems reaching out of the darkness like phantom fingers, and the farther away he was from the asphalt, the more plants invaded the single-track road. Colin took a deep breath and followed it with a slow exhale. He needed to be clear-headed about this thing. So what that there could be anything hiding in those woods? For all he knew, Satan himself could be tracking his car, and there was no way of knowing until it was too late.

But this was not a horror movie. Perhaps he’d conditioned himself to fear the dark because people had such free access to light nowadays? Nothing to worry about. He just needed to breathe slowly to trigger a biofeedback response and trick his mind into feeling relaxed.

There was plenty of research on that kind of stuff. Problem was, all of said research has been conducted in peaceful environments, not in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, in a car filled with the sound of dirt crunching under the wheels and the scratching of branches against metal.

Research was definitely too far from real life to be relevant, goddamnit!

Colin groaned when faced with a huge red sign with the picture of a shotgun and Private Property written in bold letters below.

So there had been one at the start of this road, but it hadn’t been as adrenaline-inducing. What use was that warning now when the track was way too narrow to turn around. And since he’d been driving for at least fifteen minutes, there was no way he could make it back on reverse—not on a road invaded by plants, not in the dark.

Jesus fuck. All he could do was continue and hope he didn’t end up with bullet holes in his rear window. If worse came to worst, he would turn back where we was told to by the owner and be late for dinner, even if that meant having Dad rant at him about it all weekend.

A scream tore through the soothing voice coming from the speakers, and Colin jumped in his seat, looking around in panic, but he was quick to scold himself. It had to have been a fox. Their voices were weird like that sometimes. He turned the player off just in case, to be more aware of his surroundings, but the silence only made him focus on the tune of his rapidly beating heart.

Maybe driving back in reverse was still an option? There was no traffic here, no other cars he’d be a problem for, no matter how slow he went.

Colin glanced into the rear view mirror, biting his lip. His mind was playing tricks on him, because the red glow of his stop lights suggested shapes crawling on the road behind the car. His vehicle seemed to be the only source of light for miles.