prologue
I run.
I run until my throat burns dry, until my tongue is a sticky muscle stuck to the roof of my mouth.
My ankle wobbles, the heels traitorous beneath me. I don't have time to stop and take them off properly. Instead, I kick them. Half running, half jumping, attempting to leap over a fallen log. It's not so much a leap as it is a stumble. I keel over, landing on my wrist with a hiss. Something's poked through the skin of my palm. It's already warm and oozing blood. The coppery scent reaches my nose, telling me it's no small gash.
"Goddamn it."
Ignoring it, I push myself upright and force my bare feet over rocks and dirt. I'm pretty sure they're fucked too. All television static, tingling and wet.
By the time I round another tree, I've lost my sense of direction. The alcohol certainly doesn't help. My heart is in my ears, a dull, relentless thumping that disorients me further. My vision is fuzzy around the edges, and every breath feels like I'm swallowing a fistful of needles.
Then I hear his footsteps behind me.
Offensively confident.
Confident that he's going to catch up to me.
Confident that he's right.
Unfortunately, I happen to agree. Especially when I whip my head around and find the same looming man motionless between two pines.
He doesn't rush at me. Just stands there with that eerie calm he had back in the house.
He hadn't even bothered running at first. I'd heard him behind me, his footsteps steady and unhurried while I careened down the stairs and through the back door. Only when I'd reached the trees did something change.
At one point, I'd looked over my shoulder and nearly screamed.
He was laughing at me.
Quietly. I could barely hear it over my own panting. My legs pumped furiously, but I felt like I was running in a dream, never creating much distance. He must find this terribly amusing. Watching a woman barely clearing five feet fight her way through the woods like a fucking newborn fawn. He's a hunter with his gun drawn and I'm in his sights.
The man tilts his head to the side, studying me.
His breathing is muffled behind the mask, the night providing just enough light to remind me that it's still there. Still covering his face. Still giving me no clue as to who he is or what he wants.
It's awful, really. A horrifying thing to look at. A face without the slightest hint of expression. No mouth to twitch, no brows to furrow. Nothing to suggest what he's thinking.
I stand there like a statue myself, those empty sockets settling on mine. I can't actually see his eyes. My glasses remain crushed beside the first tree I passed, offering me no assistance. The black holes give me nothing. Squinting, I do my best to invent a color for him. I don't know why. Maybe it's comforting, gives me some sense of control. I've always had the inappropriate habit of being nosy at the worst times.
My skin feels wrong and not entirely my own. At first, I'd mistaken it for adrenaline. A natural response. A normal one. One any woman being chased through the woods by a man she just watched murder somebody would have.
Or that's what I tell myself, until I realize there's something else beneath it.
Something horribly familiar.
A child waiting in line for a carnival ride, a teenager practicing her signature before getting her first license, a grown woman with thoughts that are anything but normal.
Excitement.
I'm excited.
I watch him rotate the knife in his hand. Blood drips from the tip, disappearing into the dead leaves at his feet. I swear I can hear each drop land, a steady pitter-patter.
Is he going to use that on me next?
Part of me wants to find out.
The other part is screaming, trapped in a closet with my last remaining scraps of self-preservation. The part that hasn't suffered irreparable damage from losing my parents too young, from being forced to feel the last breath leave my mother while I tried to hold her chest closed.
That part knows better.
But that part isn't making decisions right now. It's silenced, gagged behind three glasses of eau-de-vie and the spindle pulling taut in my belly.
I stay where I am. My feet don't want to move.
I'm not frozen. Not paralyzed.
I'm willing.
The man takes a step forward. Twigs snap underfoot, his boots drawing closer. He shakes his head with a disapproving tsk, one gloved finger raised, wiggling at me.
Silly girl
He's chastising me. Like I've done something wrong. Like he needs to put me over his lap and make me count to ten. I don't blame him. I'm a stupid bunny caught in a trap, trusting the hand reaching out to pet me instead of wrapping around my throat.
"Do you know what happens to little birds when they leave the nest too early?"
His voice startles me.
Not because it's particularly loud or frightening. Quite the opposite, really. It's low, conversational. It's syrupy warmth carrying the faint tone of entertainment.
"Yes," I whisper.
He takes another step.
"And you still want me to catch you?"
I tilt my chin up at him, feigning courage. God, he's tall, about a foot and some change taller than me. His head nearly skims the branch above.
My eyes travel down the strength of his shoulders and the broad expanse of his chest. Then back to the knife clutched firmly in his hand.
I should keep running. Call out for help. But I've never been one for theatrics. At least not ones I can't drown with a bottle.
I should do any number of things that don't involve standing barefoot in the woods, staring up at a masked stranger like I'm waiting for him to kiss me. To murder me. To slice my throat open for the world to see all the things I've never said out loud.
"Yes," I repeat, my eyes widening like I'm surprised by my own confession.
Silly fucking girl
Pinching the blade between two gloved fingers, he drags them along its length, stripping the steel of blood before wiping his fingers on his jeans.
He raises it, pointing the tip at me. It glints in the yellow glow of the moon.
"Naughty birdie."
