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I keep my rifle aimed at one of the fuckers who didn’t manage to escape to a safe spot out of my sight.
Bang.
A bullet ricochets against the bark. He flees behind a tree.
I shoot again when his head peeks out, barely missing.
He doesn’t come out until five minutes later, after which I pull the trigger one last time. It hits his knee, and he goes down.
I grab the rifle and take it with me as I march toward him and take out my knife.
“No, no,” he says, crouching backward. “I’m sorry—”
I grasp him by the collar and growl, “Who sent you?”
“Graham.” He holds up his hands. “Please, don’t kill me.”
I spit on his face. “You came here to kill us?” When he doesn’t respond, I step on his balls. “Answer me!”
“Yes, yes,” he squeals. “But he forced us to.”
“No, you thought this was an easy payday,” I reply, pointing the knife at his throat. “Guess what? You were wrong.”
“Please, please, please,” he begs. “I’m sorry. I’ll go. I won’t bother you anymore. I won’t tell anyone about you. Please!”
I ignore his pleas. Instead, I jam the knife straight into his heart and watch him cough up the blood.
“Should’ve thought about that before you tried to hunt the hunter,” I muse as I pull out my knife and blood begins to pour out.
When I get up, a noise behind me alerts all my senses. I hold up my rifle, ready to pull the trigger.
But the face I see drags all the oxygen right out of my lungs.
“Chase?”
It’s Syrena.
She’s standing in the middle of the forest.
Her body covered in blood.
And right behind her is one of Graham’s henchmen.
Chapter Twenty
Accompanying Song: “Monster” by MILCK
Syrena
I stumble toward the sound of his voice, but the unevenness and countless twigs on the ground make it hard to navigate.
Footsteps approach me, and I call out his name again, “Chase? Is that you?”
“What are you doing here?” he shouts. It’s definitely him.
A hand pushes my shoulder, causing me to fall.
“Stay down!” he growls.
I don’t know what’s going on. I wish I could see. But all I hear is footsteps … first two … then four … rushing through the leaves. Clashing. Metal on metal. Lots of groaning and screaming.
They’re fighting. Fighting to kill.
A loud shriek emanates from the man.
Something spatters onto me.
I shiver and bring my hands to my face, smelling the liquid.
Blood.
Shock ripples through me when I hear the cries of the man as his body audibly hits the ground.
“What’s happening?” I ask, my voice brittle. Unsteady.
The sound of a knife being pulled from flesh echoes in my ears.
My whole body begins to shake.
“Chase?” I mutter, hoping it’s him.
Oh God, please let him survive.
In all the noise and chaos, he is the only constant. The only one who might let me live.
“Syrena.” His voice alone calms my rapidly beating heart.
Still, I shudder when he approaches me. What if he intends to kill me next? I don’t know what happened, or why this is even happening. All I know is that I was in the car, and the next thing I knew, someone was violently banging on the doors. So I escaped by unlocking it and ran. I ran and ran … I couldn’t stop.
“Why didn’t you stay in the car?” he asks.
“They were at the car,” I reply. “They smashed the windows. I don’t know who. But I just ran for my life. Toward the only voice I recognized … Brandon’s. But then there was this man. Oh, God.” I slap my hand in front of my mouth. “I didn’t know he was there, lying on the ground. I stumbled over his body.”
I shake my head as the tears run down my cheeks.
Chase’s thumb brushing it away makes me lean back. I don’t know if I can trust him. Something bad just happened—someone died—and he and Brandon are the only ones left standing. That says something.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
It’s the only sensible question I can ask after being taken to this place.
To a forest in the middle of God knows where … with a bunch of people fighting.
Is this some kind of gang? Is that what this is?
Or is it something way, way worse?
“Stay there,” he suddenly says, and he walks away again.
I don’t respond. I don’t even know what to say to all this. This … murder game.
What is going on? Why are they doing this?
And is Chase really a man I can trust, or is he the one I should fear?
If he killed that man, there’s no telling what he’ll do to me.
In the distance, the same gunshots I heard from the car echo through the forest again, and I jolt every time my ears catch them. It’s scary. Not because of the sound, but because I can’t tell where they’re coming from.
Because I don’t know who’s fighting who … and who the actual bad guys are.
