1
GRETA
Abranch jabs into my back, and my cheek stings from where I scraped it darting into the forest. The thicket I’m half crouched behind reaches with thorny tendrils to catch in my sweater and tangle in my hair.
“Come out, come out…”
There’s the dull thwack of a blunt instrument hitting a tree trunk, the baseball bat Chad and his friends were using to hit pinecones into the lake.
The sound makes my pulse skyrocket with fear and my heart beat so loudly I’m sure they’ll hear it thumping against my rib cage.
“I just want to talk…”
“Is that what you’re calling it?” one of the other men jeers, and there’s laughter. Drunken laughter that makes my stomach drop.
Car lights swing around to shine into the forest, sweeping over the bush I’m hiding behind. I have to move. Now. Before they find me.
The thought of what these drunk men will do to me if they catch me has my legs moving. I dart away from the bush and head in the only direction that feels safe, deeper into the forest.
There’s a shout behind me and the sound of branches breaking as Chad pursues me.
The light from the car casts elongated shadows into my path, making the trees rise toward me in sinister figure-like shapes, their spindly arms reaching for me.
My heart’s pumping like a scared rabbit, and I cover my mouth to stop from crying out. Fear moves my legs as I run blindly. Branches scrape my skin and catch in my sweater. I keep going, the sweater tugging free as the fabric tears.
It’s my favorite red fitted sweater, the last one Mom knitted for me, that I shrugged over my best casual jeans, knowing how well it accentuated my curves in a casual, not trying too hard kind of a way.
Stupid girl.
It seems like a lifetime ago, packing for a camping trip with a man I hoped might be the one I’d finally lose my v-card to. Trying on outfits and discarding them until clothes littered the bed of the cabin I share with my brother.
I was thankful that Hans was out, gone for a drink at the lodge, or he would have tried to stop me from going. My overprotective brother has felt responsible for me since our parents passed. But his protectiveness is suffocating and I leapt at the chance to get away from his watchful gaze, leaving a quick note rather than sending a text so he couldn’t forbid me from going.
He would have been right for once.
Chad is one of the tourists staying at the Lodge for a boys weekend, and he seemed friendly when I waited their table the last few nights. We hung out a little yesterday, and when he invited me for a camping trip I ignored the warning in my gut at his smirk and the way his friend chuckled when I accepted.
He’s a friendly guy here on a break from college. How harmful could he be?
Which shows how much I know about men. Which is what Hans is always trying to tell me.
Thoughts of my brother have me pulling my phone out of my pocket. The light of the phone gives my location away, and a shout goes up from behind me.
“Shit.”
But it’s worth the risk. I speed dial Hans, and it takes forever to connect. The ring tone is a relief. If I can tell him where we are, the parking lot by the lake and the path I ran down, he’ll find a way to get here. If my pursuers know my six foot five, broad-shouldered Scandinavian brother was on his way, they’d leave me alone, wouldn’t they?
I hold the phone to my ear, blocking out some of the light as I dash through the forest. The foliage below meets with a path and I take it, hoping like hell it doesn’t loop back around to the front of the lake.
The ringing seems to last forever, and my heart’s in my throat as I will Hans to pick up.
He doesn’t.
The phone clicks to the familiar pre-recorded message. The sound of Hans’s cheerful voice still tinted with his Swedish accent even though we’ve lived here for fourteen years. I swear he puts it on for effect to impress the girls who flock to him. I was younger when we immigrated to the US, and there’s no trace of the homeland in the way I speak.
The message cuts off unexpectedly, and I pull the phone from my ear. The call’s been disconnected.
There’s no signal.
