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Number one: No matter how jazzed she felt, she was exhausted.
Number two: In the thick fog, she’d probably run right into whomever she was trying to avoid.
Number three: If she didn’t run into them, they’d just chase her. That’s what predators did.
Then they ate you. Or tossed you in the loch.
“Been there,” Kris whispered. “Done that.”
The steps now seemed to burst from the right, the left, the ground, the air, bombarding her with sound. At least she no longer heard any splashes from the loch.
She shouldn’t run. She really tried to stop. But her legs bunched, and she came away from the door, turning toward Drumnadrochit as she took her first, fleeing step.
Hands descended on her shoulders, and Kris began to scream.
*
Liam let her go.
Kris didn’t stop screaming.
He couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d no doubt loomed out of the mist like a monster. After last night, he was lucky she hadn’t taken a swing at him.
“Kris,” he murmured. “ ’Tis me. Liam.”
Why that would make her stop screaming he had no idea. But it did.
Kris collapsed against him, her arms going around his waist, cheek pressed to his chest. “Liam,” she gasped, then more quietly in a voice that made something shift and tumble in his stomach, “Liam.”
She was soaked and trembling. He needed to get her inside before she went into shock.
Liam started to back Kris toward the door, reaching for the knob as he did so.
“It’s locked,” she said. “I lost the key when I fell into the water.” She lifted her head, her eyes wide and dark, her face far too pale. “Someone pushed me in.”
Liam frowned. He’d watched her go into the water. His alarm at the sight of her tumbling from the great height, then crashing into the icy cold loch had kept him from looking anywhere but at her. He hadn’t seen her get pushed. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t h
appened.
Around here, lately, a lot had been happening that he hadn’t seen, couldn’t explain, and did not like.
“Then they followed me here.” She pulled away, though she kept her hands on his hips, as if she needed the connection, or perhaps just the warmth. “I heard their steps.” Her eyes flicked back and forth, back and forth, as she tried to see into the ever-thickening mist.
“ ’Twas me, lass. Me ye heard. My steps.” Liam couldn’t help it. He brushed his palm over her still-wet hair.
He didn’t mention that he’d seen her fall. If he did, she’d want to know why he hadn’t helped and then what would he say?
“There was splashing, too,” she said. “Behind me.” She pointed at the loch. “Out there.”
“And why wouldn’t there be? ’Tis a loch. Everything in it goes splash.”
“Nothing that big.”
“The mist magnifies,” he said. “What are ye afraid of? Nessie?”
She jerked in his arms, surprising and confusing him. Though she had come to write about the monster, he’d gotten the impression she did not believe. But if not, then why was she afraid of what might lurk out there in the dark?
“She wouldnae hurt ye.” He pushed a stray frizzy lock behind her ear. “I promise.”
