I dive deeper into the thicket, my lungs burning. Every shadow looks like his silhouette. Every sound of the wind sounds like his laughter.
I trip over a fallen log and fall face-first into the mud. I scramble to my feet, gasping for air, and look back toward the road. The SUV's lights go off. Complete, suffocating darkness follows.
“Ready or not, Madeline,” a whisper comes from behind. Close.
Despite my face being covered in mud, my clothes torn, and my bleeding knee, I force myself up and run again. My movements are slower now, my body reaching the absolute limit of exhaustion. Every breath feels like swallowing broken glass.
I hear his footsteps. But not behind me. Around me. The sound is disorienting, echoing through the trees so that I can't tell which way to run.
My head is snapping toward different directions every few seconds until I see it. A large, hollow log half-buried in the damp earth. I crawl inside, pressing myself into the darkness and shutting my eyes tight, wishing this was just a dream. A fucking nightmare.
The darkness inside the hollow log is absolute. I’m trapped, pressed against the wet, rotting wood, the cold seeping into my mud-covered skin. I put both hands over my mouth, desperately trying to suppress the sound of my ragged breathing. My heart is pounding so loudly that I’m sure he can hear it, even through the thickness of the old tree.
”Madeline,” his voice comes again.
It’s closer now. But it’s not a whisper this time; it's a claim. A calm, conversational tone that sounds even more terrifying in the silence of the woods.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I barely exist. I hear the slow, deliberate crunch of footsteps in the dry leaves nearby. It stops. Then another one. This time, it’s closer. Much closer. He’s not running. He’s not rushing. He’s savoring the hunt.
“I can hear your pulse even here,” he continues, the sound of his voice seeming to come from different directions at once.
“I know you’re cold. And you’re scared. And you’re probably already calculating how many hours it would take for you to die from hypothermia in this weather.”
He pauses, and for a second, I think he might have moved past my hiding spot. I allow myself to take a shallow, silent breath. A mistake.
Suddenly, a massive, powerful hand clamps around my ankle, its grip like an iron shackle.
“No!”
I scream, the sound of my own voice surprising me.
Before I can even process it, he yanks me. I’m dragged violently out of the log, face-first into the cold mud. Branches claw at my face as I’m pulled backward, stumbling and kicking in an attempt to free myself. He doesn’t let go. He never does.
With a brutal surge of strength, he throws my ankle on the ground, leaving me sprawled on my back, gasping for air that tastes like earth and terror.
He stands over me, a massive, dark silhouette against the void of the night. He looks like a fallen god. I look up at him through the blur of tears and mud, my heart finally shattering under the weight of my terror.
“Get up,” he commands, his voice like cracking ice.
I stumble to my feet, my legs trembling so much I can barely stand. I look around me, desperately searching for another way out, another path to escape. There is none.
He steps forward, cutting off my only escape route, and corners me against the base of the towering oak.
“You didn’t listen when I told you to keep your mouth shut,” he states. The distance between us closes until I can smell the faint scent of cigarette smoke and something metallic on him.
He slams his hands against the bark of the tree on both sides of my head, trapping me completely. The vibration of the impact rattles my teeth.
“I didn’t tell her anything!”
I yell, the words slipping out of my mouth before I can stop them.
“I lied to her, just like you wanted! I told her I couldn’t go to the police because you’d kill someone else!”
I push against his chest with both hands, an act of sheer, panicked desperation. I’m trying to scream, to make him move, to do anything other than stand here, being trapped.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t even react. In fact, I’m pretty sure my struggle only turns him on. He looks down at me with a cold, piercing gaze that strips me bare.
“You lied to protect your friend,” he says, a slow, predatory smirk playing on his lips.
