The sound came again. It was closer this time. A wet drag across the ground, like something heavy being pulled.
He leaned down, his lips brushing my ear.
“No one’s coming for you,” he hissed. “You hear that? The woods are leaning in to listen.”
My heart pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to punch its way out of my chest. Jackson’s fingers dug into my scalp,nails biting into my skin. I could feel a slow, hot trickle where he’d broken the skin, blood snaking down the back of my neck.
“Please,” I whispered, the word barely more than a tremble.
He jerked my head to the side so violently my jaw clicked, a shiver of pain ripping through my skull. His other hand slid from my wrists to my throat, two fingers resting lightly over my pulse, like he was feeling the rhythm of my fear.
“No one,” he laughed, maniacally. “Do you hear someone coming for you?”
I forced myself to listen. But I did hear something. A faint, irregular tapping, like bone against bone.
My mouth went dry. The cold crept inward until I could barely feel my own body anymore. Just the hurt. Just the terror.
“HELP!” I screamed again, every last shred of air ripping out of me.
This time, the echo didn’t come back. The sound of my own voice seemed to hit something just beyond the treeline and die, snuffed out by the darkness’ gaping mouth.
But I knew someone—somethingwas out there listening to us. Breathing. Waiting.
Jackson shifted, and for the first time, I felt a twitch of unease in him.
“Shit,” he muttered.
His hand fell from my throat. I took sweet, shallow, little gulps of air that felt like they might be my last.
I screamed again. He gripped my throat, harder this time.
“If you fucking scream again…” he whispered into my ear, “I’ll kill you right here.”
My body locked. It wasn’t the threat that broke me; it was the way he touched me. His hands moved with the easy precision of someone who had rehearsed this, not just on me, but in his head, over and over, until my body was more blueprint than flesh.
He adjusted his hold on my wrist, thumb pressing down on a nerve that sent a lightning bolt of pain up my arm.
“Jackson,” I said, the name flat, stripped of the question.
The deer mask tilted, those glassy black eyes catching the moonlight.
Then he ripped the mask off.
His grin was already waiting, stretched too wide, the skin at the corners of his mouth cracked and raw. His eyes were blown wide, fever-bright, skittering over my face as if he were checking items off a list.
“See?” he panted. “Youdoknow me. So well, Kenz.”
My mouth suddenly felt dry and metallic, like I’d been sucking on a battery.
“What… what the fuck is going on?” I forced out the words, clumsy, tripping over each other. “What are you doing?”
For a second, something in his expression faltered. The grin slipped, his jaw tightening like the question hit a seam he’d been trying to hide.
He didn’t answer.
He just hit me.
The backhand came too fast to brace for. My head snapped sideways; my jaw popped, a bright spike of pain detonating behind my eyes. Sound thinned to a high ringing tone.
