“I’m just doing my job.”
Her voice comes from farther away this time.
I hadn’t even realized I had picked up my pace, probably in a subconscious desire to get away from this frustrating woman.
“You could write stories about anything, about anyone, and you chose the one thing that was off limits. The one set of people who could cause us the most damage became your sole focus, damn the consequences. So, forgive me if I don’t have any sympathy for you or your current plight.”
None at fucking all.
“You really are an asshole, Connor McBride.”
Ditto, Raven Perry.
7
RAVEN
The sun is just starting to rise, a tiny trickle of light coming through the trees to the east as Connor finally steps out from the thick, dense woods we’ve been hiking through for hours into what appears to be a clearing.
Please God…let this be it…
It has to be.
Because I can’t keep going.
My feet, knees, thighs, back, and just about every other part of me, is screaming in agony after hiking all night up steep inclines, through sheer darkness, and across parts of the mountain clearly never seen by man before. Aside from a few five-minute breaks I demanded when I complained that I couldn’t go any farther and threatened collapse, it has been non-stop moving.
And having to watch how effortlessly Connor did it in front of me the entire time was almost as agonizing as the hike itself.
I barely manage to stagger through the last couple of steps now, and just as I’m about to break through the treeline, the toe of my boot catches on a fallen log and I’m falling face-first toward the forest floor.
The scream starts in my throat, but a strong arm wraps around my waist, keeping me from becoming intimately acquainted with the dirt, leaves, and twigs beneath me.
Connor holds me steady long enough for me to regain my feet, and once they’re squarely under me again, I force myself to meet his gaze despite my sheer embarrassment.
He’s far too close. His scowl only inches from my face. Those hard, almost black eyes of his search mine silently for a few seconds, almost as if he’s checking to ensure I’m okay when he can clearly see and feel that I am with his grip on me.
Abruptly, he releases me with a grunt and turns to stalk away.
It takes me a few seconds to find my breath and to stop my heart from thundering so wildly against my ribs, but when I finally trust myself to move again, I follow him into the clearing.
The morning mist that always clings to the mountain coats everything in sight, giving it an almost ethereal, dreamlike quality. But what I can see peeking through it is more like something out of a nightmare.
A tiny building I can only describe as a shack, stands to the far right of the small open glen. It looks old. And not old in the way that Killian and Willow’s cabin is. The kind of old that suggests this has been here for a very long time without anyone touching or maintaining it.
My gaze travels over the rest of the cleared land, finally falling on the far side where stacks and stacks of massive felled trees peek out of the mist beside what appears to be some sort of foundation for a larger structure.
What is this place?
Connor continues to walk toward the shack at the same breakneck pace he’s maintained our entire hike up here and doesn’t even glance back at me to ensure I’m following.
Where the hell else would I go?
I need somewhere to drop that won’t expose me to the elements.
Somewhere my body can give in to the collapse I’ve been bordering on for hours.
He reaches the dilapidated building, grabs the handle, and pushes the door in like he belongs here, like it’s familiar territory.
