RAVEN
Incessantly chirping birds slowly drag me from sleep.
My brain doesn’t want to fire…
It wants to stay in that warm, comforting place I was just floating in…
But as soon as I start to roll over, the scratch of unfamiliar material against my skin and the ungodly ache in my neck, back, and legs fully force me awake.
Fuuuuck.
I groan, reaching up and rubbing at my stiff neck as I lift it from the pillow that definitely isn’t mine. Blinking my eyes open, it takes me a few seconds in the dim light coming in from the small window to remember where I am and why.
The hunting cabin…
Connor…
I glance down at the wool blanket draped over me on the small bed and yawn, stretching my arms above my head and trying to work out the kink between my shoulder blades.
When did I fall asleep?
The fog of exhaustion still envelops my brain, and I slowly push myself up into a sitting position and release another yawn.
There isn’t any sign of Connor, but he was definitely here at some point.
I left the cast-iron skillet I ate the soup out of sitting on the table because I wasn’t sure what to do with it, but it isn’t there anymore. It’s clean and hanging back in its place on the hook on the wall, and the chair I had been sitting in while I ate is pushed back in its place under the table, as if he tidied up while I was passed out.
But I don’t even remember coming to bed, just devouring the food as my body threatened to give out.
Apparently, it did. And I clearly needed the sleep, because the sun is barely peeking through the windows, so it must be almost dusk, which means I slept almost the whole day away.
I toss the blanket aside, then swing my legs out to find my boots already on the floor.
What the…?
No matter how hard I scour my memories, I can’t remember taking those off, let alone setting them neatly at the end of the bed beside my bags, but I must have, in some sort of exhausted haze.
Scrubbing my hands over my face, I try to force away those last vestiges of sleep that cling to my brain, hoping it will all come back, but I can’t remember anything after eating.
It’s a vast black hole.
That would be far more concerning if I hadn’t just woken at five in the morning after a sleepless night, driven to Atlanta, had an emotionally exhausting and charged interview with Barry, driven home in almost a haze, then been attacked and kidnapped by a grouchy McBride and forced to hike up a damn mountain until dawn.
With a groan at the pain in my back, I bend over to slip my feet into my boots and stumble on sore, aching legs toward the door. “Fuck. Today is going to be painful.”
I pull it open and step out to a familiar mist hanging over the mountain…
Mist that only comes in the morning.
Was I only asleep a few minutes?
It was already starting to burn off when I left Connor demolishing logs to come back to the cabin and eat, which means?—
Shit.
I scan the eastern horizon to find the sun just starting to filter between the trees. “Oh, my God.”
It isn’t dusk at all.
