Page 57 of Into Pitch

The ceiling isn’t metal.

I blink once. Twice.

Wood beams stare back at me, dark and rough-hewn, crossing overhead in a way my bus never has. The air smells different too. Like pine and smoke with something clean underneath it all. I sit up so fast the world tilts around me.

“What the—”

The couch beneath me groans, old leather creaking under my sudden movement. My head throbs, not a splitting pain but pressure. Like someone has packed cotton behind my eyes and it’s slowly being peeled back to give me consciousness.

Last night comes back to me in pieces.

The paint and the bus. Imogen’s stupidly expensive whiskey she had left on my counter with a note that read to get ready to sell more paintings and drink better alcohol. There had also been a wad of cash beside it from the paintings she had already sold in her shop.

I remember chuckling to myself and pouring a drink.

One drink.

The rest?

Nothing.

And I know without a shadow of a doubt which slippery bastard is all over this. I can practically smell his influence as I swing my legs over the couch and stand. Every muscle pulls taut, but I ignore it in sake of studying my surroundings. It’s a cabin, that much is obvious. Which means the freakishly-tall shithead had kidnapped me.

Oh, I’m going to kill him.

How in the hell did he think this was okay? What possibly could have gone through his mind that he thought the next plausible step in our relationship was to drug and snatch me up?

Woah, now. We aren’t using terms like relationship in regard to Alex, I remind myself.

Well, fuck him and fuck this cabin too.

Nobody kidnaps Sadie Morgan.

I mean, clearly he has, but I’m sticking by that statement as fact.

I stomp toward the front door and wrench it open, surprised to find it unlocked. That tells me enough about how confident he is that I’m not getting away any time soon. As if I would choose to stay after someone commits a fucking felony.

Call the judge.

I don’t waste time crossing the worn wooden boards of the front porch, barefoot as sunlight slams into me and the reality of my situation truly unfolds before me.

Trees stretch out in every direction. Dense forest with towering pines and shadows that layer thick and endless. A narrow gravel road cuts through the clearing around the cabin like a vein, disappearing around a bend, but there are no buildings. No cars. No sign of civilization.

Yeah, fuck all this.

I run.

My bare feet hit the gravel hard, pain flaring but useless against the adrenaline screaming through my veins. I don’t hesitate or think about where I might be going, I just bolt straight down the road.

At some point I will have to hit something or someone, right?

My lungs burn almost instantly as I push my body into motion, and I am acutely aware of just how out of shape I truly am.

I’ve got to get off the road though, because that seems like a dead giveaway if he comes to find me. Branches whip at my arms when I veer off, crashing into the trees without slowing. The forest around me so vast that it devours the sounds of my frantic footfalls and heaving breath. I run like someone is chasing me because something is.

I can hear him.

“Sadie!”