Page 49 of Glimmer in the Darkness

She crawled out beside him. Her hair was pulled up in a messy ponytail. She held her handgun pointed at the ground. “What happened?”

“I thought I heard something.”

“From what direction?”

He nodded toward the hillside and, together, they peered into the darkness.

“What should we do?” Terror laced her words. “Should we leave?”

It was too dark, the hill too steep. To hike an unknown trail—not even a trail—in the dark would be dangerous. One wrong move could prove fatal.

They were better off staying put, though the longer he stood there, the more exposed he felt.

“Get in,” he said.

“But what if he comes?”

“We’re both armed. If he comes, we’ll protect ourselves.”

She crawled inside. He snatched his sleeping bag and followed. The tent was just wide enough for two people to lie side by side.

She scrabbled into her sleeping bag, and he did the same, only then registering the chill of the night.

“Tell me what happened.” Her whisper was low.

“It was probably nothing.”

“Is that what you really think?”

He didn’t know what to believe. “If someone wanted to hurt us, we just gave him a very good opportunity.”

It was too dark to see anything in the tent, so he stared up at the cloth above their heads.

Chirping crickets. A bullfrog’s croak. The hoot of an owl.

Something slithered over dry pine needles.

“All day,” she whispered, “I felt like we were being followed.”

He should probably say something to make her feel better, but how would that help? “Yeah. I’d hoped I was imagining it.”

“Someone’s watching us.”

He wished he could take the fear out of her voice.

Moonlight shone on the treetops and sent shadows creeping across the tent.

“Let’s just… start the day,” she whispered.

The glowing hands on his watch told him it was three-thirty. “Sun won’t rise for an hour and a half.”

“But we can’t just lie here. And we can’t go back to sleep.”

“I know.”

“Who do you think it is? You think it’s—”

“Shh.” He lowered his voice until it was so low, he wondered if she could even hear it. “Let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk about anything related to… all this. In case he’s listening.”