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“I’m not the one who knocked you out,” I whisper softly, my tone smooth as silk.

I lean in an inch closer, letting a cold, lethal edge creep into my voice. “I tried to warn you about the devil, didn’t I? You just assumed it was me I was talking about.”

A dark, crazed laugh escapes my throat—a low, echoing sound that bounces off the cedar rafters and makes the cop’s jaw clench in sudden, genuine fear.

I push myself up to my feet, turning on my heel toward the open front door. But first, I grab my blood-stained clothes from the floor, tucking them securely to my side. I’ll put them back on after I’m clear of the officer’s greedy gaze.

The icy wind tears through the threshold, whipping against my bare skin, but I barely feel the cold.

My blood is on fire, aching for one final hunt.

“Wait!” the officer barks from the floor, his voice tight with desperation.

I pause at the doorway, glancing over my broad shoulder with a wicked, razor-sharp grin.

“Are you responsible for the two murders at the carnival?” His voice trembles slightly beneath the anger.

“What murders?”

He narrows his gaze on me. “The male on the fairgrounds and the female in the woods?”

I don’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. I just hold his gaze for three agonizing seconds, letting my smile widen until it becomes something terrifying.

Hmm, looks like the local authority finally found the surprise I left for them.

A dark rush of pride blooms in my chest.

“Happy Halloween, officer,” I say smoothly.

Without another word, I step out onto the rain-slicked porch, pulling the heavy cabin door shut behind me, locking the deputy in the dark with the crackling fire and his own rotting thoughts.

After donning my clothes, not bothering with my boots, I shut my eyes and track back to when I dragged the deputy up the steps earlier.

I had kept my eyes locked on the tree line. On the exact angle Harmony took when she plunged into the brush.

She’s moving fast, but she’s on foot, navigating thick mud, sharp briars, and torrential rain. She’s heading straight toward the gravel road where her car is stashed—straight toward the small, tainted town of Blackwood.

With my boots in hand, I jog down the porch steps, the cold mud squelching beneath my bare feet as I stride toward the idling police cruiser parked at the edge of the clearing.

I pull the driver’s door open, slide into the black leather interior, and slam the door against the storm. After tossing my boots onto the passenger side—they’ll have to wait, I’ve already wasted too much time—I adjust myself. It’s a tight fit with all the extra shit that cops have in their cars, but I make it work.

The engine is already humming softly, the dashboard lights casting a dull blue glow over my rain-slicked chest and arms.

I slam the deputy’s keys into the ignition slot, drop the cruiser into drive, and hit the gas.

The heavy tires spin wildly in the deep mud for a second before gripping the gravel, propelling the vehicle onto the narrow dirt trail leading out of the woods.

As I reach the main stretch of Blackwood Highway, the storm begins to shift. The blinding torrential rain eases into a steady, freezing drizzle, but a thick, pea-soup fog descends rapidly from the surrounding hills.

The dense mist rolls over the asphalt in heavy, ghostly tendrils, blinding, suffocating, and cutting visibility down to less than thirty feet.

I flip off the flashing emergency lights, keeping only the low beams cutting through the gloom as I cruise slowly down the dark stretch of highway.

My eyes dart back and forth, relentlessly scanning the thick tree line on the right side of the road.

Where are you, pretty girl?

I know how her mind works. She’s exhausted, terrified, and running on pure adrenaline. Her boots are heavy with mud, her clothes soaked with blood and rain. She won’t stay in the dense forest for long; the mud will drag her down. She’ll have to pop out onto the shoulder of the highway to make any real time toward her vehicle.