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The sight of his white skin in the moonlight struck me, and I crouched down, my heart beating fast.
I didn’t know what to do. In all my brief wanderings of Hart Hollow, I’d yet to see another person, save for the town Sheriff when he patrolled.
I was a ghost in the night, never fearful.
Until now.
If the naked man heard me walk up, he would hear me leaving. I closed my eyes and listened, hearing nothing but the wind in the trees and the soft music of Moonie’s.
I crouched there for an unknown amount of time, waiting for something. Seconds? Minutes? I couldn’t be sure. But when my legs started to ache, I knew I needed to leave, retreat somehow.
When I opened my eyes, a hand slid around my throat, and another clamped over my mouth.
Cool lips pressed to my ear. I felt fear in her voice. “Don’t move. He knows you’re here.”
My heart thundered in my chest, and my body tensed.
Sorina’s voice was deep. Hypnotic. “You’re going to leave back the way you came. Don’t come back here, Nicholas. That will be your blood on him if you do.”
I squinted in the moonlight, trying to see what she meant. I saw what the dark strokes had been. There was blood on him. She was right. My eyesight had always been keen, and I didn’t know why. Not yet. And when I sniffed the night air, I smelled it then.Copper.Like pennies in my mouth. I shivered, a deep ache in my belly, traveling to my chest. I wanted something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. When I exhaled, Sorina leaned into me. Maybe she didn’t mean to because she pulled away a fraction just as quickly as she pressed to me.
We stood together, her hand leaving my throat, then my mouth. I turned toward her, looking down at her slight frame. She had to be five feet to my six. As slender as me, as pale. Eyes just as blue.
“What the fuck are you, anyway?” I asked in a whisper. The question always rising when she was in view. She was … off … unnatural.
She was on me again, hand gripping my neck, hand over my mouth. “Not here. He might want to play.”
She took my hand then, leading me away from the island. I felt another shiver. I didn’t know it, but the man on the island had turned, white eyes watching us. Lips turned up in amusement.
He wanted to play.
Just not yet.
* * *
Sorina didn’t speak until we crossed the city limit sign over the bridge.
She cast furtive glances over her shoulder as we walked, her eyes trained on the park, the lake, and the island.
I broke the silence when we passed the Casey’s gas station; nerves shot. “What the fuck was that back there?”
“Don’t go back there, Nicholas. I know you want to wander the town at night, but don’t go back there.”
I sped up, passing her. “Last I checked, we aren’t friends. We barely know each other, save the orders for someone else.” I was defiant then, and eager to shed the past. I was told how to live at the ranch.
How to breathe.
How to eat.
Every moment of every day was meticulously planned out for me.
I didn’t want that life anymore, and I was exercising my independence more and more each day. It helped that Valerie was busy with her own new start. Her eyes were often vacant, and she was so busy with work and creating a new life for us that she rarely paid attention to me. It served me well.
Sorina said my name, voice deeper. It felt like an undead ghost was speaking through her. I didn’t understand it then, and when I would learn the truth, I would believe my dark past had caught up with me.
I turned around, looking at her. Her fists were balled at her side, and her chin was up. Her eyes looked almost black in the night, and I blinked a few times, then shook my head.
Finally, she shook her head, and I smiled.
