6
ADDIE
Maybe going back to the mountains wasn’t the best idea, but I had little other choice. The killer knew where I lived. My house wasn’t safe. At least, out here in the wilderness, I could move around and keep the killer guessing.
Night had fallen. It whispered with the soft sounds of life trying to return to a winter landscape. I closed my eyes and tried to sink into the comfort of it, but my mind kept returning to Maddox.
He lived in my head, much to my annoyance. I couldn’t help but think about his floppy hair or his wrinkled shirt. The scent of him crept up my nose again, without even needing to be near him. My core clenched tight with a kind of need that reminded me just how long it’d been since I’d last let a man into my life.
The only thing that pulled me out of my thoughts was the distant howl of a wolf. Its song was beautiful and hollow all at the same time.
Then…I remembered that there were no wild wolves in the Adirondack mountains.
I bolted upright, heart racing. Memories of Ness’s old pack came racing back to me. Alvin had them hunt her relentlessly. They’d roamed the wilderness of New York with the intent to kill.
But Alvin was gone. I didn’t have to fear a dead man. He was rotting somewhere in the ground where no one would ever find him again.
Exhaling, I flopped back onto my sleeping bag. What was howling out there? Was Ness running? That didn’t make sense. I was too far away from Syracuse to be hearing Ness’s howls. That meant there was another shifter in these mountains.
I just hoped that they weren’t hunting.
Morning came before I realized. The first light of the day snuck in, bright even through the tent. I groaned and lifted my hand over my face. But when I moved, there wasn’t a sleeping bag beneath me. There was only earth, hard and grating.
I jerked upright, heart pounding. The tent was gone. I found myself in a hole—no, agrave. Leaping to my feet, I scrambled to climb the six-foot high walls of the grave. The dirt gave way beneath my panicked fingers. It crumbled and sent me sliding back into the grave.
A whimper rose to my lips and made it out before I could stifle the sound. I backed away and wrapped my arms around my middle. This wasn’t right. I’d fallen asleep in my tent. The sound of the zipper or the tent tearing would have woken me.
There was no way I would have slept through a kidnapping. I would have woken up at some point. Right?
The sun bearing down on me from above made my head spin. It wasn’t warm, though. While the light was blinding, it wasn’t baking me. I knew what the winter sun felt like, and it was often oppressive.
When I exhaled, my breath gathered into a small cloud.
Pull yourself together, Addie.
This was a dream. It wasn’t the first time I’d had dreams like this before. Most of the time, I woke in a casket or a wood coffin. An open grave was new. I lifted my face to the sky above and wondered why I was here.
And why was I lucid?
A feminine hand appeared above the grave. The faceless person reached down to help me out. I grabbed the person without thinking. The feminine hand turned into a calloused one. Thick, familiar fingers wrapped around my wrist and hauled me up, out of the grave.
Free of my nightmare, I staggered. Blinding light blocked my vision. I covered my eyes with the back of my hand again. Yet, when my vision cleared, the world was dark.
I inhaled sharply as my senses came crashing back. My eyes flew wide. My campsite appeared around me, the nearby field stretching towards the shallow mountain peaks in the distance. Behind them, the soft glow hinted at the rising sun to come.
I wasn’t asleep anymore. The ground beneath my feet was real. The air smelled of mud and crisp winter. Twisting, I looked back at my still-closed tent. How had I gotten out without unzipping it? And—more importantly—when did I start sleepwalking?
The chill of death gripped my spine. It dragged my attention towards the field. There, in the distance, a figure watched me.
I fumbled back, alarmed. The stinging pain when I pinched myself didn’t wake me like I’d hoped. My heart jumped right up into my throat as if it could claw its way out and run away on its own. I swallowed the bastard back down and looked back to the figure at the end of the field.
They didn’t move, which was creepier than if they’d run directly at me.
“Hello?” I called out.
Maybe they were a lost hiker who’d stumbled into my camp just in time to watch me sleepwalk. I’d be stunned if I watched that, too.
The person didn’t move or speak, though. When the cold chill of death rose, my fear spiked. I’d known that coming out here would be risky, but I’d thought that finding another campsite would keep me safe.