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Tell that to my brain, though, because it didn’t want to listen.

‘I need some air,’ I said, abruptly standing and interrupting whatever Mallory was currently droning on about. I hadn’t been paying attention, and normally I might have felt bad about that, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. Mallory’s grievances were inane on the best of days.

‘We’re already outside,’ she said, confused, finally opening her eyes so she could take stock of my mental state. The way she was looking at me reminded me too much of the way my mother would stare at me as a child whenever I told her about the monsters in the shadows. Like I was a freak.

‘Excuse me,’ I muttered, then hurried away. She didn’t try to stop me, and I didn’t want to dig into whatever feelings that brought up, choosing to shove them aside to pick apart later. Now, there was already too much going on inside my head that I needed to sort through. I had to pull up my big girl panties and pull myself together. I could not,wouldnot, fall apart. Not here. Not again.

I rounded the back of the interconnected series of ostentatious tents back to my own. I had been forced to move it further outof the way when Mallory had demanded more space for another ‘room’, but I was suddenly glad for it. I couldn’t see my mother-in-law, and my father-in-law was somewhere inside the maze of colourful fabric. I didn’t want to see either of them right now.

For the first time in my life, I actually wanted to be alone.

I pushed the flap to the side with a little more force than necessary, wincing when I heard a tear, but told myself it was likely nothing more than the zipper. When my gaze landed on the empty cot, only one pillow indented, the reminder of my missing husband was like a punch to the gut, and I decided I didn’t care if the whole tent was cut into ribbons. I needed out. I never wanted to go camping again.

I didn’t think, I just acted. I pulled out my suitcase and started packing. I didn’t bother folding things neatly, choosing instead to stuff everything inside whatever way they would fit. I just needed the necessities. Everything else I could leave behind. None of it mattered, anyway, and if it did, then I would simply replace it.

If there was one thing I had learned in life, it was that everything was replaceable. Even people. And I hadn’t felt more like a replacement than I did in that moment.

I zipped up the suitcase so fast I almost caught my fingers. I snatched them out of the way at the last second before taking a deep breath and trying again, but this time with a little more care. My breaths were short and shallow, almost to the point of hyperventilation, so I closed my eyes and took some deep breaths to ground myself, repeating the mantras I had adopted as a child to help me through my anxiety.

Whatever happened, happened.

I am in control of myself, and no one else.

I am not responsible for other people’s actions.

The only person who truly cares about me is me.

That last one had tears stinging my eyes, the burn unwelcome. It had been a long time since I’d felt the need to remind myself of that. I thought I’d moved past it, but it seemed recent events had set me back. I was afraid to be proven correct, but the longer Blake stayed away, the longer he went without contacting me, the more my old trauma resurfaced.

All I was left with as I dragged my suitcase out of the tent, my purse slung haphazardly over my shoulder, were the horrible thoughts running through my brain. I wasn’t enough. I would never belong. He didn’t love me the way I loved him. I wasn’t welcome here. He didn’t want me.

Each and every thought was like a knife to my heart, reopening old wounds from when I’d spent my entire childhood believing I was worthless and unwanted. Tossed aside like I meant nothing to the people who were supposed to love and care for me. Ignored, neglected, and constantly endangered. Whatever was happening with Kali and Blake was dredging up all those old feelings until I could barely discern the past from the present.

I had to get out of here before I reverted back to that pathetic little girl who felt the only safe place was a cupboard under the sink, the one that hid and made herself smaller just to survive.

I never wanted to be that weak and helpless again.

A low growl sounded nearby, so quiet it almost went unnoticed. My stride faltered as I left the tent behind, but I was quick to keep moving. With the surge of old emotions, I dismissed it as my mind playing tricks on me, because there was no way I was hearing those sounds again. They were figments of my imagination when I was a child, just more monsters hiding in the shadows. My therapist had told me it was all in my head, and they’d gone away, so it couldn’t possibly be them.

But no. There it was again.

Louder.

Closer.

I ignored it, and the chills that skirted up my back. But what I couldn’t ignore were the glowing red eyes peering at me from the trees. Their forms were shrouded in shadows, ambiguous enough that if I tried, I could pretend I wasn’t seeing anything at all. I could keep sticking my head in the sand and act like nothing was going on, but a flash of long, sharp teeth accompanied the next growl, and I knew I couldn’t fake it.

My blood turned to ice in my veins, and I froze in place. It wasn’t possible. They were nightmares I’d made up in my head when I was a child to process my trauma; nothing more than my brain turning the bad men into something monstrous so I wouldn’t have to see the faces of the people who had hurt me and be scared. If they were mindless beasts with sharp teeth and deadly claws that kept their distance, they weren’t people with harsh words, derisive sneers, and iron grips that left bruises on both my skin and my soul. But they weren’t real, and the only monsters I knewwerepeople. It had taken me years and hard work to come to terms with that.

And yet, I was seeing them now, the exact same creatures of darkness that had once plagued my every wakingandunconscious dreams, and I couldn’t deny it even if I’d wanted to.

My monsters were back.

Panic set in fast, and instinct took over. Fear was now controlling my actions, but there was at least a pinch of logic still remaining that allowed me to move in the right direction. I needed to get out of here. I needed Chance. He would know what to do.

I started to run, and when my suitcase snagged on the uneven ground, I dropped it without a second thought, too desperate to escape the beasts that were hunting me from the trees to let something as silly as clothes hold me back. Letting the extra weight go allowed me to push my legs faster, and I sprinteddown the gravel driveway towards Rhodes’ house. I didn’t slow when it came into view, because I could sense them following me. They were keeping pace, their growls and snarls echoing around me, taunting me with flashes of glowing red eyes peering through the foliage. I never looked right at them, but I could still see them from the corner of my eye.

I slammed into the front door at full speed, knocking the breath from my lungs. I pounded my fists against it and screamed. ‘Let me in, let me in,let me in!’