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Because if someone else catches me—and he's anything like the man I escaped from—It won't matter that I thought I could survive until dawn.

It won't matter at all.

Skull faces, bone-white against black clothing, materializing from shadow as if conjured by the darkness itself. A dozen men step into the clearing, identical in their uniformity—same mask, same black t-shirts, same dark denim, same heavy boots. Their identities obliterated by design, leaving only their size and stance to distinguish one from another.

But I know which one is him.

I can feel his eyes on me even now, tracking my movements from behind that expressionless skull facade. My heart hammers against my ribs, my palms slick with sweat as I standamong the other women, all of us waiting, poised between stillness and flight.

The clearing falls silent. Even the night creatures seem to hold their breath.

Then, a low, resonant tone cuts through the darkness—a bell, somewhere deep in the forest. It rings once, the sound vibrating through the clearing, through my bones, settling in my chest like a warning.

The men step forward in perfect unison, forming a semicircle before us. As one, they begin to speak, their voices blending into a single, ritualistic chant.

"Hunt what runs."

The women around me join in, their voices rising to meet the men's. "Keep what's caught."

Everyone together now, the words reverberating through the trees. "Control what's kept."

I stumble through the chant, my voice a beat behind, unfamiliar with the words that everyone else seems to know by heart. This is a ritual. A tradition. A game with rules I don't understand, but must somehow navigate.

The bell tolls again, louder this time. Final.

And then we move.

There's no spoken cue. No one shouts for us to run. But the women around me break into motion as if pulled by the same invisible thread, and I'm already tearing at the hem of my dress before I can second guess it.

The fabric rips high up my thigh, the sound harsh and intimate in the quiet. My fingers fumble with the straps of my heels, slick with sweat, shaking as I kick them off into the grass without looking back.

The ground is cold beneath my feet.

Cold and soft and real.

I bolt.

Not a stumble. Not a graceful jog.

A full, desperate sprint into the trees like I'm being chased already.

And maybe I am.

The forest swallows me quickly, the air colder here, heavier. My gown catches on low branches. My lungs burn. The collar around my neck presses tighter with every ragged breath, a silent reminder that I'm not just running for myself anymore.

I'm marked.

I'm hunted.

Every step deeper into the woods feels like a step away from the girl who thought she could control this.

That version of me died the moment he fastened this choker.

Now?

Now I don't know who I'm running from.

I don't know who's behind me. I don't know whose breath I'll feel at my neck when I'm finally caught. And I don't know if it will be him—the one who claimed me before the rules allowed it. Or someone else. Someone worse.