Page 7 of Bird on a Blade (Hunter’s Heart #1)

CHAPTER SIX

EDIE

M y first thought, as panicky as a rabbit, is that the head looks so realistic. My second thought is that it looks realistic because it’s real.

Then I react. I leap over the head and race across the packed dirt, my heart feeling like it’s going to pound out of my chest. For a moment, I’ve fallen back in time fifteen years. I’m eighteen years old and I’m racing across the balmy August night to see if Blake was able to call the police.

Then I slam into my car. No. This is a joke, a cruel and vicious joke. Maybe the head isn’t real. But someone put it there. Someone who wants me frightened.

I have to get out of here.

I fumble in my purse for my keys, fingers slipping over every stupid thing I’ve ever put in there—a tube of chapstick, a bottle of hand lotion. Did I leave them in the cabin? No, I feel them buried at the bottom and wrench them out, slamming my thumb frantically down on the unlock button. The car headlights flash, and I grab the handle and?—

A gloved hand wraps neatly around my mouth.

I scream, legs flailing, as my attacker pulls me away from my car. My purse crashes to the ground, spilling tampons and lotion bottles everywhere.

My keys gleam in the dirt.

“Don’t scream,” says a soft masculine voice.

I fight back against him, digging my arms into his thin arm. But the muscles there flex against me with a hidden strength. He drags me up against him, my back pressed against a firm, solid chest. Then he walks backward, pulling me step by step away from the car.

I scream into his glove again, tears blurring my vision.

“Shhh,” he says, his mouth close to my ear, his breath warm. “Don’t be afraid.”

Lightning bolts through me.

I’m eighteen again, but I’m not running. I’m standing in front of Sawyer Caldwell, clutching a flimsy steak knife, and he tells me Don’t be afraid from behind his filthy, bloodstained mask.

The world seems to pull apart, and I’m not sure that Scott is responsible for this.

“Who are you?” I ask, although he presses my mouth so tightly it comes out as inarticulate muffles. The question tastes like the leather of his gloves.

He doesn’t answer except to pull me up to the front porch. I twist away from the head.

It’s real. I’m certain of it now.

“He deserved it,” the man says calmly. God, he even has the same accent as Sawyer Caldwell, that faint Virginia drawl. “What he said about you.”

My nerves light up again.

Don’t be scared. They can’t hurt you anymore. I won’t let them hurt you ever again.

But Sawyer Caldwell is dead. I was in his fucking arms when he died.

The man heaves me into the cabin, his hand still wrapped around my mouth. I hear the door click shut. The lock turn .

Then his mouth is on my ear again.

“I’m gonna let you go.” His fingers curl slightly against the bones of my face. “And I don’t want you screaming. Do you understand?”

I don’t say anything. He sighs.

“I just want to talk to you, but I can’t do that if you’re screaming.”

Then he draws his hand away, slowly. For some reason, I don’t scream. Just like how I didn’t even try to attack Sawyer Caldwell that night fifteen years ago.

I do, however, turn around, bracing myself for another bloodstained mask.

Instead, I find the guy from the bookstore. The one reading the bestseller.

He looks at me, dark eyes burning. He’s dressed like all the men who live around here, grey flannel and dark jeans. Heavy work boots. Was this what he wore this afternoon? I can’t remember. I’m too panicky, too breathless.

“Do you remember me?” His eyes feel like mouths, swallowing me whole.

“Y-yes.” I take a step back, and he matches it, slow and predatory. I have no doubt if I try to run, he’ll tackle me. “You w-were at that b-bookstore. In town.”

But he frowns, shakes his head. A curl of dark brown hair falls across his forehead. “No,” he says. “No, I mean—” He gestures toward the windows. To the camp.

To the place where the dining hall had been.

This time, it’s my turn to shake my head. “This isn’t fucking funny,” I tell him, curling my hands into fists. I’ve got nothing. Not my keys, not my phone. The kitchen, and its rack full of knives, is too far away. “I don’t know who you think I am, but?—”

“Your name is Edie.” Something about the way he says my name feels almost… reverential. A prayer.

My head swoons .

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shoot back, a beat too late. “My name’s—” Fuck, I’ve forgotten the fake name Charlotte and I came up.

But at the same time, I don’t think this man has anything to do with Scott.

He grins. It’s almost handsome, although there’s a sharpness to it that makes me suck in my breath. “I know who you are, Edie,” he says. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you for fifteen years.”

Blood pounds in my ears. The man tilts his head a little, and it’s so much like fucking Sawyer Caldwell, just without the mask, that for a moment, I think I’m going to pass out.

“No.” I shake my head, say it again more firmly. “No. Sawyer Caldwell is dead. I was there when he died. I was?—”

I stop, faltering. Because he’s shaking his head now, his burning dark eyes never leaving mine. “Can’t die,” he says. “Didn’t die. Just went into the ground for a bit.”

Then he reaches out his hand, palm down, stretching it towards me like he expects me to jerk away.

“Stop this!” I shout, wrenching away from him.

He lifts his gaze, eyes big and weirdly puppy-dog-like, and curls his fingers back to his chest.

“I don’t know what bullshit fucking podcast you listened to, but Sawyer Caldwell is dead .”

Except there were those two officers at my parents’ house in Arlington.

Don’t want to worry you… body disappeared…we’ve got a detail on the house…

“I ain’t dead.”

“You aren’t Sawyer Caldwell.”

He tilts his head again, studying me, brow furrowed a little. I wait for him to give me that cruel grin again. For him to reveal he’s been filming this whole thing as some kind of bloodthirsty social media prank .

Instead, he takes a cautious step forward, eyes burrowing into me. “You had their blood on your shirt,” he says softly. “They treated you something awful and you still gave ‘em comfort, didn’t you? I always remembered that.”

I go still. “Lucky guess,” I snarl. Or try to. It comes out like a whimper.

The man smiles a little, like he’s amused by my attempt to be intimidating.

“What else can I tell you to prove it?” Another step. I’m frozen in place, just like I was that night fifteen years ago. A real-life final girl, the podcasts called me, but I wasn’t a final girl. I didn’t fight.

He spared me.

“How about this?” He stops, his eyes never leaving mine. They’re as deep and black as the swimming hole two miles from the camp where I used to swim laps between orange buoys. “I’d just killed the last of them. The one with the muscles.”

Blake Foster. You could know that from reading the Wikipedia page. I don’t say anything.

“I heard you,” he says softly. “That scared little whimper.”

I will myself not to make that sound now.

The man takes another step toward me. “I told you not to be afraid.” He has this faraway look in his eyes, like he really is remembering, and that scares me more than anything.

At least, until he says what he says next.

“You let me hold you.”

Every atom of air in my body flushes out of me. I swoon, staring at him, this handsome, terrifying man with his dark curling hair.

Because I never told anyone that. After Deputy Crosier shot Sawyer Caldwell, he assumed that Caldwell had been strangling me, and I never denied it. I looked Crosier in the eye and told him that was exactly what had happened, and no one ever questioned it .

“Who are you?” I whisper, backing away.

The man immediately clears the space between us, pressing me up against the wall, his wiry arms caging my body. His eyes bore into me. This close, I can see they aren’t really black, but a dark, chocolate brown, flecked with scatters of gold.

“I told you,” he murmurs, and I can feel the warmth of his breath. “I’m Sawyer Caldwell.”

“No!” I shout, and I try to worm away from him, ducking beneath his arm. He moves fast as a snake, twining that arm loosely around my chest, pressing my back up against him. It’s not exactly threatening. It feels like the embrace Sawyer Caldwell gave me right before he died.

“Sawyer Caldwell is dead,” I shriek, digging my hands into his arm, trying to pry him free. But he’s strong. Stronger than he looks.

“I’m not dead, Edie.” He presses his mouth against my ear. “And you didn’t let me finish.”

I freeze, heart hammering. He draws me closer, one arm across the top of my chest, the other winding around my waist. When he pulls me up against him, I swear I feel the ridge of his cock pressing against my ass.

“Don’t,” I whisper, tears limning along my lashes.

“Don’t what?” He nuzzles my neck, takes a deep breath in as if he’s smelling me. He keeps his arms around me as he peels off one of his gloves and tosses it to the ground. “Don’t tell you about what happened that night?”

As he takes off his other glove, I stare straight ahead, at the empty wall, the curtains drawn tight over the windows, the black TV screen.

Don’t say it don’t say it don’t say it ? —

“You hugged me.” His voice has that sense of reverence to it. “I held you, and you held me back, and I knew you were grateful for what I did for you.”

Tears stream over my cheeks, and I tremble against him, his thin, strong body. It feels like Sawyer Caldwell’s body, that’s what terrifies me the most. Because of course I fucking remember it. Wrapping my arms around his shoulders. Clinging to him, sobbing, terrified. That bizarre, horrifying fragment of comfort he offered me?—

No one knows that. It’s the only true secret in my entire life. I never even told Charlotte, and I tell her everything.

I knew you were grateful for what I did for you .

“No!” I scream, and with a burst of strength, I erupt away from him. I spent years battling my survivor’s guilt. I starved myself because of it, punishing myself for being the only one left standing even though I was fat and ugly and unathletic and?—

The man grabs me again, quick as a cat, and yanks me up to him, pinning me to him, his mouth forming spots of warmth on my neck as he speaks.

“It’s me, Edie,” he whispers.

“H-how?” I sob. “Deputy Crozier fucking shot you! I was covered in your fucking blood! I picked your brain out of my fucking hair!”

The man sighs, nuzzles against me. “Good lord,” he murmurs, his hand drifting down over the swell of my belly. “That’s a pretty thought.”

Hearing that sends something jolting through me. I don’t know if it’s revulsion or desire.

But then his hand slides between my legs, his palm rubbing over the crotch of my jeans, and I have my answer.

It’s desire.

“To answer your question,” he says, his touch soft and almost hesitant. “I ain’t exactly human. I can’t die, like I said.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I whisper.

“Ridiculous or not, it’s true.”

He’s still touching my pussy, rubbing the heel of his hand against my clit, over my jeans. I know I should try to stop him.

But, to my shame, it feels good .

He guides me across the living room, still stroking my pussy. I go with him, not fighting, just stumbling backward with him, because it feels so fucking good, how he’s touching me, one hand on my cunt and the other squeezed around my bicep.

“Are you really Sawyer Caldwell?” The question comes out in a gasp. But I already know the answer, don’t I? There are two impossibilities here. I saw him die. And I told no one what he did in those moments before his death.

And yet here he is, the only other person who could know the truth.

There’s no denying what happened fifteen years ago. I’ll never forget what Sawyer Caldwell felt like as I clung to him. I’ll never forget what he said to me.

I squeeze my eyes shut as the man—as Sawyer—pulls me down onto the sofa, arranging me so that he pins me against him as his hand undoes the button on my jeans.

“Yes,” he mutters, finally answering the question. His voice is strained. Focused. “I dragged myself into the ground to heal.”

“No one heals from that,” I whisper.

“Hunters can. I can.”

He slides his hand into my jeans to stroke me over my panties. Why aren’t I stopping him?

Why am I listening to this?

Why do I believe him?

Because no one could know what he did that night. NO ONE.

“Damn, Edie,” he says, snapping me back to the present. “You sure are wet for me, aren’t you?”

There’s genuine surprise in his voice, and hearing him say that, confirming it, makes me moan. He laughs like he’s delighted and then slides his finger under my panties, and I feel him for the first time, skin on skin.

It’s been so long since someone else has touched me that I can’t bear to push him away. Instead, I moan again, louder, as his fingers rub slow, lazy circles on my clit .

“I never thought I’d be so lucky,” he says softly. “That you’d be here. That I’d get to make you come.”

His words flood heat through my chest, and I shouldn’t be feeling this. Not about him. I close my eyes and try to pretend it’s someone else touching me, someone who isn’t a resurrected killer. But no matter who I picture, whatever handsome actor I try to craft out of the aether, he’s replaced with Sawyer Caldwell fifteen years ago, soaked in blood and wearing a mask.

“Stop,” I say weakly. Not so much to him. To myself. For liking this.

He just laughs. “Not until you come,” he says. “Though I’ll be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop myself from doing it again.”

I moan at that, my hips rolling against his hand of their own accord. I’ve never come twice in a row.

So why do I feel like Sawyer Caldwell might be the one to make me do it?

He shifts a little, slides his hand deeper into my panties. One of his fingers slips inside my pussy, and I gasp as he curls it against my inner wall. His thumb still works my clit.

This man knows what he’s doing.

“How…” I gasp the question out, my pleasure mounting. “How are… you really… really Sawyer Caldwell?”

In response, he slides another finger inside me. My legs fall open, trying to accommodate him. It’s like my body reacts to him one way, my brain another.

“I know you recognize me,” he murmurs, slowing his strokes. Teasing me.

He’s right. I do.

I squirm against him, pressing down on his hand. My jeans slide down my hips, revealing a stripe of my soft, pale flesh.

“You’re dead,” I whimper, burying my face against his chest. “I saw it. You died.”

“Told you. I can’t die. ”

He does something, hooks his fingers against me in a particular way, and I let out a low, guttural scream, bucking my body against him. Sawyer chuckles.

“That’s it,” he says. “That’s it. You’re close, aren’t you?”

“You’re dead ,” I say, as if repeating it will make it true.

“Then you’re about to cream yourself on a dead man’s fingers.” He leans down and brushes his lips against my ear. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought about this while I was recovering in the ground. I’ve wanted you from the first time I saw you in those tight little shorts.” He’s working me faster now, and the heat is building. Still, I pull away a little to look up at him.

Why is Sawyer Caldwell so goddamn handsome?

I try to focus as best as I can. I can’t handle this nonsense about him being in the ground, how he healed. So I focus on the other thing thing he said. “How long…” I gasp. “How long were you watching me? At the camp?”

His fingers stroke rhythmically against me, and I match that rhythm with my hips until I’m doing most of the work, wantonly riding his hand.

“Long enough to see them treat you like shit,” he says. “Long enough to know you’d be worth killing for.”

And to my horror, that’s when my orgasm slams through me. I come at the idea of him killing my four tormenters. I gasp and thrash against him, half wishing I could stop the cascade so I can tell myself it isn’t the idea of death and murder that finally sent the pleasure surging up through my body.

Even though, if I’m being honest with myself, this isn’t the first time.

Sawyer doesn’t stop touching me, his fingers drawing out more and more contractions in the muscles of my pelvis. I slump against him, gasping for breath, until finally, the aftershocks fade. He stops his stroking, but doesn’t take his hand away from my pussy, just keeps it there, cupping me gently .

I don’t move. I can’t move. A sense of self-loathing creeps in. How could I come at that? At their deaths?

They tortured you .

They hated you.

They deserved it.

I take a deep, shuddery breath and shift against Sawyer. He makes no move to stop me until I try to sit up, at which point he releases my pussy and grips my hips with both hands, pressing me into the couch.

I look up at him through the tangled net of my hair.

He stares down at me, his eyes dark and hungry. But also… faintly astonished, like he finds this whole scenario as unbelievable as I do.

“Now what?” The question comes out barely a whisper. If he really is Sawyer Caldwell, I have to remind myself, it’s very possible that I’m going to die.

But he doesn’t attack me. He doesn’t move for a knife.

Instead, he tugs on my jeans, pulling them down to my thighs.

“Get these things off,” he says. “I’ve been waiting fifteen years for a taste of your cunt.”