Page 16 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

Chapter Eight

Brooklyn

T he first thing I notice is the tremor of the seat as I open my eyes.

Not the standard, background airplane hum, but a precise, almost metronomic knock.

The wheel of the beverage cart ticking over a seam in the floor.

I wake in increments, opening my left eye a slit, then the right, and for a moment the horizon outside my window is nothing but blinding white and an implied absence of ground.

I check the time. Thirty-eight minutes since takeoff. Another hour and twenty-ish to descent.

My body is cold, but my palms are wet. I flex my fingers, feel the drag of skin against my leggings, the scratch of a boarding pass folded in my pocket. My tongue is thick, my mouth stale. I swallow, and that’s enough to convince me I need a drink. Gin and tonic, I think.

The cart stops with a low clunk at my row. A flight attendant beams at me, her teeth so white they nearly outshine the silver of her service pin. “Something to drink, miss?”

I glance at the seatback in front of me, the tiny safety placard. “Isn’t this, like, a two hour flight?” My voice is two steps behind the conversation, my brain stuck in molasses. “Does anyone actually do drink service?”

She shrugs with professional indifference. “Business class perks. If you’d prefer to pass—”

“No, it’s fine. Sorry, just… surprised.” I shoot a glance across the aisle.

The other business class passenger, a man with a phone and a receding hairline, is already sipping a clear drink with lime.

I scan the row behind me, but the man has his hood pulled over his face, as if in sleep.

My heart stirs. I know it’s him. I just know it.

“Are you going to order something?” the attendant asks, her voice calibrated for maximum soothing, but there’s irritation seeping in.

“Gin and tonic. And water, please.”

She pours, precise and careful, as if the act is a sacred ritual. The clink of ice cubes is a sound I don’t realize I crave until it happens. She hands me both drinks with a napkin, crisp, no smudges, then moves to the next row.

I reach for the glass, my fingers clumsy. The condensation is cold, an immediate shock. I take a sip—floral, sharp, the gin warming its way down my throat. The effect is instant. My shoulders relax. The headache I’ve been carrying since sunrise recedes, just a fraction.

My gaze drifts to the window. The sky is featureless, the clouds below stitched into a flat white. For a minute, I pretend I’m invisible to everyone, that the watcher is just a story I told myself to fill the empty parts.

A movement catches in my peripheral vision.

The guy behind me stands. He’s tall enough that he is almost folded in half to get out of his row.

He moves with the kind of deliberation that sets every alarm in my body off—slow, silent, all coiled muscle.

Looking away to avoid eye contact, I watch his reflection in the window.

He slips past my row, eyes fixed on the narrow path ahead, and disappears toward the bathroom at the front of the plane.

I exhale, long and shaky. My hand goes to the drink again, and I catch myself wondering if he noticed me looking at him. Of course he did. I’m not subtle. Never have been.

He returns after a minute, maybe two. This time his head is faced away, but those hands…

I’d remember them anywhere. What is he doing on this flight?

He slides into his seat, buckles in, and folds his arms across his chest. The line of his jaw is so sharp it looks like it could cut glass.

The only giveaway that he’s even alive is the faint tap of his thumb against the armrest—a tiny beat, as if he’s timing something.

I try to ignore him, try to sink back into the drink, the sky, the pointless logic puzzle of why a man like that would bother with someone like me. But the thrum of anxiety never really goes away. I drink more quickly than I should.

The next time I look down, half the glass is empty. The ice is melting, the lime wedge drifting like a corpse. I feel a sudden, unfamiliar heat in my cheeks, a bloom of color I haven’t known in years. I set the glass down, but my hand wobbles, sloshing gin onto the napkin. My pulse jumps.

The attendant is back, this time refilling my water. “Everything all right?”

“Yes, thank you,” I say, but the words feel foreign. My tongue is numb, my lips thick. I rub my eyes, and the world doubles for a second, two sets of ceiling lights fighting for dominance.

I try to pull my focus back, but it’s like swimming through glue. The air around me vibrates, and I can’t tell if the plane has hit turbulence or if it’s just me. I hear the watcher’s voice.

“Would you mind if I borrowed your in-flight magazine?”

He’s talking to the man across the aisle. Not me. But his voice is a command, not a request. I watch the man stammer, then pass it over, avoiding eye contact.

“Thank you,” the watcher says, then flips the magazine open, scanning it without really reading.

My eyes scan my tray, my hands. They don’t look like my hands. I close my fists, open them again, but the movement is a second behind the thought. My head lolls, just a little, and I feel a spike of panic.

I try to stand, but the seat belt cuts into my waist, pinning me down.

When did I put this back on? I’m fumbling with the clasp, trying to get it off.

Bathroom, water, face. My legs are numb.

My vision smears the edges of the cabin, colors bleeding into each other like a watercolor left in the rain.

The world tips. The watcher is there now, right beside me, sitting in the empty seat, leaning his head so low his mouth is almost at my ear. I feel the heat of his breath, the electric chill of his presence. I want to scream, or at least push him away, but my arms are made of lead.

He whispers, “Shhhh. It’s just a little turbulence. You’re safe.”

His voice is velvet and steel. I try to turn, to see his face, but my neck won’t cooperate.

He straightens, leans back in the seat, and the next thing I know the cart is back. The attendant leans in, concerned.

“You look a bit pale, miss. Would you like some more water?”

I nod, but it’s more a lurch than a gesture. She pours, hands steady. I catch her glancing at the watcher, as if he might explain what’s happening to me.

He says nothing. Only smiles, slow and controlled.

The cabin lights dim. The air goes syrupy. I count my breaths, try to remember the protocols for in-flight panic attacks, but every thought slips from my grip like beads of mercury.

I try to remember the last thing I ate. The last time I slept. I try to add up the hours, but the numbers slide apart and dissolve.

There’s a hand on my shoulder. Large, heavy, familiar. The watcher.

“It’s almost over,” he says. “You did so well.”

I want to ask what he means, but my lips won’t move.

The last thing I see is the napkin, sodden with spilled gin, and the lime wedge, split down the middle.

Then nothing at all.

Consciousness snaps back in with no warning, like surfacing from a bad dream into an even worse reality.

The light is different—dimmed now, night mode in the cabin.

Outside, the window is black. For a moment I think the plane has landed and I slept through everything, but my stomach tells me otherwise: we’re still flying, still in motion.

I try to lift my hand to rub my face, but my arm barely moves. My muscles are underwater, every limb weighted with wet sand. It takes a Herculean effort just to flex my fingers. When I finally manage to turn my head, the world tilts sickeningly, and I almost retch.

My mouth is dry, tongue glued to the roof.

I try to remember why I’m so thirsty, why everything is so wrong.

Then I see the glass on my tray, the ice now a puddle, the lime wedge a desiccated fossil.

Gin. Water. I reach for the glass, but my hand quakes and knocks it sideways, spilling cold across the tray and onto my lap.

The shock is enough to get my blood moving.

That’s when I notice him, sitting beside me, my hand in his as he rubs a thumb over my knuckles. He’s looking at me, not with hunger but with lustful interest.

I try to speak, but it comes out as a croak.

He leans closer, a silhouette against the aisle light. “You’re awake. Good. The flight staff thought you were unwell. We’re almost at the airport. They had to do a few circles. Something to do with an emergency landing for another flight.”

“No,” I rasp, or think I do. The word is so small it barely makes it to my own ears.

He leans in, close enough for me to smell the faint trace of aftershave, citrus and rum. “Try to stay calm,” he says. “You’re safe now.”

Safe . The word rings in my skull, a bell made of glass. Nothing about this is safe.

I try to undo my seatbelt, but my hands are jelly, the clasp alien and unresponsive. Panic sets in, hot and electric. I fumble, try again, and this time manage to wedge a fingernail under the latch. It pops open, and I lurch forward, feet tangling in the carryon beneath the seat.

I need to get out. I need to tell someone. I need to scream.

This man just sits here, his brows pulled together. He folds his hands in his lap, regards me with something almost like concern. “Don’t,” he says. “You’ll only make it worse.”

“Help,” I try. My voice is cracked, but this time it carries. A row of heads turns toward me, faces painted by the blue glow of reading lights. “Please. I… I was drugged. He—” I point at the watcher, and the gesture is so pathetic I want to slap myself.

People start to murmur. There’s a tension, a stretch of air before something bad happens. Someone presses the call button. An overhead chime pings, twice.

The watcher—no, not watcher anymore, but predator—leans in again. “You don’t want to do this, Brooklyn.”

My name. My fucking name. Again.

That’s what tears it open.