Page 20 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

Chapter Ten

Slade

I watch her on every one.

On the top left, she is in infrared: a white flame, moving through the black. The next screen shows her from above, body dwarfed by the writhing pattern of pines. On the third, she is a ghost, just a suggestion of motion skimming the treeline.

She’s resourceful. Not the kind that gets by on luck, but the kind that’s built from trauma and overcompensation.

She’s barefoot, but she’s covered more ground in the last ten minutes than most could cover in a day.

Determined little fox. I watch her wrap her shirt around her palm to keep the cuts from bleeding, watch the calculation in her eyes as she surveys each fork in the game trail.

She knows to avoid open space, to use the wind, to keep her back to a tree whenever she stops to listen.

I should be annoyed. Instead, my heart beats faster.

She’s everything I thought she’d be. And more. My perfect girl.

A whisper for her, soft and full of pride: “Look at you, little fox. Clever girl. Go on. Run.”

My hand moves, almost against my will, to the glass of the monitor.

I trace the shape of her, the curve of her arm as she climbs a fallen log, the line of her neck bared as she glances behind.

She thinks she’s alone, but I see the way her eyes are wide, the whites catching any stray glint from the sky. She’s waiting for me, even now.

I flip to another feed: cabin interior, angle on the shattered window.

The glass is gone, but the frame is already frosted with condensation.

I zoom in on the blood smeared across the sill, each droplet perfectly round.

I want to lick it, but that’s for later.

She didn’t panic—she figured it out. There’s beauty in that.

On the far right monitor, she’s paused behind a rock, hunched and breathing hard. The thermal camera shows the pulse at her throat, wild and urgent. She’s clutching the fox charm I left her, and I hope, for just a second, that she can feel me through it. That my heat can reach her, even now.

“You think you’re escaping,” I murmur, “but you’re just playing your part. That’s it. Dance for me, baby girl.”

She’s mesmerizing. I should be going after her, but I want to watch. The way her body moves is something out of a dream. So fucking pretty.

I lean in, nose inches from the cold glass, and let my voice drop to a whisper she’ll never hear.

“I’m so proud of you,” I say. “You’re doing so well for me, little fox.”

I picture her hearing it in the wind, in the shudder of her own lungs. I picture her slowing for just a second, wondering if she’s being watched. The answer is yes. Always yes.

A tremor of primal hunger cracks down my spine. I try to remember what it felt like to not want her, and the answer is: I don’t.

Despite everything, this woman has wormed her way under my skin, forced me to do some very unreasonable things, all for the goal of clapping those cheeks for the rest of our fucking lives.

And best believe, it will be for the rest of our lives, whether she agrees or not. I can shorten our lifespan if necessary.

I lean back in the chair, savoring the ache in my hips, the weight of my own anticipation. I let it build, let it flood me, until I am nearly vibrating with the need to move. But not yet.

Instead, I reach for the mic. It’s patched through to a speaker outside, hidden in a birdhouse near the clearing she’s approaching. I press the button, keep my voice low and slow.

“Little fox,” I say, “it’s cold out. You should come inside.”

On the screen, she freezes. Her face lifts, eyes wide, scanning the branches for the source. She’s so goddamn pretty when she’s scared. I want to put her in a jar, keep her frozen like this forever, but that would ruin the thrill of the chase.

I let go of the button, let the echo die.

She bolts, takes the left fork in the trail, exactly as I predicted. I watch her vanish into the blur, but I know exactly where she’s headed. I have the advantage of gods: omniscience, omnipresence, the luxury of infinite patience.

But the hunt must be real.

The timer I’d set hits zero, and I stand, stretching the knots from my back. My reflection in the monitor is pale and sharp-edged, eyes black from lack of sleep. I bare my teeth at myself, and for a second I see the monster she thinks I am.

I hope she’s right.

“Ready or not,” I say, “here I come.”

The words hang in the air, a promise and a curse.

The game is on, and this time, I’m playing for keeps.

Every hunt has its ritual. Mine begins in the dark, hands steady and clean, heart a frozen brick.

I turn from the monitors—her shadow still twitching on the farthest screen—and cross the room to the cabinet against the wall.

The wood is old, heavy, pocked with gouges from years of hasty repacking.

I palm the edge, savor the rasp of the grain against my fingerprint, then open it.

The gear is laid out with soldierly precision: rope; combat knife, ten inches, half-serrated, blade honed so fine the tip can peel the skin from a peach; half-mask, resin and steel, painted a dark forest green so that it breaks the face into a demon’s leer.

I line them up on the bench, working left to right, always the same order.

Rope, tied in circles across my body.

The knife next. I run a thumb along the edge, testing the sharpness.

It bites, a clean, white-hot sting, and a bead of blood wells up on my fingertip.

I suck it clean, tasting the metallic promise.

Beautiful. The knife goes into the sheath on my hip, handle canted for a reverse draw.

I practice the motion, eyes on the monitor, picturing her there at the end of my reach.

It’s not about using it—never is. It’s about the idea of using it. The possibility.

Last is the mask.

I hold it in both hands, tracing the lines of the jaw, the flared cheekbones, the way the eye sockets turn the gaze into a blank, unreadable void.

When I was a child, I made masks out of clay and cardboard, wore them to school under my hood.

The teachers hated it. Said it was antisocial, threatening. They were right.

This one is better. This one is the face I choose when Kairo had them all made.

I slide the straps over my head, adjust the bridge so it fits flush against the nose, cinch it at the temples. My breath echoes inside, a hollow, measured drum. I inhale, exhale, until my heart slows to a crawl.

In the mask, I am more myself than out of it.

On the far wall, a small mirror. I check my reflection, the way the green disappears against the black of my clothes, the way the mouth is open, exposing mine. I tilt my head, tongue the cut on my thumb, and watch the mirror smile back.

I power down the first monitor. The screen goes black, leaving a rectangular afterimage behind my eyelids.

Then the next, and the next, a slow, deliberate sequence.

Each one winks out like a star collapsing.

The only one I leave on is the far right, the camera that watches the clearing by the old tool shed.

On it, she is moving again, hair wild, shirt torn to the elbow. She limps, but she’s still fast. Faster than I thought she’d be after this long running. She’s looking for someone to save her, but no one will.

The boys know the rules. Their girls do too.

I press my face to the glass and speak, low and soft. “Time to collect what’s mine.”

When I open the front door, the chill rushes in, and I am new again, reborn in the skin of the monster she always knew was waiting.

The hunt is now. And she is so, so ready to be found.

The forest is not quiet. That’s a lie people tell themselves to make the dark seem less alive.

Out here, the air is layered in a hundred sounds: the friction of wind through pine needles, the click of beetle legs on damp bark, the nervous hush of creatures that know a killer is loose in their world.

I step into it and the whole place sharpens, senses blooming like wounds.

The cold is clean, almost antiseptic, and it licks the strip of skin left bare below the mask.

I let it in, let the sting of it ground me, every breath a controlled exhale of frost. I stand at the edge of the porch, boots planted just so, listening for the breach in the noise that tells me where she is.

There—a crunch, featherlight, forty yards due east.

I hold still. Even my heart slows, a muscle of patience. The trick is not to chase, not at first. The trick is to listen for the story in the trees. Breaking into a run, I cut through the excess forest she travelled. It makes my path much shorter to reach her.

Through the first stand of birch, I catch a flicker of white—her shirt, torn at the shoulder, luminous against the ink of the woods.

She is running at a weird, three-legged pace, like a fox with a trap on one limb, but she’s smart: every so often, she cuts a Z pattern, doubles back, uses the trees for cover.

She doesn’t waste her voice on screaming anymore, and I love her for it.

She’s all single-minded focus on finding a way out.

I let her get another thirty meters ahead before I break from the trees, keeping low.

Every time I lose sight, I count to three, then catch her again, always on the right, always at an angle she’s not watching.

I can smell her now, even above the sap and snowmelt: the copper of blood, the sour edge of panic, and beneath it, the clean, electric scent of her sweat.

It is so fucking pure I want to bite my hand to keep from groaning.

There’s a trick to not spooking prey: you have to make yourself invisible, not by hiding, but by making your presence part of the architecture.

I time my steps to her own, let the crunches overlap, let the echoes blend.

When she stops, I freeze. When she sprints, I drop back and let her think she’s made progress.

It’s a seduction, a call and response of nerves and hunger.

I wait when she pauses, her chest heaving in, out, in, out.

One. Two. Three.

There—off to the left, a new trail, one she didn’t use before. She’s improvising. I grin, teeth bared.

“Good girl,” I murmur, just for me.

She’s headed for the riverbed. Not the fast way, but the clever way: the stones mask her footprints, the sound of the water covers her passage.

I cut left, cross the slope in a straight line, and get there before she does.

I crouch behind a rock, and watch as she stumbles down the embankment, slides on the loose gravel, and lands hard, hands and knees.

Her breathing is so loud now, I wonder if she can even hear her own thoughts.

She pauses, just for a second, to press her fingers to the fox charm. I want to reach out, grab her by the wrist, drag her in and bury my mouth in her neck. But I’d rather let the anticipation build. It’ll be so much sweeter when I claim my cunt, after she’s exhausted herself.

I let her go.

She limps up the opposite bank, using the low branches to pull herself upright. Her hair is matted, her face streaked with blood and dirt, but she’s not broken. Not even close.

I take a risk, move up the rise to flank her, and she must sense it—she whirls, eyes wild, scanning the trees. She can’t see me, not in this light, but she knows. I see the shiver run down her spine.

She tries to run, but she’s finally gassed out.

I follow, not fast, but relentless, always just behind, always just out of sight. The mask helps: it narrows the world to a tunnel, blocks out the bullshit, focuses everything on her. I barely feel my own body; it’s just a delivery system for want.

We zigzag through the pines, up the steepest ridge, then down into the hollow where the old ranger outfit is. She hides behind a stump, thinking she’s lost me, but I circle wide, come up on her blind side. I let her catch her breath, let her hope. It’s better that way.

Then I move, faster now, feet silent on the moss and snow. She looks up just in time to see me, just a shadow between two trees, and I swear she smiles.

That’s all I need.

I close the distance, fast and brutal, crashing through the brush with a roar that shakes the peace. She tries to scream, but there’s no point. I am on her before the sound can leave her throat.

I grab her from behind, arm around her chest, pinning her arms down. She thrashes, but it’s not real. It’s a dance, and we both know the steps.

I lean in, mouth at her ear.

“Told you I’d find you, little fox.”

She goes limp, just for a second, then slams her head back into my mask so hard my nose crunches.

The blow rings, but I love it. I haul her closer, spin her around, and let her see my face—her terror, her joy, her need, all mapped in the blue of her eyes.

They’re a constellation of every emotion, playing out in real time.

She spits at me, misses. I laugh, and it sounds like thunder through the resin and steel.

“Not bad,” I say, “but not good enough.”

I drag her to the ground, rolling her onto her back, my weight pressing her flat. She fights, kicks, claws, but the hunt is over and she knows it. The sweat on her skin is holy.

I cup her chin, force her to look at me. Her pulse hammers against my palm.

“Mine,” I say. “All mine.”

She doesn’t cry. She doesn’t beg. She just stares at me, daring me to do my worst. With slow movements, I drag her cut hand to my mouth and lick the blood, grunting before I suck it down my throat.

“You even taste holy.”

Her eyes darken and she bites at her lip.

I have never loved anything more.

And I am never, ever letting go.