Page 8 of Hunting Brooklyn (Stalkers in the Woods #5)

Does my mysterious watcher like me as I am? The thought presses in, tangles in my brain, makes me doubt everything until finally, finally, I shake my head. There’s no way someone wants me the size I am.

With a sigh, I grab my belly and shake it, watching as it jiggles embarrassingly. Nope.

I run my thumb over the paper, feeling the indentations from the pen.

Whoever wrote this pressed hard, as if trying to tattoo the words into the world itself.

I set the note down, then pick it up again, unable to leave it alone.

I keep reading the phrase “little fox,” hearing it spoken in a voice that I imagine is deep and careless, with an accent I can’t quite place.

I catch myself in the act. I want to be disgusted, but instead I feel alive, more than I have since I can even remember. I am still terrified, but the fear is lighting up the inside of my skull, making every sense sharper.

Despite myself, I smile. This is how every single one of the best dark romances start, and I love those books right?

I look at the flower again. How did my watcher know?

Finally, my mind stills and I reach a decision. I won’t throw the note away. I won’t call the police. I won’t even tell anyone. Instead, I fold the paper carefully, tucking it into the back of my journal, and place the carnation in the same jam jar as the old. I do this gently, almost reverently.

Then I sit on the edge of my bed, stare at the door, and wait to feel normal again.

I don’t. I don’t think I ever will.

The early dawn streams into my room, obnoxious in how bright it is.

Today, I go on a hike. To clear my head.

Supposedly it’s a good idea, according to the interweb, to go and do something you enjoy when experiencing intense grief.

Once again, I pull myself to my feet. I peel off my sweat-soaked T-shirt, stand in the middle of my room, and force myself not to look at my journal, not to look at the words that have grafted themselves to my brain.

Instead, I go to the bathroom and turn the shower on full.

I make the water so hot it feels like it should burn, but my skin just goes numb, the heat erasing all other sensation.

Scrubbing at my hair, my arms, my neck, as if I can wash off the gaze that found me in my own bed.

Trying not to stare down as I wash the rest of myself, I think of the note: you’re mine, little fox .

The words stick in my head like the chorus of a bad pop song, catchy and stupid and impossible to get rid of.

Afterwards, I stand in front of the mirror, towel wrapped around my chest and flaring out at my stomach, and take inventory.

Eyes: red-rimmed and puffy, but defiant.

Face: pale, jaw set. Shoulders: squared, heavier than I want to admit.

I look like someone who is about to do something reckless and pretend it’s just a routine.

I go to my closet. Today is not a day for pretty or even for presentable.

Today is a day for armor. I pull on thick hiking pants, a spaghetti strap, but the heavy duty kind that sucks in your stomach and holds your tits down, and a flannel overshirt my father bought me years ago, the kind meant for early mornings and late autumn.

I stuff my feet into socks, and lace up my boots with hands that refuse to tremble.

My automated coffee machine has buzzed and I pour a cup, but don’t drink it.

I eat a protein bar in three bites, more from habit than hunger.

My backpack waits by the door, as always, packed and ready, a legacy of a life spent anticipating disaster.

I open it up, double-check the contents: two liters of water, three more protein bars, a basic first aid kit, a notebook, a pencil, and—new, this time—a small, folding knife I bought on impulse the day after my father died.

It’s never been used, not even to open a stubborn envelope, but it feels solid in my hand.

I still have so much left to do… pushing the thought away, a sigh escapes me. I need this. I need to just go and get out of my head.

Finally zipping it up, I sling the bag over my shoulder.

The weight is comforting. I check my phone, see that it’s just past seven, and realize I’ll have the whole day to myself.

One of the only days this entire year I’ve had off from responsibilities.

On the news, they’re talking about a cold front rolling in from the east, but it looks like nothing out the window except for a streak of pink and gold on the horizon.

Outside, the city is so empty it feels like the aftermath of an evacuation.

The streets are washed with last night’s rain, the air clean and sharp.

I take the elevator down, watching my reflection in the mirrored doors, marveling at how ordinary I look.

No one would ever know I’m the daughter of a dead tycoon. No one ever does.

The looks I used to get at my father’s charity events, the once-overs. The tuts of disgust. Oh… yeah… I remember them all.

And now, I’m richer than all of them combined. A giggle pushes past my lips and I try to stifle it before it turns into a roar. Death. The only time you lose and gain something at the same time.

The park at the edge of the city is where I go when I can’t take the walls anymore.

The hiking trail runs through a strip of old growth, all tangled roots and red-brown dirt, and by the time I hit the first switchback I am sweating, pulse pounding, not from fear but from the stubborn, animal need to keep moving.

I take every incline at double pace, boots biting into mud, hands tight around the straps of my pack.

The forest is a different kind of dark. Here, the shadows are honest, the silence uncalculated.

I breathe it in, let it fill the space where panic might have been.

If the watcher is out here, I don’t see him.

Or maybe I do, in the flicker of a bird in the brush, or the snap of a twig where there shouldn’t be one.

Either way, I am not the girl who hides under the covers anymore.

I walk until the city is a rumor, until the only sound is my own breath and the hush of the wind in the trees. When I stop, it’s because I want to, not because I am forced to. I find a rock, sit, and drink half my water without thinking. My hands are steady now. My heart is slow.

The words on the note replay in my mind, on repeat.

Someone wants me . I’m not sure what I expect to feel—anger, disgust, or maybe some new flavor of fear—but what I feel is something else.

I feel… alive. Not happy, not safe, but alive in the way you are when you know that nothing is promised and everything can be taken.

There is a freedom in that. A kind of power.

Don’t get me wrong… I’ve had boyfriends. I’ve also had my fair share of fuck buddies, but they’re all men who fetishized my size. They didn’t love or care about me outside of trying to make me do depraved acts because my size was what was attractive to them.

Sure, this watcher might be one of them, but I don’t know… it feels… different.

I can’t explain why.

When I get home later, the watcher might be waiting.

He might already be inside, leaving new flowers, new notes, new reasons to never sleep again.

But for now, I am out here, in the open, and I am not running away.

I am moving forward, one foot after the other, through a world that has already proven it can break me and still, somehow, I remain.

I am not a little fox. I am something else, something wilder.

Something ancient and divine.

And perhaps all it took to find myself, was losing the one person I’d loved since I could remember because without my father making me strong, I had to sink or swim.