Page 15 of Mate Night Snack (Hollow Oak Mates #2)

KATNISS

I t started with the hum.

Low, bone-deep. Like the ground beneath her ribs had turned to tuning forks.

In the dream, Hollow Oak looked different. The streets gleamed like wet obsidian, though the sky above was dry. The lanterns flickered, casting long shadows that didn’t belong to anything solid. The town square was silent.

No footsteps. No wind. No life. Just the slow, rhythmic hum pulsing up through the stone. Then, she saw him. Standing at the center of the square. Ashwin.

Not running. Not hiding.

Waiting.

She wasn’t sure how she knew it was him, but she knew. This was the shifter Emmett had told her about.

He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a memory stretched too thin, too dark. Jet-black hair slicked back like glass, pale skin that didn’t glow but swallowed light. His eyes were what stopped her. Yellow and hollow at the edges, like something old had taken up residence behind them.

He turned toward her like he’d felt her watching. He didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Just whispered,“Katniss.”

The sound wrapped around her name like smoke. It didn’t echo. It sank into her.

Her knees locked. She couldn’t move.

He took a step forward. And then another. And her feet still wouldn’t work.

The wind started up again, but it wasn’t natural. It howled across the square like a scream trapped in a bottle.

Ashwin tilted his head. “You see too much,” he whispered. “And still… not enough.”

His mouth didn’t move the way voices usually shaped words.

Then the lanterns blew out one by one.

And he was gone.

Katniss woke up gasping, her fingers twisted in her blanket, heart pounding so fast she thought it might rattle right out of her chest.

She sat up and rubbed her face hard with both hands, trying to clear the dream like it was just static. A leftover image from the journal entries or Emmett’s voice or the attic air that still clung to her skin.,But the air in the room had changed.

The inn usually smelled like lavender, old books, and baked sugar. But now the air tasted scorched. Like iron and smoke.

That was when she saw her charm.

Twyla’s protective bundle of wolf fur, silver thistle, and red thread lay on the nightstand where she always kept it. But the wax paper was curled in on itself. The fur had blackened at the tips. And the thistle was singed through the center.

She picked it up carefully, holding it between her fingers like it might break.

The thread crumbled at the knot.

“No,” she breathed. She looked at her door. Then the window. Half-expecting to see someone standing there.

Nothing.

Just the wind brushing against the glass. Just the moon casting stripes across the floor.

She sat back down on the edge of the bed, charm clutched tight in her hand.

It had happened in the journals. The girls Twyla had tried to protect. Mabel. Eliza. They’d worn charms like this. Thought they’d be okay. And then they vanished.

She didn’t want to be the next girl added to a town's unsolved history.

Not a footnote. Not another whisper.

And yet…

Her hands were still shaking. Not from fear. From knowing.

This wasn’t just a dream. Not just a flicker of worry. It was a vision. Clearer than any she’d had before. Sharper than even the one with Emmett bleeding in the woods.

Ashwin had seen her. And worse? He’d spoken her name.

She didn’t sleep after that.

She stayed up and traced every word she could remember from the dream into her notebook.

She drew the way his eyes had looked. The shape of his stance.

The corners of the square where the lanterns had gone dark.

She circled the phrase “You see too much” over and over until the pen tore through the paper.

Her brain spun.

Why her?

Why now ?

It wasn’t just the missing girls anymore. It wasn’t even just the Veil. There was a pattern forming, and her name was part of it whether she wanted it or not.

The charm hadn’t failed because it was weak. It had failed because whatever reached her knew how to find her anyway.

Katniss stood and paced the length of the room, heart pounding in her ears.

She thought about going to Emmett. But what would she even say?

Hey, so I had a dream where your psychotic former pack leader whispered my name like a curse and then made the world flicker out around me. Yeah, fun stuff. Also, your protective fur charm got fried like kindling.

He already looked at her as if she was breakable. If she told him this, he’d cage her. Out of love, maybe, but a cage still locked. And she couldn’t afford to be locked away. Not now.

She needed more.

More answers. More clues. More leverage. Because whatever this town had buried, it was crawling back to the surface. And Katniss Greaves wasn’t going to end up another body in the woods. She was going to drag the truth into the daylight if it burned her fingers doing it.

That morning, she tucked the scorched charm into her bag, nestled between her notebook and her recorder.

She didn’t tell Twyla.

Didn’t tell Miriam.

Didn’t tell Emmett.

Not yet.

She needed to understand what this meant before she said it out loud because once it was spoken, it was real.

And once it was real… she’d never be able to look away again.