Page 5 of Mate Night Snack (Hollow Oak Mates #2)
KATNISS
K atniss waited until the inn was quiet.
No footsteps. No creaky floorboards overhead. No Miriam humming through the walls or clinking dishes in the kitchen below. Just the low whirr of cicadas beyond the open window and the whisper of night air curling through the lace curtains.
She tied her boots slow, quiet. Slid her recorder into her satchel. No mic tonight. No notebooks.
Just instincts.
Her jacket was still damp from this afternoon’s run-in with Emmett Hollowell, and part of her wondered if she was actually losing it, creeping out after sundown with a man like that stomping through her thoughts. But something had been tugging at her gut ever since she left the clearing.
A pull. Like a thread wound around her ribs, drawing her back.
It wasn’t logic.
It was need .
She slipped out the back door and cut through the inn’s garden, the moonlight soft and silver on her skin.
Hollow Oak looked different at night. Less quaint, more alive.
Fireflies winked along the trail edges. Trees leaned closer, as if listening.
Every breath of wind felt like it had a destination.
She followed a narrow footpath past Moonmirror Lake, where the water reflected not the stars above but other things like glimmering lights that blinked in odd rhythm. She paused, watching the surface ripple once, twice, then still again like it had been startled into motion.
“You’re seeing things,” she muttered, and kept walking.
The trail thinned into underbrush, the roots thickening beneath her boots. A flicker of movement caught her eye near the base of a gnarled juniper, something metallic buried in the moss.
She knelt.
A rusted chain curled around itself like it had been there a long time. At the end of it, a locket. Oval. Dingy bronze, worn smooth in places like someone used to rub it for comfort. She brushed the dirt away with her fingers.
There was a symbol etched into the front.
Rough. Jagged. A triangle circled in flame-like lines. It wasn’t any language she recognized.
Her thumb ghosted over it and the world began to spin. Hard. Like the ground dropped out from under her.
She gasped and dropped the locket, but it was too late. Her eyes flooded with light. No— images . Flash after flash, bleeding through her vision like heatwaves on asphalt.
A girl in a red jacket running between trees. A voice calling her name. The taste of blood. A clawed hand reaching. A howl cut short.
Katniss stumbled back, breath hitched, throat dry. The trees blurred. The moss shimmered gold. Her legs gave out. And the forest swallowed her whole as darkness overtook her and screams fading into the background.
She came to with her face pressed into damp moss and her limbs twisted under her like a poorly assembled mannequin. Everything hurt. Even her eyelashes.
Someone said her name. Low. Rough. Familiar.
“Katniss.”
She cracked one eye open.
Emmett was crouched beside her, one knee in the dirt, his flannel sleeves rolled up again, that deep scowl back in place. Moonlight turned the edges of his dark hair silver, and his eyes—stormy, sharp—moved over her like he was checking for damage.
She groaned. “You really need to stop finding me.”
“You really need to stop wandering into places you don’t understand.”
“I wasn’t—” She winced, trying to sit up. His hand caught her elbow before she could fall sideways again.
“Easy.” His palm was warm. Steady. “You blacked out.”
“I found… something.” She looked around. The locket was gone. Or hidden. Or maybe she’d imagined the whole thing. “There was a—symbol. On a locket. And then…”
Her throat tightened. She didn’t want to say it.
“You saw something.”
It wasn’t a question.
She stared at him. “How do you know that?”
His jaw tensed. “Because this isn’t the first time this place has done that.”
“Done what? Make people collapse?”
“Make them see .”
Katniss shivered. Not from cold. From the way his voice dropped on that word. Like it meant something more. Something dangerous.
“You think I’m hallucinating?”
“I think you need to stop poking things that don’t belong to you.”
“Helpful.” She tried to shake his hand off. He didn’t let go.
“I found you unconscious, pale as snow, with your pulse thready and your eyes fluttering like you were caught between worlds.” His voice was low and edged. “You think that’s nothing?”
Katniss snapped, “I think I’d like my arm back.”
He released her. Slowly. She didn’t miss the way his fingers lingered half a beat too long.
Katniss pushed herself upright and leaned back against a tree. Her head throbbed like she’d been drop-kicked by a mule. Her hands still trembled.
“You said this place shows people things,” she said. “What does that mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
“Visions?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked off toward the trees like the branches might come down and end the conversation for him.
She pressed her palms to her eyes. “It was a girl. Red coat. She was running.”
Silence.
When she peeked, Emmett’s face was unreadable.
“Mabel,” she said quietly. “Was she wearing a red coat when she disappeared?”
His expression didn’t change, but the shift in his body was immediate. Shoulders locked. Hands fisted. Like a switch flipped deep inside him.
“I don’t know what you think you’re chasing,” he said, “but you need to stop.”
Katniss stared at him. “I’m not making this up.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“Then why are you looking at me like I’m the problem?”
“Because you are. ”
Her breath caught. She blinked. “Wow. That’s blunt. Even for you.”
“You walk into sacred ground like it’s your playground. You poke at wounds that haven’t scabbed over. You don’t ask, you take . That gets people hurt.”
“I didn’t take anything.”
He pointed toward the tree behind her. “That’s the edge.”
“The edge of what?”
He didn’t answer.
“You all keep talking like these woods have rules I can’t see.”
“They do.”
“Then tell me what they are.”
“I can’t .”
She stood, swaying a little but upright.
“You won’t ,” she corrected.
Their eyes met, and for a second, the tension snapped into something else. Something hotter. Closer. His gaze dropped to her mouth. Hers lingered on the scar under his jaw, the one that disappeared into the collar of his shirt.
Katniss took a slow step forward.
“You’re not just trying to scare me off,” she said, voice barely above a whisper.
“No?”
“You’re trying to protect something.”
He didn’t move.
She reached out and touched the front of his shirt, just above where his heart beat slow and strong beneath the fabric.
“Maybe someone.”
He caught her wrist, not hard, but firm.
“This town doesn’t play fair,” he said.
“I never liked fair.”
They stood like that for a breath too long. Close enough to trade heat. Closer still to something unspoken. And then everything shifted.
Katniss jerked like she’d been yanked backward by a hook lodged behind her eyes. Her body stiffened. Her knees buckled. Emmett reached for her, but she was already falling.
The clearing, the trees, the night, they all blinked out.
She was standing somewhere else.
The inn. But broken.
Glass glittered across the floor like ice. The walls were scorched. Emmett lay crumpled in the hallway, blood smeared across his chest, eyes shut.
No.
The air crackled. A shadow moved at the edge of her vision. A low growl that wasn’t quite human rippled through the dark.
“Katniss,” someone said, distant and muffled.
No, no, no ? —
“Katniss.”
Her name again, louder.
The vision cracked apart.
She gasped and came to in the dirt, Emmett’s arms around her, one hand steadying her head, the other gripping her shoulder like he was anchoring her to the present.
Her lips trembled. “It happened again.”
He didn’t ask what. Didn’t scold. Just lifted her in one smooth motion like she weighed nothing, like carrying startled, half-conscious women through the woods was something he’d done a thousand times.
She tried to sit up. “I can walk?—”
“You’re not walking,” he said, voice rougher than before.
Her cheek pressed against his chest, and she let herself listen to the steady thump of his heart trying to process what was happening to her.
They moved through the woods, Emmett silent, purposeful. The air around them rippled once, like they passed through something she couldn’t see, and then the town’s lights broke through the branches.
She spotted the inn, its porch light casting a soft glow across the steps.
“I saw…” she whispered, but the words broke apart.
“Don’t say it yet,” Emmett muttered. “Wait ‘til we get to Miriam.”
Katniss didn’t argue.
She just closed her eyes and let him carry her.