Page 14 of Our Darkest Summer

I froze. It was subtle. A soft rustling, a shift in the air. But it was there. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I fought the urge to look over my shoulder.

If there was one thing I learned from my crime psychology classes, it was to never show fear. Creeps were like animals, they enjoyed the hunt. If you let them know you were scared, they thrived on it even more. So instead of running, I quickened my steps. It was way less noticeable, especially in the dark. I kept my pace steady, even though every instinct screamed at me to run. The path was still beneath my feet. The Rhodes house had to be close.

Another branch snapped. This time, from my right. I swallowed, my heart hammering, my mind racing through every possible explanation. A deer. A raccoon. The wind.

Something else.

My legs wouldn’t move. I gripped my phone, ready to attack anyone or anything with it, when?—

A hand clamped over my mouth. A scream erupted in my throat, but it was muffled by warm fingers pressing firmly against my lips. My nails dug into the arm that held me. I should have ran when I still had the chance. If I survive this I’ll have a serious talk with the professor. I tried to kick whoever held me, but the arm around my waist was firm, holding me so the only thing I hit was air as I was pulled behind a tree.

DNA.Get their DNA under your fingernails.“Shh.” He breathed into my ear, but I wasn’t drunk enough to listen. “It’s all right.” He was out of breath. If I could tire him somehow even more— “Sage, it’s just me. You’re all right.” I went still.Thomas.The cold stranglehold of fear loosened around my chest. “I will let you go, but you need to stay quiet. Can you do that?” I nodded, my whole body easing with relief.

Thomas’ hand slipped away from my mouth, and I twisted around, resting my back against the mossed trunk of the tree. Anger rushed through me. “Why?” I hissed, wiping my damp palms into my dress. “Why were you following me?”

He gave me a rigid look to stay quiet. There was no sympathy in his eyes for scaring me. None at all. But I didn’t see the haze from the alcohol in them either. Maybe he wasn’t lying after all.

“I told you the forest wasn’t safe,” he growled, and I clenched my jaw.

“After months you decide to suddenly talk to me and you expect me to listen?”

His eyes flickered, and a muscle in his jaw ticked.

“Why were you following me?” I demanded again.

His gaze flicked to the darkness beyond us. I didn’t miss the way his shoulders tensed, or the way his eyes scanned the shadows.

“I wasn’t followingyou,” he finally said.

I swallowed, as a deep, uneasy weight settled in my stomach.

“Then who were you following?”

Thomas hesitated, then shook his head. “Connor told me you headed back to the house, and he checked your location… I told you the forest wasn’t safe.”

“No. You told me some grounds weren’t safe to build on.” I corrected him, revealing that I was in fact listening. “Not the forest being dangerous.” My eyes narrowed. “Who did you follow?”

He shook his head, but his gaze darted around us again.

“It was just some drunk dude?—”

But the way his eyes scanned the shadows between the trees I had a feeling there was something he didn’t say. I wasn’t sure that the sound of the broken branch came from the direction Thomas did. I heard it from my right, and Thomas, he was behind me. And why would he follow a drunk boy anyway?

An owl hooted above our heads and I jolted. I shouldn’t have left the party alone. How could I be so stupid?

“Come on. The house is half a mile from here, if we follow the path you were on.” Thomas’ words filled my chest with relief.

“And Connor?” I asked, after a moment.

“He has a ride.”

My brows arched in surprise, but I said nothing. Thomas did leave his car at the party after all, but he never let anyone else drive it. And even if he did, Connor was drunk. Or was he catching a ride from someone else?

We spent the ten minute walk to the house in silence. I could already see the moonlight shine through the canopy of the trees when Thomas broke it.

“Are you hungry?” he asked from where he walked behind me, and I shook my head in answer.

There was no way I could keep anything down after tonight.