Page 5 of Run, Little Doe

And she turns in my direction, like she’s answering a call she doesn’t understand.

I should stay hidden; it’s not time yet. But something in me shifts—possessive, restless, and hungry.

I take one step forward. Then another. The smoke parts just enough for the light to catch my mask, a brief gleam of bone and shadow. Her eyes find mine through the crowd. Even across the distance, the air between us crackles. Her eyes go wide, uncertain. I can almost hear her heartbeat beneath the drums.

Run, Little Doe.

The thought slides through me like a caress. But she doesn’t move. She only stares—like she’s trying to see the man beneath the monster.

And for one dangerous, fleeting moment… I let her.

****

Sirena

The bonfire crackles and flares as they add the last of the dry wood, and he’s there.

It’s not a trick of smoke or shadow this time—he’s real. Watching me from just beyond the blaze, as still as a shadow that learned how to breathe. The wolf mask catches the light, its bone-white edges sharp against the black fabric clinging to his body.

My pulse stumbles. My breath hitches. My body trembles. Heat floods between my legs. Is that fear, arousal, or something else coursing through me?

He shouldn’t be able to look at me like that. Not through a mask, not from that far away. But somehow, Ifeelit—his gaze on my throat, on the line of my shoulders, on the space between my ribs where my heart beats too fast.

Someone on the dance floor bumps into me, breaking the spell. I turn to apologize, and when I glance back—he’s gone again.

Only the crowd remains, faceless and laughing, and the smoke curling thick around the dying bonfire.

But I can’t shake the feeling that he’s still close.

Watching.

Waiting.

And for the first time, I don’t know whether I want to run from him… or toward him.

I attempt to ignore the feeling, continue dancing as we lose ourselves to the pulsing beat. The night is coming to a close, and I’m unsure if I’m ready for what is to come.

Sirena

The crowd folds and shifts like the bonfire smoke. The winners of the costume contest are announced, and people begin to drift away, children heading home with their parents to go to bed, laughter thinning as lanterns flicker out one by one. The Festival of Masks is over for another year. As I step toward the edge of the field and the forest’s edge to light myself a joint and calm my nerves, I begin to feel a bit more at ease.

Bass still thrums in the distance, low and steady, every beat a pulse beneath my skin. Somewhere between the firelight and the shadows, I feel him again—not a sight, not a sound, but a presence. A heat that coils low in my stomach, spreading outward until I can barely breathe.

The air feels charged. My body hums with it.

I turn, scanning the crowd—masks of demons and angels, feathers and horns blurring into one restless, breathing mass. He’s nowhere, yet everywhere all at once. The bonfire’s heat licks across my bare arms as the final logs turn to charcoal, but a chill runs deeper, electric, and alive beneath my skin.

When I glance back, Carly’s gone—disappeared with the man she met by the cider barrels—and suddenly, I’m completely alone at the edge of the clearing where the crowd had been only just feet away for the costume contest. The fire pops across the field, a final burst of orange and gold that lights the woodsbeyond. I take a deep inhale of my joint, focusing on the burn in my lungs instead of the tricks my mind is playing on me.

That’s when I see him.

Just beyond the tree line—still, silent—the wolf mask glints faintly under the moonlight. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch when sparks dance between us. It’s as if he’s waiting.

Instinct takes over. I drop my joint and raise my camera. The shutter clicks once, twice—too loud in the quiet. When I lower it, he’s gone. But I can still feel him. That strange prickle beneath my skin, that pulse in my throat that doesn’t belong to fear.

I tell myself to turn back, to find Carly, to melt into the crowd and head back towards the town—but when I turn and look, the crowd is already gone. The field has quickly emptied, families returning home to put their children to bed, and only those cleaning up remain. The music is fading into a ghost of sound, staff turning the volume down while they busy themselves, discarding the remnants of another Briar Hollow festival. The night feels suspended, holding its breath.

At that moment, something in me breaks. I’m unsure what is pulling me as I step toward the woods.