Page 12 of The Stalker (Ashburne Chronicles #2)
This Is It
B ianka
The night swallows me whole.
Cold air knifes into my lungs as I sprint through the yard and into the tree line, branches clawing at my arms, snagging my sweater until the fabric tears even more than it already has.
My bare feet slap against cold earth, every step exploding pain through my twisted ankle, but I don’t stop. I can’t.
Behind me, I hear him. Heavy, deliberate steps. He isn’t rushing because he doesn’t need to. Because he knows.
He knows I’ll tire out long before he does. He knows the woods better, knows every path, and every root waiting to trip me. He knows I can’t escape.
And he knows I don’t really want to.
The thought slices through me sharper than the branches. My chest heaves, my heart pounding so hard I think it’ll burst, and still, still, my lips burn from where his nearly touched mine.
God, what’s wrong with me?
The woods feel alive tonight as I run as fast as my sore muscles will carry me. The leaves around me whisper like voices, the wind carrying strange, broken laughter. My breath fogs white in the cold night air, and each exhale feels like it’s snatched away, stolen by something unseen.
Every step deeper feels wrong. Too cold. Too quiet. This isn’t just Griffin anymore.
I felt it when his voice split, when that other sound slithered out between his words. The ghost stories weren’t stories. Something else is inside him.
Something dark. Thomas.
The name pulses through my mind, though I don’t know how I know it. Like the woods themselves whispered it to me. And the truth is worse than the fear.
Because part of me wonders if Thomas is the only reason Griffin is finally touching me, finally claiming me after all these years. If without him, Griffin would’ve stayed in the shadows forever, just watching.
And I don’t know which version of him terrifies me more. But I do know the thought of never having him look at me like I matter scares the crap out of me.
A twig snaps behind me and I spin, my chest heaving and eyes wide. But there is nothing there. Only darkness and the faint ripple of a shadow between the trees.
“Bianka...”
His voice drifts through the night, low, and stretched thin. My body seizes, my knees trembling so hard I almost collapse. Again, it isn’t just his voice I hear. It’s layered, doubled. Griffin and something deeper, hungrier, weaving together until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
“You can’t run forever,” he murmurs. “But I want you to try. I want you to fight. Make me earn it.”
My stomach knots, heat sparking in places I can’t ignore. I shove it down and force my body to move, crashing through brush, with my heart hammering in my throat.
The forest seems endless, twisting and looping, as if the trees themselves are conspiring against me. I stumble and fall to my knees in a heap of leaves, my palms scraping raw.
“Please,” I whisper into the dirt. “Please, just let me go...”
But even as I say it, my thighs clench, shame flooding me. Because I don’t mean it. Not completely. Not at all.
His footsteps draw closer. Slow and steady. Like a predator savoring the chase.
I claw my way up from the forest floor, pushing forward, deeper into the dark, even though every instinct tells me I’m only running into his trap. Because that’s the truth. There is no escape.
Only him.