Page 10 of Wicked Little Darling

I followed the path deeper into the woods, and stopped at a fork. To the left, there was a rusty old sign warning me to not go beyond that point. The path to the right looked like it went toward my dorm.

I turned left and ducked under the chain holding the sign up.

It smelled like rain, like dead leaves and plants and dirt and bark, and I loved it.

When I glanced to the left, a stone wall just beyond the trees caught my eye. I could make out a few headstones beyond it.

I moved off the path and headed toward the cemetery. The stone wall was maybe five feet high and crumbling in a lot of places. There was wire all along the top, which was weird. Ivy clung to faded stone and weaved in and out of the wire.

Was that to control the ivy? Help it grow? But wasn’t ivy invasive?

Beyond the wall was an old cemetery; the headstones were tilted, chipped, or broken completely, and there were a few tall oaks scattered throughout the open space.

I looked to the right, and about twenty feet down, part of the wall looked like it had broken off, and the wire disappeared.

I could climb over that.

I stepped through overgrown grass and weeds, dodging thorn bushes that tried to snag my pants.

When I got to the break, I braced both hands on the top of the wall and jumped up until my stomach was pressed against the stone. I peered over the other side, where a tangle of ivy and thorns adorned the stones. I swung my leg up and over until I was straddling the wall, then brought the other leg up.

When I jumped down, my foot snagged on something, pitching me off balance and tripping me up fast. I hit the groundhard, and the explosion of pain that followed was enough to leave me gasping.

“Fuck,” I groaned, pushing against the dead leaves and dirt. Something tugged on my right calf, and I tried to pull my leg forward, but it wouldn’t move. “What the hell?”

When I looked back, I saw the wire was tangled around my calf.

What the fuck? Damn it, I thought it ended further down but it had just fallen off on this side.

I pulled my leg back, but the wire cinched tighter.

Great.

And then, as if getting caught in this shit wasn’t enough, thunder boomed above, followed by an intense downpour.

Lucky me.

I was soaked in under a minute, and when lightning streaked across the sky, I sat up and started tugging at the wire.

I was gonna die out here in the cemetery, and oh, the fucking irony.

My foot started to tingle, and the heavy rain made it hard to see the wire properly. My ribs were screaming in pain?—

“Want some help?”

Shock sparked through my system, and I whipped my head to the right. When my eyes landed on the tall figure standing about five feet away, a slow cascade of uncomfortable prickles rolled down my spine.

How long had he been there? And in this weather?

Dark, stormy eyes stared into mine, but underneath the reflection of the gloomy sky there was a stolid blankness that unnerved me. An emptiness that seemed content to be just that.

His dark hair was tucked behind his ears, a damp lock of it clinging to his brow. He had sharp, high cheekbones that were almost too severe and only accentuated the narrow shape of his eyes and the perfect straightness of his long, slender nose.

It was an almost wolfish face, and the freckles dotting his skin only lessened that likeness the tiniest fraction.

But it was the enormous scar cutting a thick, jagged diagonal line from his right temple to the left side of his jaw that commanded all my attention and left me with a hollow sensation in the pit of my stomach.

A thickness hung in the air between us that had nothing to do with the storm.