The white-blue beam of a flashlight streams onto my face, forcing me to shade my eyes. I slowly ease out of my crouch, into a standing position.
"You found her," he says.
I can't place the man's voice, but he sounds unnaturally euphoric. Is he high? I haven't run into enough drug users to know.
"Who is she?" I ask, fighting the surreal feeling I could be conversing with some benign stranger on the street. This man is not my friend. He has killed this woman.
Yet his jovial tone holds. "You know who she is. She's your stalker."
Mariah? Surely not.
"You want to see what happened to her?" He sounds like he wants to demonstrate a new gadget for me.
I shake my head, but he ignores me, striding my way. I shrink against the wall, my heel still pounding. If he walks past me, I might be able to dart out the door, which he's left open.
Thunder rolls in again, shaking the flimsy walls. This must be the longest storm in the history of storms. It swirls away, then back again. In this particular moment, I hate it.
I try to see the man's eye color as he passes by. Is he Henry? Quincy? Or even Renard? Surely I'll recognize his eyes. But they're cloaked in shadow since his flashlight is angled toward the ground. He stops short just in front of me. If I try to run, he could grab me before I'd get anywhere.
When he shifts the beam onto the body, I can see that Mariah has curled into a ball, as if shielding herself from blows. Did he beat her to death? Her long brown hair has spilled onto the dirty floorboards, disheveled and matted with dark blood. I don't want to think about what might have happened to her.
"She was a feisty one," he says, almost dreamily. "Once I realized she was determined to warn you, I had to catch her." He chuckles. "She didn't get far."
He keeps his back to me, observing his macabre handiwork. He's wearing black jeans and white leather sneakers. The last time I saw Quincy, he was wearing khakis and loafers. There's no way he would've brought along a change of clothes. I strike him off my possibility list.
I try to guess at his height. He seems to be shorter than Henry, but the floor dips beneath him, so he's not on even footing with me.
I have to know who I'm dealing with. "Renard?" I ask, my voice cracking.
He turns his head toward me and cocks it. "You think so?"
With a click, he turns off the flashlight, plunging us into darkness.
I take my chance, because I'm sure I won't get another one. With my eyes struggling to adjust, I run toward the door. He makes a quick grab for my sleeve, but I'm ready for him, using my knife to stab into his hand as hard as I can. With a hurt yelp, he releases his grip, allowing me to hurtle toward the moonlit doorframe. I regret losing my only weapon, but I'll have to flounder along without it.
Once I've burst out the door, he trains his flashlight on me. I tear away from the path, plunging deeper into the woods. Hopefully, I can gain enough ground that I can duck behind trees or underbrush and wait him out.
My hair is sopping from all the rain, so I pull up my hoodie. It offers little defense against the continuing downpour.
He shouts out, "You can't get far, Alex. Listen to your Highly Invested Reader."
The truth finally comes out. This man—not Mariah—is my real stalker, the one who tracked me down in Greenwich.
I don't let myself turn to see if his light has found me. Instead, I stumble forward, willy-nilly, over the forest floor.
The wet leaves give way beneath my sock feet, but I can't slow down, even as another crack of lightning splits the dark sky. I clench my jaw and push my body to move faster, despite the jagged pain ripping through my lacerated heel.
The rain-sopped woods press in around me, but I refuse to give up. I will not accept the fate that's coming for me. I might not be a fighter, but I'm a survivor, and that's exactly what I plan to do.
The story I've been pulled into won't have a happy ending, but I'm determined to write it my way...or to die trying.
TWENTY-THREE
Itry to envision scenes from my Alaskan show, since I've been plunged into a survival scenario. What move should I make next? Find a weapon? Drop to the forest floor and hide? Make an about-face and run toward the cabin?
Do the unexpected, a voice says in my head. It sounds like Natasha Summers herself.
Counterintuitive to my every instinct, I slow down. Without making an effort, I'm suddenly able to get my bearings. There's a low rise to my left, where the flooded creek rushes past. Just beyond the creek, I hear the ponderous surge of water coming from a higher level.
It has to be the waterfall.
A light plays on the trees behind me, and I know he's getting close. It would be insane to head toward the waterfall in a lightning storm, but I'm about to pull my insanity out and sit with it for a minute.
I take off, heading toward the top of the waterfall. He'd never think to look for me where I'd be most likely to get hit by lightning. Running in the near-dark is incredibly risky, but enough moonlight glints off the top of the water to light my way.
Yet he gives a grunt just a short distance behind me. "Why'd you have to stab me, Alex? I only want what's best for you. I always have." He pants. "I didn't really care whether you chose Matteo or Archer for Natasha, by the way. That was just a red herring."
A red herring to what?
I push myself to keep moving, but a heavy lethargy has started seeping into my bones. Hell itself seems to be dragging me down, and I'm only halfway up the hill to the waterfall.
As if guided by some savage instinct, my stalker starts to gain ground behind me. His flashlight beam has now locked in on me, showing I'm next to the rock ledge Henry pointed out days ago. Surely this can't be that same Henry, running me to my death.
I don't have a chance, but I have to try to live. "I'm going to survive," I say out loud, veering onto the flat ledge.
The man jogs up behind me, and I make the mistake of turning around.
