Page 42 of Hunting Gianna
“Meh, I had them here the whole time, I just enjoy watching you bust out of your clothing. Didn’t figure it would be an issue.” His shoulders shrug as he helps me into the jacket. “Let’s go.”
We step outside, the air biting, but thankfully not raining. The path to the lodge is visible, just a thin, muddy track between thetrees. The last of the light catches on the wet leaves, turning the forest into something both dangerous and holy.
He offers his hand. I pretend not to notice, but when I trip over a root two steps later, he catches my elbow. His grip is steady, warm, unyielding.
We walk like that for a while, not speaking. I listen to the crunch of gravel under our feet, the wind in the pine needles, the echo of my own breathing.
After a few minutes, I risk a glance at him. He’s not looking at me, but there’s a small smile at the corner of his mouth. Not a predator’s grin, just something softer, almost sad.
I want to ask what he’s thinking, but I already know.
I want to ask if he regrets any of it, but I already know the answer to that, too.
We’re just two people walking through the woods, alone but not lonely, bound together by something I can’t name.
Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s just that we’re both too fucked up to know how to want anything else.
Either way, I keep walking. Either way, I stay.
The thing about walking through a forest with your kidnapper is that there’s no protocol for it. You’d think there’d be at least one guidebook, a pamphlet in a doctor’s waiting room, something with cartoons and a bulleted list of “Do’s and Don’ts.” There isn’t. There’s just the sucking noise of your shoes in the mud, the wet slap of a low branch against your cheek, and the man who alternates between being your tormentor and your only lifeline.
We keep to the main path at first, but then he veers off. No warning, no explanation, just a sharp turn left into the denser brush. I almost protest, but I catch the look on his face—mischief, maybe, or just intent—and follow without a word.
The woods are alive in the weird, muted way they get just after sundown. Knox moves through it like he was built for this: low, smooth, and unerringly quiet for a guy with a solid eighty or more pounds on me.
I try to keep up, but my foot catches on something and I stumble forward. He grabs my arm before I hit the ground. His fingers bite in, but he steadies me, then doesn’t let go, just keeps hold of my wrist like he’s afraid I’ll float off if he stops.
“Careful,” he says. “This is where the animals hunt. Don’t wanna bleed here. Mountain lions come out this way for mating season.”
“You mean… there’s animals that hunt here besides you?”
He grins, but doesn’t answer.
After five minutes of walking, we break through a tangle of pine into a small clearing. It takes me a second to realize where we are. The cold firepit, the circle of logs, the black scar in the dirt—it’s my old camp site. The place I started this entire disaster. Everything is gone except a few things I didn’t pack, but there is still the stone circle, still the faint depression where my tent used to be.
He stops in the center and turns to face me. The setting sun, what little there is, falls on the sharp planes of his face, making him look both younger and harder than he does in daylight.
He waits until I catch up, then just says, “This is where I saw you.”
I should say something witty, but my chest is tight. “Creepy. You must have been thrilled when I arrived on your doorstep.”
He shrugs, shoves his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels like he’s auditioning for a role as “troubled yet irresistible lumberjack.”
“I knew I’d keep you,” he says. Not a joke. Just flat, like saying he knew the sun would rise or the river would flood if it rained enough. “I saw you and thought, that one’s mine.”
I want to roll my eyes, but the words land. Not soft, either. They thud somewhere low in my gut, vibrating like a struck bell.
I look around, trying to distract myself. “So what, you just stalked me for a while? Made sure I couldn’t get away?”
He smiles, a quick flash of teeth. “I wanted to see what you’d do. If you’d fold. If you’d run. If you’d break.”
He takes a step closer. The moon shadows his eyes, makes them unreadable. “You didn’t break.”
I cross my arms, defiant. “Not yet, but maybe tomorrow is the day I do.”
He tips his head, like he’s considering whether he likes that answer or not. “You won’t.”
I want to ask how he knows, but instead I blurt, “What’s your story, anyway? You got a degree in Creeping, or is this just a family tradition?”
