I shot back with a gasp, holding onto my scream with everything I had in me. Staring back at me was a man I’d never seen before, his face bleached of any color, eyes open wide, unblinking. A bullet hole sat squarely in the center of his forehead.
My stomach heaved, but there was nothing for my belly to empty. I hadn’t eaten since the day before. What time was it now? How long had I been gone? Was anyone looking for me?
My heart cried out for Walker with a ferocity that had me gasping. He was the only thing I wanted in that moment.
Footsteps echoed off the hard stone of the cave, and I skittered back against the wall. My eyes darted around frantically, searching for some path of escape, somewhere to hide. There was nothing. My chest constricted in a vise-like grip. I couldn’t seem to get air into my lungs.
The sharp edges of the rocks cut into my palms. I tried to focus on the pain instead of my rapidly beating heart and my inability to catch my breath. A beam of light cut across my body, zeroing in on my face. I threw a hand in front of my eyes on instinct. The light burned.
“You’re awake. Good.” That voice. It was so familiar.
I slowly lowered my hand and let my gaze adjust to the brightness in increments. As it did, my body turned to stone. No. It couldn’t be. My heart spasmed. This would kill Jensen. “Bryce?” My voice came out as a croak.
“Hey there.” He crouched down three feet from me, and I pushed back harder against the wall.
The jagged edges of the stone piercing my body felt like a warm embrace compared to what I might receive at this man’s hands. “W-what’s going on?”
A feral grin stretched over Bryce’s face as he toyed with the flashlight in his hands. “Come on now, Taylor, don’t play dumb with me.”
My fingers dug into the dirt floor of the cave. “I-it was you? You killed Caitlin and that hiker?”
The grin turned into a smirk. The same kind of expression a guy would wear if you’d asked if he lifted something particularly heavy. “Not just them. Lots more. Some you may have heard about, many more you haven’t.” My mind flashed to the woman from Willow Creek Walker had told me was missing, and my heart broke a little more.
“They were easy prey. Not even really a challenge.” Bryce rested his chin on the lens of the flashlight, the beam casting creepy shadows over his face. I shuddered. “Though you did throw a little wrench in my plans when you wandered off the trail. You almost interrupted me while I was dealing with Miss Caitlin.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. I did not want this asshole to see me break, he seemed like he would get off on it. Bryce shone the beam back at me. “Something tells me you’re a fighter. You might actually be some fun.” He edged just a bit closer, and I held my breath. “I haven’t had a real challenge in far too long.”
Bryce reached behind his back, and my world slowed. Was he reaching for a weapon? Was this the end? Walker’s face filled my mind. His rugged jaw, almost always covered in stubble. His piercing green eyes that could set me aflame with one look and put my soul at ease with another. I’d never get a chance to tell him how sorry I was. To tell him how much I loved him.
A water bottle flew at my head. My reflexes, still a little slow, barely reacted in time. Bryce rose. “Drink up. And eat this.” He tossed a granola bar at me next. “You’ll need your energy for the hunt to come.”
The hunt. “What does that mean?”
Bryce turned, a glint in his eyes that spoke of arousal. “It means, I’m going to let you go.”
My heart rattled in my chest, its rhythm chaotic.
“But then, I’m going to catch you. I’ll wound you first. Somewhere non-lethal. Maybe the shoulder like your nosy boyfriend. You’ll be bleeding then. That will slow you down. I’ll take my time tracking you. You won’t be able to hide.”
My fingers dug harder into the ground, my nails snapping. Bryce’s deviant grin reappeared. “You won’t know how to hide. You’re a city girl. You should have stayed there.”
I wanted to rage against him, rake my nails down his face. Scream at him that I did belong here. Here with Walker. Bryce’s grin widened. “A little of that temper wanting to come to the surface I see. Good. That’ll make things interesting. We’ll have lots of fun, you and I. And then I’ll snap your fucking neck.”
With that, Bryce strode towards what must have been the mouth of the cave. When he disappeared from sight, my body began to shake. The trembling was so strong, I could barely hold onto the bottle of water. Silent tears tracked down my face. Hugging my legs to my chest, I bit down on one knee to keep myself from letting loose my sobs.
My chest burned with the weight of my fear. Burned with the pain of possibly losing Walker and everyone else I loved. Forever. How many minutes, hours, days had I wasted giving in to my fear? Allowing it to control me. I thought I had been controlling it, keeping those around me at arm’s length as a way to push the terror of losing someone else down. But really, the fear had held all the strings.
I cursed myself for being so stupid. For being such a coward. Images danced in my mind. My first glimpse of Walker that had stolen my breath. The sound of his laugh. Falling asleep to the strong beat of his heart at the movie. His callused fingers trailing up my bare back.
The burning sensation in my chest grew stronger. I let the feeling sink deeper, spread throughout my body.
Things snapped into place as if I had suddenly been given the final piece of a puzzle I’d been missing for years. A part that changed the entire image. I simply needed to relish the burn. The pain that would always fill your life if you loved fully and deeply. That pain was proportional to love and joy and all the other wonderful things you might be lucky enough to fill your existence with.
My mother’s gentle smile filled my memory. Would I have traded any of the million moments of pure joy I shared with her for less pain at her passing? Never. I would experience the worst of that pain every day for the rest of my life for just one of those precious seconds. But that’s what I had been doing. Preemptively erasing those moments with Walker by pushing him away. Hoping that if I didn’t let him too close, it wouldn’t kill me to lose him.
I’d been lying to myself. All I had succeeded in doing was losing time with him that I would never get back. Time I would give anything to have right now. The tears fell faster and harder. I would allow myself this moment to break down, to let everything out. All my pain. All my grief. And then I would figure out how to fight.
I would fight for Walker. I would fight for myself. I would fight for our future. I would give my all for a lifetime filled with joy and pain, abundance and loss. A life with him.
