Chapter 203
HANNAH
"True," he supported. "But think about it. If you actually saw a wolf and it was out to harm you, wouldn't it make sense for it to have attacked you immediately? Yet what did it do? It just stood there, looking at you. Don't you think that's odd?"
I yanked my hand from Chase's grasp, and crossed my arms over my chest.
"I know what I saw," I said stubbornly.
Chase sighed. "Alright. Alright. Don't get angry. We'll get to the bottom of this. Come on."
I eyed his hand, stretched out towards me. Reluctantly I took it. Hand in hand we strolled to where the others were.
"Can I have everyone's attention, please?" Cade shouted.
They turned at the sound of his voice and started towards us. For a moment, I felt a little foolish disrupting their work but then I remembered those red eyes glaring at me and I shook the feeling off. Anything was worth getting to the bottom of this.
"Yo! Cade. Look what I found," a boy called out.
Cade took the plant he was holding out. He examined it briefly but I could tell his mind was not in it.
"Everyone's here now," the boy in our group told Cade.
"Right." Chase handed the plant back. "Did any of you see any rogue wolf around?"
The students exchanged puzzled looks. Most of them shook their heads.
"No wolves," said a girl. "Rogue wolves don't come to these parts."
"That's true," said another girl. "I used to go camping with my father and brothers somewhere south of here. My dad says it's a rogue wolf-free zone. Did you see any?"
She looked around as if expecting a wolf to materialize out of the shadows. Chase ignored her question.
"Or maybe one of you shifted," he said. "Did anyone?"
"Of course not," someone said. "We were all too busy gathering this stuff."
He shook the sample collection box he was holding. There were murmurs of agreement from all the others. I supposed they were telling the truth. Working closely in groups of three, it was almost impossible not to notice the absence of your partner.
But if none of them had shifted, who had?
Someone not part of the camping trip, said a voice at the back of my head. Someone out to get me.
"Alright guys," Chase said to them. "You can go back to work now."
The boy in our group was the last to go.
"I'll be over there," he said, pointing. "I found some pretty interesting stuff."
Cade nodded, watched him move away then he turned to me.
"You heard them," he said softly, placing both hands on my shoulders and pulling me close. "No one saw a wolf around. No one shifted. A wolf as big as you described would be hard to miss, don't you think?"
"I guess," I said in a tiny voice.
"It's night, Hannah and that place you were at has a lot of trees. You could have seen a branch, and leaves rocking in the breeze. It would be very easy for your mind to make those out into a shape or figure."
"Okay," I said. "I guess I was seeing things."
Deep down though I didn't believe that. Still, I would agree with Chase just to make him happy.
********
I was asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow that night.
And then I opened my eyes. At first, I could see nothing, nothing but darkness. I sensed movement behind me.
I turned around quickly. Only it felt like I was moving in slow motion. A hand, long-fingered and bony, clamped around mine. A scream of horror bubbled up in my throat as I followed the thin, wasted hand and arm up to Asher's face.
He was grinning senselessly at me still with half his face bashed in. He should have been dead, but somehow wasn't.
It felt like his hate had reanimated him, giving him the strength to come back to life and drag me down with him.
I fought. I struggled to free myself. The more I did, the more Asher's fingernails dug into my wrist.
When he had gotten a good grip, he began to drag me into the hole.
"No!" I screamed. "No! Let me go!"
He gibbered something I couldn't hear over my own screams. With a deafening whoosh bright orange flames leaped out of the abyss. The flames jumped so high they nearly touched the sky.
I screamed again, this time in pain. I wasn't close to the hole but I could feel the heat, baking me, starting to melt the skin off my bones. With every passing second, I got dragged to the hole where things worse than Asher waited.
I woke up, still screaming. Chase had his hands around me.
"It's okay, Hannah. It's okay. It was just a dream," he said over and over again.
Log in with Google Account
Chapters
Favorite
Settings
