What's Done in the Dark

By Layla Nash

Cryptozoologist Ada Montgomery searches the mountains for two things: her missing brother and the kind of cryptids that'll make her famous. Sasquatch, Ozark Howler, Snarly Yow… She's got evidence they're out there. She believes in evolution and science – definitely not magic. Until a vampire saves her life.

 

He hands her an unbelievable bill: cure his little daylight = 'go poof' problem or pay the price. Her scientific genius can help him. His supernatural abilities can find her brother. If they help each other, everybody wins. Right?

 

Except more than just UV rays stand in her way.

 

Werewolves with a grudge stalk her. Cryptids show up at her cabin and make themselves at home. And the vampire blood she took to stay focused? Turns out it's addictive.

 

A supernatural war threatens to erupt in the dark, and she's smack in the middle of it. Ada will have to save everyone to save herself, and the full moon approaches. Well, lesson learned: bargaining with a vampire devil means there'll be hell to pay.

 

It's time to settle up.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ravenheart Publishing
• Release date: Oct 22, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393277170

Book preview

Chapter 1

The voice on the other end of the phone sounded excited, eager, maybe even frantic, but underneath it was the tone I'd always heard when people talked about my work — the man thought I was completely nuts. And he expected I wouldn't hear it through his gushing. We really think you're the best choice for the show, Ada, far and away. But you know how the executives can be... They want options. They want to see how you play in front of an audience, what you really bring to the gig.

Okay, I said, a touch of wariness creeping over me. It wasn't like I wanted to do stand-up. What does that mean?

The voice downshifted into a bit of condescension. Clearly, I was a backwoods oakie who didn't know which end of the pot to piss in. A screen test. We need at least thirty minutes of footage of you doing your thing out in the environment. Narrate everything, edit it together, and we'll be able to show it to some test audiences to see how they react. If you've got evidence of Bigfoot to show, that would be best.

He might as well have snorted in derision when he said 'evidence,' but I kept my temper in check. No use pissing him off before I got what I wanted. Sure. My camera equipment isn't great; is there —

Just use what you've got, the producer said, chipper once more. I'm sure it'll be great. And make sure you talk about your family and friends and how the rest of the town views your... occupation. That's all great color for the show; audiences love that kind of thing. They'll eat it up, particularly your background, your missing brother, your quest to fulfill your father's dying wish... They'll fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

Well, bully for me, since my shining ambition was to entertain a bunch of judgmental city folk. My heart thumped oddly and I couldn't look at my best friend, sitting next to me at the bar, as I held the cell phone closer to my ear and turned away. Right. I can do that. But the show is about the cryptids, it's not —

"It's about you, he said. He sounded rushed, ready to get the toothless bigfoot hunter off the phone. The audience wants to follow people, see you triumph and fail and get back up again."

I get it, I said. But I thought it was already a done deal.

He laughed, and it wasn't a kind sound. I expected him to tack on 'bless your little heart' like my best friend did when she wanted to be condescending but still sound sweet as peach pie. "It's almost a done deal. We have to make sure you're a character people can get behind."

My heart sank a little lower. A character. Not exactly how I wanted to be portrayed, but it would be worth it if I found Jamie. Sounds good. When do you need the film?

Saturday okay? Good luck, and make us both look good! It sounded oddly like a threat for something so cheerful, and before I could open my mouth to assure him I'd do my best, he added, Ciao, and hung up.

I took a breath and tossed the old flip phone onto the surface of the bar; it slid into a puddle of spilled beer, though Betsy fished it out before any permanent damage could be done. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she studied me. That didn't sound good. What do they want you to do now?

"Send in some film of me looking for cryptids. Bigfoot would probably play the best, since people know him, but maybe some of the lesser known would be better. Really get that Appalachia flavor." I frowned and I rubbed my right shoulder as it ached. Must have been a storm moving in over the mountains, if the injury acted up.

Babe, she said, pausing, and I knew from the look on her face and the tone of her voice what she was going to say. She'd sensed the hesitation in my voice when I spoke to the producer. Are you sure this is a good idea? It sounds like they want to make a fool of you.

It pays a lot, I said. I swigged the fruity beer so it would all seem like a much better idea. I couldn't let Betsy know my concerns; she already wanted to talk me out of it. "And with the exposure this could get me, I can find Jamie. Someone will know something. Or they'll give me better equipment so I can search more effectively. Or we’ll draw a ton of crazies out to the park to search around, and maybe they’ll find him. With the money from the producers, I can pay private investigators and really get —"

This isn't healthy, she said, voice soft. Come on. It's been ten years.

My throat closed and I stared into my beer. She didn't understand. I'm not giving up.

They're doing this to make fun of people who look for sasquatches and black dogs and aliens and things. They're using you.

And I'm using them, I said. I glanced at the bartender, a girl I'd known briefly in elementary school before I skipped straight to college, and gestured for another beer. I looked back at Betsy and toasted her with my empty glass. Everyone gets something.

If you do this, she said, speaking slowly and enunciating every single syllable, No one in serious science will ever hire you. No one will take you seriously. You'll always be the loon who runs around the mountains looking for aliens. I think you should stop, reconsider, maybe talk to someone. My sister knows a really great psychologist; she could —

No, I said. I shook my head and pulled a few crumpled bills out of my jeans pocket to give to the bartender. She raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at me and flashed an insincere smile before handing over the beer and turning away. I'm not crazy. And if I go talk to a shrink, everyone will think that.

Everyone already does, hon, and you know it. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You know everything. You seriously know everything. But you can't see how all of this is going to blow up in your face."

No one can tell the future, I muttered into my beer, then slid her a sideways glance. "That's the crazy-talk."

She went to psychics and used divining crystals and burned sage to clear her chakras or something, and we both knew it. Apparently, that was an allowable level of crazy, while thinking cryptids might exist beyond the frontiers of human habitation was worth a ticket to the psych ward. And believing my brother was still alive, despite disappearing in the mountains a decade earlier, just made me crazier. Everyone else thought he was dead, but I knew better.

Betsy's expression soured as she sipped from her fancy martini. She fiddled with the tooth-picked olive since she didn't want to look at me. I'm serious, Ada. Please reconsider. This has to end eventually, and you'll need to get a job. A real job, she added when I opened my mouth to argue. Counting bats and bugs for the Park Service doesn't count.

It's a perfectly legitimate profession, I said under my breath. I needed something stronger than beer to handle the argument I knew was coming, but I didn't have enough cash to order any hard liquor — or anything not on the happy hour discount. I'd be lucky if I still had a few packages of ramen at the cabin to get me through dinner.

I used a shitload of beakers and slides examining possible cryptid specimens, and Santa wasn’t going to just drop off the fancy centrifuge I needed to test DNA. That didn't leave a lot of money left over for things like food and clothing. Or even utilities some months.

It’s not an acceptable occupation for someone with two PhDs, she shot back. I hardly think that brain of yours is being utilized when you're tracking the migratory patterns of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak. And you can bet your ass anyone who googles you won't see the headline of child genius conducting groundbreaking research, but crazy local girl chases ghosts through the mountains.

You know I don’t believe in ghosts. I'd heard the same arguments for the last three years, after she gave me a while to get cryptids out of my system. When I didn't, Betsy kicked into tough love big sister mode instead of best friend mode. I'm fine with how things are, Bets. Really.

"But what about how things will be? She lowered her voice when the bartender hovered a little too close, no doubt trying to catch up with how the town's resident kook spiraled into hermitage or cat-lady status. Say you do this show and it takes off and you find out what happened to your brother. What then?"

What do you mean, what then? I sipped the beer and let my thoughts drift to where I'd go to film. It was late summer and there was already the threat of snow in the mountains, which would play well with the audience. Maybe the leaves started to turn farther up the mountains and would provide a nice splash of color. We'll figure it out together.

What if he isn't alive? she said gently. Betsy reached out like she wanted to squeeze my hand but pulled back when I retreated. What if you find him and you have to bury him? What would you do after that? What would you move on to, if you don't have a real job at a university or a place to live?

I refused to even consider it, shaking my head. He's alive. I know he's alive. I'll find him and it'll all be fine.

I couldn't even imagine my brother being dead. I'd been looking for him since he disappeared, two years before Dad died, and it simply wasn't possible Jamie was gone, too. I couldn’t have lost both of them. There's no evidence to say he's dead. None.

There's no evidence to suggest he's still alive, she said.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. I needed sleep and come up with a plan for that footage the production company wanted. It was an opportunity I couldn't ignore or let pass, and I had to do my best. For so late in the summer, there were a few really great spots to search for tracks, but catching video would be more difficult because of the early darkness but still having a lot of leaves to shade everything. I know you mean well, Bets, and I appreciate you think you're helping. But I will not stop looking for Jamie. I won't. And if what you say comes about — then I'll figure it out when I get there. Okay?

She leaned her elbow on the bar and sighed. Okay. I'm just worried about you, Ada. Be careful with those Hollywood people. All they want is to make good television, and they're more likely to get it if they mock you than if they show your actual research.

I know, I said. I can hear it every time they talk to me. That's fine with me right now because that's the kind of character they want. But I can show them I'm a serious scientist, someone with a brain who is investigating every lead, and it'll make the difference. It will.

Her lips pursed with disapproval.

I half-smiled. Come on, you know how this goes. Some reality show gets popular and all of a sudden everyone thinks they can get rich pulling crap out of their attic or buying up junky storage lockers. Even being labeled a freak show will draw out the real dedicated cryptid hunters out here, and the more attention, the more people looking through the mountains where he was. The more people looking, the better the odds someone will find a clue about what happened to Jamie. It’s just stacking the odds in my favor, Bets. It’s nothing to do with luck, and everything to do with probability.

Betsy looked at me for a long time and I saw the doubt in her eyes. I hoped resolve was clear in mine. Whatever it was she saw, though, she just raised her martini glass and clinked it against my beer bottle. Okay, then. Call me before you leave.

Chapter 2

The next morning, I loaded my old camera, mic, and other gear into the battered pickup truck I’d inherited when Dad passed. I was on the road before the sun rose to an old fire road the Park Service maintained that would take me to the trails I knew led up the mountains and into prime bigfoot scouting areas. Some of the cave networks about ten miles in were big enough to shelter sasquatches, humans, and other large mammals. I’d found promising scat and prints up there just a few weeks earlier, though the results from testing were still pending. Sending samples away for genetic sequencing because I couldn’t afford my own equipment really put a damper on my productivity, not to mention the hole in my bank account.

The rifle in the rack on the back of the truck was already cleaned and loaded, ready to use in case a bear started sniffing around my camps, and my pack held enough supplies for twice as long as I planned to be out. Just in case. I’d left the first part of my planned hike with Betsy and logged the GPS coords of where I left my truck.

As I pulled my pack on and started to regret how much equipment I brought and how heavy the damn specimen preservation supplies were, I figured a dog or a mule would have been useful for lugging all that shit around – although that would have meant finding a way to shelter and feed the damn thing. Unless the dog was a far better hunter than me and could feed itself, having a useful pet would remain a pipe dream. I couldn’t justify diverting resources away from my research, and the only way I would eventually make enough money to find Jamie was to prove everyone wrong, which meant the continued use of all available funds to show cryptids existed. The first person who found irrefutable evidence would be rich and famous and have a platform to reach the entire world.

With that kind of reach, that kind of money… I could find Jamie. I could convince Mom to come back and we could all be together. Things would be just like they were.

Cryptids linked me to Jamie more than anyone else knew. We hunted them together every summer and into the fall, and every time we had a break from school. He’d been trailing something related to the Ozark Howler, a cat-bear hybrid with horns, when he disappeared in the park. If I found what he’d been chasing, then maybe I’d find him.

And the more cryptid hunters I could draw into the woods, the better chance I stood of identifying where he disappeared and what took him. All it would take was enough evidence to convince the bat-shit crazy cryptozoology community I’d found a real Sasquatch or Mothman or Black Shuck and they’d find Jamie for me. Easy peasy. Just a few simple steps and everything would be tidied up.

If only it were actually that easy.

I swallowed the knot in my throat and locked up the gate on the truck, leaning to get the rifle from its rack. The fire road had been the starting point for almost every trek Jamie and I made into the interior of the park since it was the fastest way to the wildest corners of the mountains. The ruts in the road got deeper and the trees got taller with each passing season, but it still felt the same as it had ten years earlier. Most days I still felt like the sixteen year old who found out her big brother was gone and no one could find him.

They searched for a week or two, but everyone figured he’d been killed by a bear and nothing would be found. The weather kicked up and snow blanketed everything, and instead of using it to find tracks in the deep woods, they assumed the weather and temperature did him in. Dad and I kept looking — every day, all day, until Mom said it turned into obsession. I didn’t know how it could not be an obsession. I needed Jamie back. I needed him. I’d never give up.

I checked around the trail for any sign of bears or cougars before I set out and scanned around for boot prints and other human tracks. Sometimes moonshiners used the road to get out to their stills; they were more dangerous than the bears most days. I’d briefly considered setting up my own still to help fund my research, but distilling good ‘shine was too labor intensive and I didn’t find that sort of chemistry particularly interesting anyway. Plus there was the illegality of selling it and the lingering threat of a grand explosion that increased the risk relative to the gain.

As I started hiking, grumbling already under the weight of the pack and the rifle, I pondered who the executives wanted on their show. I'd run into some cryptid hunters who were an embarrassment to cryptozoology. Some believed in temporal bends that allowed Bigfoot to jump through multiple realities, some insisted Bigfoot could teleport to avoid being observed by humans, others argued he was a military experiment gone wrong that the government covered up. The network couldn't possibly want some lunatic using pseudoscience and rumors to defend conjecture and wild-ass conspiracy theories. That wouldn’t last more than a season on television. Two, tops.

I used science. I wasn’t like the majority of cryptid hunters. I tested genetics and logged migration patterns and weather fluctuations. I set up a network of motion-capture cameras throughout the park at strategic locations and stitched together footage to track mysterious movements in the trees. I studied evolutionary tables to identify possible distant relations to the cryptids of all kinds. Hell, I picked up all manner of animal poop, hoping it would indicate something other than a wolf or puma. I didn’t spend my time running around at night shouting Did you see that? and waving a rifle around like some of the more… unique members of the cryptid community.

But then again... maybe the producers did want that. I'd done my own research on the network's other reality shows when I first heard from them about filming a series about tracking cryptids in the mountains, and some of their ghost-hunters made me snort so hard I gave myself a headache. The ghost-hunters clothed themselves in pseudo-scientific terminology, enough to confuse people who had a high school education in physics, but the hunters used little more than infrared camera work chasing specks of dust as ‘proof.’ They used coincidence and some of the stupidest equipment I’d ever seen in my life to identify changes in temperature and notional EMF signatures. They heard ghosts in static and saw wraiths in night vision shadows. And somehow that translated into good television.

I rolled my eyes at a squirrel lingering on a nearby tree trunk. The little nut-hoarder had a more sophisticated grasp of metaphysics and natural phenomena than the majority of people claiming expertise in explaining the unexplained. Instead of questioning whether what they heard and saw could be explained by natural phenomena — or was even relevant to their search — they believed everything immediately. Their teams were the very definition of intellectual echo chambers. No scientific method at all — just rumor and darkness and lots of yelling and heavy breathing on infrared cameras.

Not me. I’d spent years collecting samples and cataloguing anomalies, building my case. Axiomatic truths built and built into a solid foundation until I could show evolutionary diversions and the most likely ancestors of wildmen or sasquatches or Bigfoot. I needed one to two more pieces and the puzzle would be complete – irrefutable, unquestionable. Contestable but reproducible when other researchers challenged me. Good science. Solid experimentation. A case built on hair samples and blood smears, hunting patterns and tracks observed over seasons, broken branches and lairs with signs of habitation. The findings would open doors to so many grants and research universities and professorships that I’d be set for life, after I found Jamie.

I never lost sight of it: Jamie was the goal. The cryptids were just the fastest way to get there. I didn’t need more proof for the sake of my own belief. I needed it so everyone else would be convinced.

But Betsy’s caution the night before made me hesitate. I’d never thought about not finding Jamie alive. It was not a conclusion I could accept, even if most would have considered it the most logical explanation. Just like they believed the absence of cryptids was more logical than multiple species having hidden at the edge of human habitation for centuries. What if I found the irrefutable proof I needed, but didn’t find Jamie?

I swallowed the knot in my throat, then brushed the thought aside. I’d find him. Jamie was out there.

The thought rejuvenated my energy and determination, and I pushed my legs to move faster as the trail started to climb. It was the perfect time of year to find the right evidence to complete the picture. Even though I didn’t believe in hunches or premonitions, I still had a good feeling about the trip. Something big was about to happen.

Chapter 3

Two days later, I hadn't found much except hungry bears, a few lost hikers, and some strands of hair left on a broken branch that could have belonged to a sasquatch… or maybe a wolf. I snapped pictures of some tracks around an icy pond and marked the location so I could launch a drone later to evaluate the path and see how it matched up the migratory patterns I’d already documented. I scooped samples from the pond, sealing them away to send off for DNA testing. The cryptids had to drink from somewhere, and inevitably their saliva mixed with the remaining pond water. Occasionally an unidentified strand of DNA could be identified, ruling out the wild animals in the area, and pointed toward something else moving among the trees. The best evidence was a shadowy figure I captured on a motion-activated camera I’d placed months earlier; I spent two nights doing measurements and evaluations to determine the height of the creature and its stride length. I muttered most of what I did to the camera so the production company would get a good feel for how I worked.

And still I clicked the GPS logger and sent updates to the rangers as I hiked, and counted birds so I could make some extra cash on the way. No reason to put all my eggs in that television basket when a few more dollars from the Park Service might get me closer to my dream centrifuge.

I pushed harder and faster as time ticked away, going deeper into the mountains and away from any of the trails other hikers would use. My supplies dwindled and I supplemented with berries and fish from a few streams to placate my grumbling stomach, but I couldn’t head back until I had something spectacular. Even if the time left to overnight the footage to the production company before Saturday ticked away faster than my supplies and lent urgency to everything I did.

I didn’t sleep well at night, listening to the whisper of wind through the trees and the prowling of hungry predators, and kept a hand on my rifle whenever I dozed. The night-vision motion capture cameras I’d set up on an earlier trip gave me a few clues to large animals moving around and using the trails, and caught a blurry image of something moving around on two legs. Upright but moving inhumanly fast. My heart pounded for a solid twelve hours after finding that, and I reviewed it over and over until my battery nearly died. Excellent.

Yet it also left me with the creeping feeling I definitely wasn’t alone, and I probably wasn’t the most dangerous thing out there even with my rifle. Every cracked branch and rustling leaves sounded like a threat, like the last noise I’d hear before my death. I jumped and twitched constantly, even as I told myself I was being stupid and juvenile for believing in boogeymonsters. A bear posed a real threat, but a mysterious shadow certainly did not.

I kept my head on straight, since panic was deadly in the mountains. I knew it. I’d seen it happen. I’d found enough lost hikers — and dead ones, too — to know keeping your shit together was the difference between life and death up there. One fall, one flash storm, one dropped compass or torn map… that was all it took sometimes.

I shook away the dark thoughts and focused on the next campsite. It was still a mile off and the sun started to set far over the mountains, casting deep, night-dark shadows on the trails. My headlamp didn't project as much light as I needed, and I had to concentrate to keep from slipping off the narrow trail and rolling down a steep decline into a rocky gorge with a hint of water at the very bottom.

As soon as I made camp, I'd send a message to Betsy to see about having her husband or one of his cousins meet me on the edge of the park in their truck so I wouldn't have to hike all the way back to where I'd parked. I still had time to get back and overnight the footage — once I got what I needed, edited it, and packaged it up. I climbed still higher despite the ache in my thighs and shoulders. My maps would get me to a road. Betsy would pick me up. No problem. I just needed to find the right place to get the last pieces of film, chat a bit to the camera, and I’d be in good shape.

Something big moved through the trees off to my left and I slowed, adjusting my grip on the rifle as my heart jumped to my throat. The headlamp followed as I scanned the woods, searching for whatever it was, but no eyes gleamed back at me. Probably just the wind or a falling tree. Happened all the time out there.

The sound didn't come again, so I started off with a great deal of motivation. Dusk settled through the trees, transitioning the gray light into full-dark faster than I'd hoped. A breeze whispered through the branches, shaking leaves and sending them drifting to the ground until things moved in my peripheral vision.

I glanced up at the sky where the first few stars grew visible against the blue-black velvet of space. Scientist. I was a scientist. There was no reason to panic just because the earth turned and took us out of the sun's direct light. I didn't believe in ghosts. That was absurd.

I tightened my grip on the backpack and shook my head as I imagined Betsy's response to me saying such a thing — Bigfoot existed but ghosts were going too far? It was perfectly reasonable to believe unique creatures evolved and existed in the deep woods. After all, there were still uncontacted tribes in the Amazon, and undiscovered species in various remote locations. Appalachia might have been more studied and inhabited than many other forests and mountains, but that didn't mean an intelligent creature like a sasquatch was guaranteed to have been discovered. Well, there were a bunch of mountain folk living in the Appalachia valleys who thought we were still at war with England. Sasquatches blended in much better, all things considered.

Something flashed far ahead and on my right, and I slowed. A mirror or a light. Definitely not an animal. Maybe it was a human, tracking me as I tracked the Sasquatch.

Probably just a lost hiker or a moonshiner.

But my heart beat a little faster as I flipped the safety off my rifle. Just in case. It was only prudent. Totally logical to anticipate danger and prepare for unexpected results.

I kept moving, though; I could probably make it to a cave I vaguely remembered. It would give me a better place to make camp, too, with the mountain at my back and only a few directions to look for trouble. I could make it.

My legs grew leaden as I forced myself to move faster, not wanting to run in case a predator tracked me that would get excited by a chase, and I kept the rifle half-raised to react faster. Fear chased down my spine in cold fingers and prickles. Something moved behind me but I didn't dare look, not wanting to slip or turn my ankle. The air turned frozen in an unnatural rush and burned my lungs until I strained to breathe without gasping and panting.

A dry chuckle whispered behind me, dropping my heart to my boots with dread.

I ran. I bolted like a rabbit with dogs on its heels, the pack bouncing against my shoulders and throwing me off-balance as I sobbed for breath and tears blurred my vision and that unnatural frigid wind left all of me numb.

It laughed louder and then a dark shape exploded out of the trees ahead of me and landed on the trail. My headlamp illuminated a grinning man, hair wild and unkempt, wearing tattered rags. I grunted with the force of the collision as he blocked the path. He wrenched me closer and twisted my wrist until my bones screamed, but I held onto the rifle with all my strength.

He lunged and yellowed teeth flashed in the light from my headlamp as he tried to bite my arm. His thick, dirty nails clawed at my arms as the man growled and snarled like a wild animal. I screamed and kicked back, terrified of getting rabies or something worse if he managed to scratch or bite me. More snapping of teeth, more slavering and spit flying everywhere, more desperation in yellowed eyes as he fought to get closer as I fought to get away.

I swung the rifle and turned my shoulder, trying to smack him out of the way with the heavy pack, but he threw me to the side instead and the trail slipped out from under me. I stared up into the night and the brief glimpse of waving tree branches before I bounced and started rolling. The pack flung me about but the waist strap kept it locked to me. I cried out as I tried to set my heels or hold on to something. But I kept falling into the darkness.

Someone laughed, far above me, and I wondered if anyone would look for me the way I looked for Jamie. Something hard and sharp smashed into my ribs and I flew into a tree.

Chapter 4

Pain dragged me back to consciousness as something moved and my ribs stabbed into my lungs. I sucked in a breath to scream but choked instead. A mystery figure maneuvered my arms and then the weight of my pack fell away. My arms dangled, and it felt like I floated in the darkness.

I saw nothing but flashes of moonlight and a shadowy figure standing over me.

Blood filled my mouth as I struggled to breathe, wheezing every time my pulse sent throbs of agony from my head to my toes. The mystery man didn’t look or feel like the wild man who’d attacked me. Before I could object or beg for my life, he touched my forehead and murmured, Sleep.

I whimpered, but it was like he’d turned a switch. Everything went black.

Chapter 5

The dark remained, but the cold had disappeared. I didn’t feel anything until I tried to open my mouth and my lips stuck together. For a delirious moment, I feared my whole face had turned into a bruise and swelled shut. Panic welled up and I struggled to stay calm. Freaking out wasn’t going to help. Logic would. Rationality. I had to assess my physical condition before losing control and crying like a puppy with hurt feelings.

My ribcage ached and air rasped in my lungs and throat, but at least I could breathe. My toes moved. I could still move my eyes, even though I hesitated to try and open them. A miserable headache beat against the back of my neck and temples. All I smelled was blood, despite not being able to breathe through my nose. Probably broken, and from the way the left side of my face throbbed, possibly less of a problem than the occipital fracture that would destroy my vision and sinuses. Tears smarted my closed eyes and clogged my nose still more.

My left hand wiggled but my right refused to cooperate. Everything on that side felt numb compared to the dull ache on my left. None of it got close to the agony I remembered in bright flashes from the fall.

So at least that was progress.

I forced my eyes wider to peer into the darkness. It didn’t smell or feel like outside, though more than that I couldn’t tell. That creepy wild man couldn’t have dragged me anywhere. He’d tried to eat me right there on the trail, so the most likely conclusion if he captured me was my becoming his dinner rather than his prisoner. Well, unless he liked backwoods sushi.

Still. Someone else cut away my pack with precision and finesse, which my crazy attacker certainly lacked. Someone else carried me out of the ditch, out of the cold and dark. It was serendipity, surely. Another hiker or a hunter or even a moonshiner heard me screaming and showed up to help. My heart pounded as my thoughts spiraled out faster, searching for better explanations. I definitely couldn’t be a prisoner. While it was inside the realm of possibility, I would not have accepted such an outcome. Ever. The thought alone made me shudder.

Reason and logic reared up and told me to find my pack and emergency beacon, and I would be fine. I could escape. The hunting knife in my pack would help.

As far as I could tell, my clothes had been ruined and I wasn’t wearing them anyway. Some kind of thin hospital gown covered me underneath a thin sheet. My ribs objected to a deep breath. My toes wouldn’t even bend.

Something moved in the darkness and I froze, my chest tightening.

Close your eyes so I can turn on the light.

Every part of me jerked in surprise and brought the pain screaming back. Breath strangled in my throat as I sucked in air to scream. The voice moved closer. Be still.

Fuck that noise, as Betsy would have said. A soft wheeze escaped instead of the barbaric shriek I planned.

Cool papery skin touched my forehead. Numbness traveled down my face and throat to my chest, then all the way to my feet. I couldn’t do anything but breathe. The cold surrounded my brain until my thoughts congealed into nothing more than fear and pain. It felt like waking from a nightmare without being able to move as the monsters circled closer.

Sleep paralysis, obviously. I was lucid dreaming and none of it was actually happening.

Light flickered in a halo around me. My eyes watered in the warm glow as I tried to focus. It took some blinking before I realized who draped a cool cloth across my forehead. The tall man adjusted my right arm until the pain eased and moved into the light so I could see more of him.

I couldn’t look away. A mixture of horror and fascination drew my eyes to him – though he was perhaps handsome, something about the texture of his skin and the slightly vertical pupils in his gray-green eyes made my stomach sink in sheer revulsion.

Dark hair combed neatly over his forehead fell perfectly in place, and he wore pressed trousers and a white button-down shirt with — God help me – cuff links. Actual cuff links. The buttons on his shirt didn't even look like normal buttons, but were capped with black stones or something. Something fancy. Expensive. From the pages of one of those high-class fashion magazines Betsy loved.

Something completely fucking insane for the middle of the mountains of Tennessee.

I gasped for air like a fish flopping on the banks of a river. I dug my heels into the mattress where I lay, trying to get away by any means possible, but pain flashed up my left leg instead and paralyzed the rest of me.

He frowned, a mere creasing of his forehead, and pressed his palm against my sternum. Calm down, Ada.

He knew my name. He knew my name.

My right leg jerked as I tried to kick at him. I wouldn’t die quietly. The Montgomerys fought.

I didn’t know what the hell he’d given me to make my body numb and uncooperative, but I wouldn’t give up.

Who the hell are you? Where am I? What the fuck is going on? I croaked. My jaw wouldn’t open more than a few millimeters, but it was enough. More questions backed up in my brain too fast for the words to escape.

He made a thoughtful noise. That’s hardly appropriate language for a guest in my home.

When I inhaled to fire off more of my thoughts about being his ‘guest,’ he pressed harder on my sternum. Warmth radiated from his palm instead of the pain I expected, and I tensed. It wasn’t possible. It had to be some kind of muscle cream on his palm, and the exothermic reaction…

But the warmth went deeper through my chest and traveled into my abdomen. It trailed an absence of pain as it reached my legs and feet. The warmth replaced the numbness and left only a blessed relief so great my eyes watered in gratitude.

Even as I floated, drunk on the absence of pain, the logic of fear tried to re-exert some control. Where am I? Who are you? What’s going on?

You’re in a safe place, he said. His hand lifted, then retreated outside the circle of light before it reappeared with a small cup and straw. You were injured quite badly.

I can feel that, I muttered. Dick. What happened? Who are you?

He lifted the straw in his creepy-ass hand and dribbled water onto my lips. Everything tasted like blood and dirt. His pallid skin appeared almost blue as his hand hovered over my face and I could see the deep, dark veins in his wrist and the fine bones of his long fingers. Something wasn’t right but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Every time I got close to understanding what made him so disconcerting, what made every fiber of my being need to flee, my thoughts skittered away like water bugs. They echoed inside my skull and rattled around until I didn’t know which end was up.

All of his attention remained on transferring water from the cup to my lips one straw at a time. You fell off the trail and cut a swathe of destruction down my mountain. You nearly hit every tree and rock on the way down, so you are lucky to be alive. It was touch and go for a while.

But I knew that wasn’t what happened. I didn’t fall off the trail. I pursed my bloody lips and turned my head despite the creak in my neck and a painful pull all the way down my left shoulder and side. No. There was a man. Wild hair. He – chased me. Laughed. Lunged at me. Tried to bite me.

The man’s eyes narrowed as he watched me and set the cup aside.