Even the bitter sting of my thoughts didn’t block out the prickle at the back of my neck. The sensation at my nape swept up, pulling my skull tight. I slowed my strides and stopped, immediately sinking deeper.
Standing still, I listened. It was there. A steady whooshing that fell evenly, like the sound a towel makes when it’s whipped in the air. It was more than that sound though. It was a sense, too. Something was coming in fast and hard at my back. Given that it was midlight, this wasn’t a dweller. I turned my head left and right, assessing for a place to hide from whatever it was that was coming. I was out in the open, a stretch of barren landscape with only a few shrubs and far-off trees. My flesh puckered to gooseflesh. I was exposed and vulnerable.
Swallowing back a wet breath, I ran hard for the nearest tree, splashing through the bog. In my haste, I tripped once and ate a mouthful of foul water. Spewing the sludge from my face, I pushed back up to my feet and kept going.
The wind shook the tree’s branches. They sounded brittle, but I only hoped they were sturdy enough and had enough leaves to provide some cover from whoever was out there. Slogging through the mud, I told myself it would have to do. Midlight was already fading. I didn’t want to spend the day stuck up in a tree if I didn’t have to. Hopefully dwellers avoided this swamp like they did lakes.
Reaching the tree, I climbed it easily, scaling up its length, muttering one of Fowler’s curses. It creaked under my weight, bits of bark flying off and crumbling under my clawing fingers. One of my nails cracked. I pushed on, whimpering as a sliver of wood imbedded itself in my palm.
The trunk was nowhere near as large as those of the trees that had surrounded Ortley. It swayed in the wind as I reached as high as I could go. It was with some effort that I balanced myself in the nest of fragile branches. Finding as solid a perch as I could, I waited, listening again to all the obvious and not so obvious sounds around me.
The whooshing grew louder. I turned in its direction, hanging on tightly from my position. It was a person. I marked the even two-footed tread, the loping gait. That one foot . . . the right foot that always hit the ground just a fraction harder.
Fowler.
Relief coursed through me. My head dropped and I sagged, tension slipping from my shoulders. Outrage followed, eclipsing all else. I adjusted my weight, stiffening at the sudden protesting crack of a branch. My nails dug deeper into rough bark. Leaving him was the hardest thing I had ever done. Even harder than leaving Sivo and Perla. I didn’t know if I had the strength in me to do it again.
I waited, hoping against all hope that he might pass the tree and keep going. It was possible. Any tracks would be hard to read in this bog. Any steps I’d taken had to be swallowed back up the instant I made them. If I could just hold silent and use the branches for cover and not make a sound—
“Are you going to come down from there or am I going to have to come up and get you?”
My heart jumped in my chest at the deep stroke of his familiar voice. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought that would be obvious.”
I clutched the branches and leaned down to call to him. “You should have let me go, Fowler. I didn’t want you to follow me.”
“I gathered that, seeing how you tricked me into drinking a sleeping draft.”
I batted back the niggle of guilt over that. “I wouldn’t have had to do that if you’d just let me go.”
“Luna, come down here so—”
“No!”
With a curse, he grabbed onto the tree and started to climb up.
“What are you doing?” I cried.
“You won’t come down to talk to me, so I’m coming up.” The tree shook with his weight and movement.
“You can’t make me go back with you, Fowler,” I said as he came to a stop on the branch across from me.
I braced myself, prepared for his argument. Instead, he circled the back of my neck, leaned forward, and covered my lips with his. The familiar scent of him overwhelmed me, heady and male with that undercurrent of wind and woods.
My heart lurched to my throat. He kissed me long and hard. There was punishment in it, but also something desperate and needy. I felt its echo run through me.
When we finally broke apart, I breathed in the changing air. I felt dizzy and more confused than ever. Air crashed from my lips like I had run a great distance.
Turning my head sideways, I softly uttered, “Midlight is gone.”
“I know,” he replied.
I dipped my head, hoping it somehow lessened his impact on me. He couldn’t stare directly at my face, and his mouth wouldn’t be so close, the memory of his taste beckoning me in that hairbreadth of space between us.
“Fowler,” I began. “Think about all these girls dying. Because of me.”
“Not because of you,” he returned. “Because of a madman.”
“But if he had me, the killing would stop.”
“You can’t be sure of that. He kills all the time. Indiscriminately. That’s what he does.”