Hidden Edges

Chapter 2

"f**k Dylan! What is that? Why do you have it with you?!" I whisper-yell at him, and looked around for anyone.

"Take this," he grabs my hand and puts the small shiny black gun in my hand, holding it firmly there. I try to free myself from him out of fear and panic.

"Crystal!" he yells, and I calm down, a streak of tear escaping from my left eye as I look straight in his eyes.

"Look, I know exactly how you feel, but I want you to keep this with you. Always. Don't let it out of your sight and it should be for your own sight alone. No one else's. I mean it"

"Why? Why should I keep this with me? What's going on?" I ask with shaky breaths, and he pulls me in for a hug.

"The cabin is in the woods and the woods is a dangerous place, Crystal. I just want you to be safe, okay." He sounds so worried, and I don't like him like that. I nod my head in agreement, and he lets me go. Quickly, I hide the gun in my pants, covering it up with my jacket as I cleaned my face and put on a smile as Betty and Jake gets in the back.

"Let's do this." Dylan says as he drives off to the woods.

All too soon, we get to the entrance of the forest where we have to go by foot, carrying our bags in hand. Luckily, they weren't so heavy. A forty-minute drive in awkward conversations and silence really took its toll on me. Thank God for the cookies and chocolate I stocked up my backpack with. Betty also baked some delicious cream cookies that made mine taste like crunchy paper.

"Hey!" Dylan shouts and grabs my arm, stopping me from going any further. "Watch your step, Crystal, you almost stepped into a trap."

I look at the ground and see a black metal-like object covered with grass and dried leaf. I don't even want to think about what would've happened if Dylan wasn't on time. Whispering a thank you to him, we start walking, and I look up ahead at the forest. It looks very different from before.

The trees look taller and bigger, their bark is black and covered in mud and grass. The path we were following seemed to have vanished into the tall grasses and shrubs. The leaves on the trees seem very weird and strange. I start to get an eerie feeling about this place, getting really impatient to get to the cabin.

"How long till we reach the cabin?" I asked no one in particular.

"Judging by our speed, we should be there in the next ten minutes," Jake says from behind.

"I remember how Selena kept whining and complaining till we finally got there," Betty says and laughs, but soon stops when she realizes she was the only one laughing.

"Who's Selena?" I ask, but a few seconds pass before anyone says anything.

"She was-",

"My aunt," Dylan cut Jake off before he could say anything, "We came here together a few years back." I knew something was off, but I decided to stay silent. It's been a really long morning, and I'm exhausted.

Little chit-chats come up between Betty, Jake and me but Dylan stays silent only with a few 'be carefuls' and 'watch your steps' addressed to me and in ten minutes, just like Jake predicted, the most beautiful cabin I've ever seen in my life comes into view in the middle of a clearing.

"Here we are," Jake says "The Connor's cabin. It's been standing for hundreds of years. From generation to generation, we come here yearly for a family vacation. No one is allowed to demolish it. You can only renovate to your taste when you're in power."

"In power?" I ask without taking my eyes off the large, spacious cabin with beautiful brown wood I've seen only in TV shows.

"You see, this cabin was my great-grandfather's before he passed on, and it automatically became my grandfather's, then my father's and now mine. Only the first sons, or only sons like my lovely Dylan here."

"I don't want your piece of crap." Dylan says with resent thick in his voice.

"Oh," Jake says with a creepy smirk on his face and his eyes looking straight into Dylan's, "but you must." They both glare at each other and the tension in the air becomes so thick you could slice it with a knife.

"Boys," Betty says, "let's not get too hasty. I think it's too early for this. Let's all just go inside and try to have a nice time, okay?"

"Yeah," I chip in, "let's all go inside and rest for a little while."

Betty takes hold of Jake's hand and they both go in, Dylan and I follow suit. The closer we get to the cabin, the more beautiful it becomes. The inside is even more beautiful and homely. It has a warm, cozy feeling and smells brand new. The living room has two dark brown medium-sized sofas with a black wooden table in the middle.

There's a hearth on one side of the room but no fire is set. The kitchen is large and even more beautiful, with a small dining table in the middle. Everything looks so simple and luxurious at the same time.

"Let's go," Dylan says, and leads me up the wooden stairs where I can see three doors. We pass the first, second and enter the third. It's a big en-suite furnished with a queen-sized bed and a moderately sized wardrobe. There's a dresser with a mirror on it beside the bed and a small cushion in one corner of the room.

"This is really beautiful Dylan. Wow," I say in amazement as I dropped the bags on the floor beside the wardrobe.

He doesn't say anything in return but vanishes into the bathroom. All this secrecy, mystery and tension is really annoying and scary. Being in the middle of some family drama you don't know about. Walking on eggshells around your once loving and happy husband. I'm tired of living in oblivion, I want answers, and I'm going to get them today.

Sitting on the bed waiting for my husband to come out of the bathroom like a predator waiting for its prey, I look out the window into the woods. It's so green, deep and beautiful. I've always loved nature, but I have never really been this close to a forest before.

I read somewhere that you can never really see the end of a forest no matter how deep you look, so I try to look deep into it when I notice something off, different. It's not green and it's definitely not a plant. If it's an animal, I don't know, but I see a pair of sparkly white eyes looking right at me.

My heart starts beating a little faster than normal out of fear, but I can't seem to tear my eyes off it. I keep looking into the white eyes in the woods, feeling myself get lost in it, fear engulfing me as I start to lose control of my body. I feel like it's calling on to me, trying to tell me something.

Suddenly, I hear a loud noise and scream a little out of fear, finally able to look away from those eyes. Trembling on the bed, I covered my ears with my hands, closing my eyes tightly shut, trying to recover from what just happened.

"Shh, shh," I hear Dylan say calmly as he touches me. I flinch a little out of reflex before I open my eyes and see it's just him. Quickly, I rush into his arms, holding him tight.

"It's okay, I'm here, it's okay," he says, his voice calming me down.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" he asks with so much worry and concern in his voice.

"I saw so-something i-in the woods," I stutter, "It was like a pair of eyes, looking directly at me, paralyzing me, almost possessing me." My voice breaks at the end. Why am I being so emotional? "It's fine babe, it was probably just a bear or something," He tries to comfort me, "I'm sure it was just an animal. There's nothing to worry about, okay?" I nod in agreement as I pull myself back together. It was just an animal, and I was scared for nothing. It's nothing. I try to reassure myself and smile at Dylan.

"Now go take your bath. You stink," he scrunches up his nose and fakes a disgusted look. Laughing, I hit his shoulder, stuck out my tongue to him and headed to the bathroom to take a nice long shower.

The bathroom is equally beautiful, with a bathtub, a shower stall, water heater, a golden wash basin with a beautiful vintage mirror on the wall above it. There's also a three-drawer cabinet beside it and the toilet is in another compartment in this large, opulent but homely restroom. Quickly, I strip out of this smelly cloth, the gun dropping to the ground in the process. "Oh my God," I gasp. I totally forgot about it. Hurriedly, I hide it in the last drawer. Scanning my environment for anyone watching, maybe a camera or something. Thankfully, nothing.

'Ridiculous, who'd put a camera in a family cabin', I think to myself before finally going into the shower but not finding any soap. Arghh! I groan.

"Dylan?" I call out to him from the bathroom, "Could you hand me my bathing soap? It's in the red bag."

"Okay," a few seconds later he brings it into the bathroom for me.

"Thanks babe," I say, and he winks, leaving me to my business. When I'm done, I realize I forgot to get towels.

"s**t," I say to myself.

"What's wrong babe?" Dylan asks from the bedroom. He heard me?

"I forgot the towels."

"Oh, there are some new towels folded in the drawer. You can use those".

I check the first drawer and truly, there are clean white towels in it.

"Thanks sweetie," I say and take one out, cleaning myself and trying to dry my hair a little, looking at my reflection in the mirror. My usually bright blue eyes now look dull and there are dark circles forming around my eyes. Shopping for this trip and the entire journey itself really stressed me out badly. I remember how I looked after my wedding day, Dylan making fun of me by saying I looked like an inmate. Chuckling, I began combing my long blonde hair.

"What's funny Crystal?" Dylan asks from the bedroom. What? He heard me again? The walls in this cabin must be so thin.

"Nothing, I was just thinking back to when we just got married."

"And how I made gest of how stressed you looked?" What? How did he know that? Was I thinking out loud? Frowning, I open the bathroom door slightly, looking into the bedroom, finding no one there.