Chapter 16: Prey In The Dark
345 Words
The snap of a branch sent a jolt of fear down Lena’s spine.
She turned sharply, scanning the trees. The forest was thick here, the shadows stretching long in the fading light.
Too quiet.
Too still.
Cade was frozen beside her, his body coiled like a predator ready to strike. His eyes flickered between human and something else.
Lena’s fingers tightened around the knife at her belt. “We’re not alone.”
Cade didn’t respond.
Then—another sound.
Not footsteps.
Something dragging through the leaves.
Lena’s throat tightened. “Cade…”
“I hear it.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
The prints in the dirt—the clawed ones—kept moving deeper into the woods. But the smaller footprints?
They had stopped.
And not because the boy had escaped.
Lena sucked in a sharp breath. The prints ended abruptly, the ground disturbed. The dirt was torn up, the leaves smeared with something dark.
Blood.
Her pulse pounded. “No, no, no—”
She felt Cade’s hand on her arm before she realized she had started moving.
“Lena, wait.”
She shook him off. “We’re wasting time! He could still be alive—”
Cade exhaled sharply, jaw clenched. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
She blinked. “What?”
But Cade wasn’t looking at her. He was staring past her, at something in the distance.
Lena turned, following his gaze.
And froze.
Not twenty feet ahead, something dangled from a low-hanging branch.
Not an animal.
Not a body.
A bag.
Torn at the seams. Streaked with blood.
A child’s backpack.
Lena’s breath stilled.
Then, from somewhere close, something clicked.
A slow, deliberate sound.
Like claws tapping against bark.
Lena’s fingers clenched around her knife.
Because suddenly, she realized—
The Harris boy had been running.
But not just from the creature.
There had been more than one set of footprints.
And some of them…
Had been his own.
Something had led him back here.
Something that was still waiting.
And now, it was waiting for them.
- Writer
