Page 47 of Hidden Nature

Just a bump, she told herself. She just had to make sure she didn’t trip over it.

Something growled as she walked into the glaring lights of the mini-mart. Light turned to dark, the shelves and spin racks to trees with limbs like brittle bones. The counter became a thicket with thorns that gleamed like sharpened teeth.

She saw tracks in the snow, and drawing her weapon, began to follow them.

Just a slice of moon, barely a slice, to bounce its light off the snow. But she saw well enough, saw the tracks, human tracks.

She needed to stop the one who made them. Needed to do her job. To protect human and wildlife, to protect the forest, the rivers, the lakes.

She couldn’t remember why she’d come here, alone, in the dark, but knew the only way to go. Forward.

She heard the quick squeal—a death cry—moments before she watched the great horned owl sweep by, silent as a ghost in the night, with its prey.

Her head throbbed, a dull, draining ache, and when she lifted a hand to her forehead, it came back bloody. Her blood dripped down her face, onto the pristine white of the snow.

But she kept moving forward. To stop was failure, to turn back cowardice.

Even when the tracks circled, turned from human to beast, she moved ahead.

The growl came from behind her, close. Too close.

She spun around. The beast, huge, black, its eyes fiery red, its teeth long and keen, leaped out of the dark.

Its fangs sank into her chest.

She woke gasping, a scream caught in her throat. She had to press her hands against her mouth to hold it in. Shuddering, she rocked herself until the need to scream passed.

Carefully, because her hands shook, she picked up the water on the nightstand, drank to ease the burning in her throat, in her lungs, in her belly.

Because she needed it, she switched on the light and immediately felt calmer. A check of the time showed her three-twenty-five.

As quietly as she could, Sloan got out of bed and into the bathroom across the hall. After she splashed the clammy sweat from her face, she studied herself in the mirror.

The strain showed, and the circles under her eyes spread like bruises against the pallor.

She looked haunted, but she wouldn’t be.

Everything hurt, but she settled on an Advil.

Wishing she’d thought to ask for her earbuds, she went back to her room, eased herself back into bed.

She turned her laptop on, considered music, but decided she needed a bigger distraction. She chose a movie to stream instead, then picked up her crocheting.

By five a.m., she’d finished the red scarf.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Just after nine, her mother brought her breakfast in bed—with a purple mum in a bud vase on the tray.

“Good morning!” Like the flower, the greeting aimed for extra cheer. “We peeked in a couple hours ago, but you were sleeping.”

After setting down the tray, Elsie offered Sloan an ice pack. “But you must’ve been awake at some point because you finished the scarf.”

“I slept, woke up, slept. I can come downstairs.”

“Why don’t you pamper yourself a little?”

Elsie’s hand brushed over Sloan’s forehead, checking—Sloan knew—for fever.

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