Enjoy a sneak peak from Into the Night…
We had reached the opening and nothing but darkness and trees spread behind us. I paused for only a fraction of a second, watching the men yell and gnash their teeth at one another. I could feel Amelia’s hand clutching mine and sensed that she was cowering beside me, shrinking away from the snarling, screaming men. For just that moment, my feet felt glued to the ground and I was frozen – was it in fear or uncertainty? I spotted the attractive stranger, whose beautiful face was now twisted into a fierce grimace. I was shocked that such perfect features could so suddenly transform, and the dreamy stranger suddenly appeared to me a savage, anger-fueled beast.
Like in a dream, my feet found themselves and before I knew what had happened, Amelia and I were already sprinting through the forest, weaving between the trees. We knew these woods well but in our panic we lost each other’s hands. I felt her beside me, leaping over small bushes and dodging dark tree trunks, swatting low branches away. My feet felt like rubber beneath me but somehow I pushed on without a single misstep. Amelia kept up, glancing over at me with wide, hopeful eyes. I grinned back. We were both thinking the same thing… stupid boys, these are our woods. Only seconds had passed, but already we felt miles away, moving at lightspeed toward my house.
And then, making my heart sink like a rock, the sound of snapping branches behind us…
Before we could even react, I felt impossibly strong arms around me, snatching me to an abrupt halt. The wind was knocked out of me and I struggled to catch my breath, chest aching, as I looked up into the grinning face of the handsome stranger.