PROLOGUE

Rebecca Morris's boots crunched on the coarse desert sand. The night air hung heavy, pressing against her skin. Darkness stretched in every direction, broken only by the faint glow of starlight. The headlights from the red hatchback she’d driven glowed dimly behind her, spotlighting her silhouette and casting it as an inky smear across the arid landscape. She gripped her phone tighter, the anonymous tip burning in her mind.

"This better be worth it," she muttered, scanning the barren landscape.

Her heart raced with anticipation. This could be the story that would make her career. But doubt gnawed at her. What if it was all a wild goose chase?

Rebecca pushed forward, each step deliberate. The promise of revelation drove her onward. Her notepad bounced against her hip with every stride. She'd come prepared to document everything.

If illegal dumping really was happening in this barren land, it could be just the story her editor would showcase on the main page. This was the curse of a journalist's life. A lot of times, one's career depended on stumbling upon the horror that others overlooked, the underside of truth that lurked in the shadows.

She stumbled over an outcrop of rock, quickly steadying herself. Sweat prickled at the base of her neck, trickling down her spine. The night had a deathly stillness to it, a silence that seemed to swallow her very thoughts.

Her phone beeped, pulling her out of her musings. An incoming text message is displayed on the screen. A string of coordinates; her destination. She squinted at the numbers, cross-referencing them with the GPS app she'd downloaded specifically for tonight.

A low hiss slithered into her ears unseen in the darkness. She froze, heart pounding against her ribs. A shiver traced down her spine as the quiet hiss turned into an ominous rattle.

"Shit," Rebecca muttered, recognizing the sound instantly: a rattlesnake.

The creature slithered across the path in front of her, beady eyes peering out into the night, fixated on her, their dark, lidless gaze staring directly at her.

Her skin prickled with fear, the chill of terror creeping up her legs. She was no stranger to Texas fauna, yet a face-to-face encounter with a venomous snake in the middle of nowhere was not something she was prepared for.

She backed away slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements that might provoke the snake into striking. Its rattle continued to reverberate through the silent night air, a grim warning before the danger.

Seeking solace in what little knowledge she had of these deadly creatures, Rebecca remembered that rattlesnakes were more afraid of humans than humans were of them. The hissing stopped abruptly as if the reptile had read her thoughts, but it didn’t slither away. Its gaze remained glued to hers, its forked tongue flickering out intermittently.

She wasn’t a superstitious person but her brow furrowed and she vaguely wondered if perhaps this was a warning.

She gave the snake a wide berth as she trudged down the faint trail in the arid space.

Occasionally, she shot glances back at the creature, eyes fixated on the slithering monster but after a few seconds, the headlights of her sedan timed out, casting the trail in darkness.

Somehow, this was worse.

Now, she couldn’t see the slithering threat. Cursing, she pulled her phone out, turning on the light and illuminating the ground in front of her.

Every fissured patch of mud or discarded stick gave her pause, and she felt her heart skip as she navigated this path of obstacles. She double-checked the anonymous texts she’d received over the last few days, scanning through the information, her eyes wide.

The coordinates led to a place deeper into the desert; an abandoned mineshaft that supposedly held barrels of illegally dumped chemicals. This information could be the key to exposing a major corporation's dirty secret. Rebecca pushed forward, driven by a single-minded pursuit of truth… and more than a little career ambition.

A gust of wind kicked up sand. Rebecca shielded her eyes, squinting into the gloom. Nothing but endless dunes and scrub brush. She checked her phone again. No signal. Signal. No signal.

It kept slipping in and out.

"Dammit," she whispered under her breath, raising the phone to try and catch a better signal.

A sudden rustling sound froze Rebecca in her tracks. Her eyes darted left, then right. Nothing moved in the inky darkness.

"Hello?" she called out, her voice swallowed by the vast emptiness.

Silence answered. Then, a faint scrabbling. Like claws on stone. Rebecca's pulse quickened. She fumbled for her phone’s flashlight, trying to redirect the faint glow.

The beam cut through the night, revealing only sand scattered rocks, and occasional scrubby plants. But something flickered at the edge of the light. A shadow, there and gone in an instant.

Rebecca's breath caught. "Who's there?"

More silence. She took a hesitant step forward, then another. The flashlight beam danced across the desert floor, casting long shadows that seemed to writhe and twist.

A rock shifted underfoot. Rebecca stumbled, catching herself on a nearby boulder. As she steadied herself, her hand brushed against something rough. Not rock. Not sand.

She angled the flashlight. Carved into the boulder's surface was a crude arrow pointing deeper into the desert.

"What the hell?" Rebecca whispered, tracing the arrow with her fingertips.

Her journalistic instincts fired up. This was no natural formation. Someone had left this here. Recently.

Rebecca swept her light along the ground. Another arrow, this one etched in the sand. And beyond it, barely visible, a narrow path snaking between two towering dunes.

She hesitated, glancing back the way she'd come. The sensible thing would be to turn back.

The snake had frazzled her nerves.

But the story beckoned. How many years did most journalists have to wait to find their big break?

Rebecca squared her shoulders and stepped onto the concealed trail. The dunes rose on either side, plunging her into deeper shadow.

"No turning back now," she muttered, pressing forward into the unknown heart of the desert.

The wind picked up, howling through the narrow passage between the dunes. Rebecca shivered, pulling her jacket tighter. The sound was eerie, almost like a distant wail.

Her flashlight flickered, casting dancing shadows on the sandy walls. For a moment, she thought she saw movement in her peripheral vision. She whirled, heart pounding, but there was nothing there.

"Get it together," Rebecca muttered to herself. Her voice sounded small in the vastness of the desert night.

She pressed on, following the winding path. The sand shifted beneath her feet, making each step a struggle. In the distance, something skittered across her path. Too quick for her light to catch.

Rebecca paused, listening intently. Nothing but the wind and her own ragged breathing.

As she rounded a bend, her foot struck something solid. She crouched, brushing away sand to reveal a metal object. A canteen, old and rusted.

"What's this doing out here?" she whispered, turning it over in her hands.

Her fingers found an engraving on the bottom. She angled her light to read it, but she couldn't make out the words.

She stood, scanning the ground around her. There, half-buried in the sand, was a small mound. Unnatural. Deliberate.

She wrinkled her nose, peering closer.

And then a shadow moved again. This time, emerging from behind a granite boulder.

She whirled around, a scream dying on her lips. A figure lunged at her faster than she could react. A scream died on her lips as strong hands grabbed her wrist.

She tried to strike the figure, and her phone went flying.

But the hands moved methodically. They didn’t strike her but rather held her fast. As terror burst in her chest, she felt something click around her wrist. Cold and metal.

The shadowy shape was large, though perhaps that was just from the puffy jacket they wore. A hood obscured the figure’s face. They moved swiftly in the dark, their legs a dark blur.

One moment, they'd emerged from behind the boulder like a wraith. The next, they disappeared again, like melting into shadow. They disappeared around the dune just as quickly.

Rebecca sat in the sand, gasping, adrenaline pounding, terror like ice in her veins.

What the hell…

She stared after the retreating figure, and only then did she glance down at her wrist. A loop of metal bit in her flesh, secured to a chain staked in the ground.

She frowned at the handcuff securing her in the dark.

Pulling futilely on the chain, Rebecca tried to stand but found her range of movement distressingly limited. Her mind raced to make sense of what had just transpired. Was this about the story? Had the corporation found out she was snooping around and decided to scare her off?

A shiver ran up her spine as another thought occurred to her. Maybe this was no warning: she was the story now. She fumbled in her pocket for her phone, only to remember it was gone, lost in the struggle.

"Hello?" Her voice echoed back at her from all sides, chillingly solitary in the vast desert expanse. She squinted into the dark, trying to discern where the shadowy figure had disappeared.

Panic began to set as she tugged at the chain holding her captive. She could hear a faint hissing sound.

Her blood ran cold as she realized what it was.

A rattlesnake's warning cry sounded like a sizzle in a pan. The snake slithered towards her, its body undulating over the sand with eerie grace, its diamond-shaped head raised defensively. Its beady eyes glowed under the frail moonlight, and its forked tongue flickered out testingly.

"No...no," Rebecca murmured, pulling back until she hit the limits of her chain. She had nowhere to go, trapped helplessly as the snake moved closer.

The rattlesnake's tail shook faster and louder, creating an ominous soundtrack that echoed through Rebecca’s racing heart.

It paused a few feet away, just watching her.

“Help!” she screamed. “Someone help!”

But she knew it was futile. She was out in the middle of nowhere, all she was accomplishing now was to further attract the rattler’s attention.

She tried not to look at it. Don’t meet it’s eyes… or was that dogs?

What was the key with snakes?

Shit… That person chained her here. Left her here…

Had lured her here?

It seemed likely now.

“Shit,” she whispered. “Shit… shit… shit !” her voice echoed dully.

The snake still remained on the ground, coiled in the sand, motionless.

The dunes loomed large around her, the narrow gap between them a menacing black void in the stark desert night. Rebecca frantically tugged at the chain, the coarse metal biting into her soft flesh. Panic fully gripped her, the wild terror pricking at the corners of her mind like a relentless nightmare.

The wind picked up, carrying with it a low, haunting moan as it cut through the sinewy crevices of the sand formations. Tiny grains of sand whirled around her in frenzied bursts.

Her eyes darted around in wild desperation, trying to spot any signs of the dark figure who had chained her here. But all she saw was an endless expanse of shadows, the gloom pressing in on her from all sides.

Once again, she yanked violently at the chain holding her captive - this time a sharp pain shot up her arm. It was useless. The metal cuff was securely fastened around her wrist, and the other end firmly rooted into the ground.

She was trapped.

“No… No, please!” she cried.

She realized she was calling out for the man who’d left her here. As if somehow he might change his mind and return to free her. But the desert was silent save for the rattlesnake's deathly hiss.

Rebecca's breath hitched as the snake uncoiled and began its slow approach. The rattling sound grew louder with each moment, echoing in her ears like a death knell. Its beady, unblinking eyes stared back at her, reflecting the moonlight and her fear.

"No! Back off!" she yelled. She kicked sand toward the creature, but it only seemed to agitate it more. The rattling became a frantic buzz, the sound ricocheting off the dunes around them.

She could feel tears streaming down her face, carving cold trails through the dust and sand clinging to her skin. Her heart pounded in her chest, a frenzied drum against her ribs as she pulled one more time on the chain securing her to this nightmare.

Her fingers groped at the sand around her, looking for something, anything that could help. She found a sharp-edged stone and grasped it like a lifeline, swinging it toward the snake when it moved too close.

The rattlesnake lunged suddenly, its diamond-shaped head darting forward quicker than she could react. She shrieked as pain erupted in her ankle, white-hot and searing.

She dropped the stone, clutching at her leg where two small puncture wounds marred her skin. The snake retreated, backed off into a coil once more, its mission accomplished.

"No..." Rebecca whimpered. She could feel a strange heat spreading from the bite marks, crawling up her leg like an insidious tide.

And then she spotted the figure.

Standing on the dune.

Watching.

Just watching.

Something gleamed in their hand.

A scope? A rifle, she realized.

But shock was setting in now. The figure moved casually on the slope. The rifle raised to their shoulder.

“No…” Rebecca muttered, her voice slurred strangely. The shock was now spreading… The pain immense.

She stared at the glinting, wicked eye of the scope. A sniper rifle… aimed right at her.

"No…" she pleaded again, but it was no use.

The figure didn’t move. They only watched.

Rebecca's vision blurred, the edges of her sight darkening as the venom took effect. She fought against the growing weakness, struggled to keep her eyes open. The rattlesnake was a dim outline in the dusk and dust now, obscured by her failing sight.

Her breath came in short gasps as she grappled with the pain that was spreading up her leg. Her heart pounded in her chest, a frantic drumbeat echoing in her ears as she struggled to hold onto consciousness.

She risked a glance toward the figure again and found them still there, watching from the dune.

“Please…” It was a whisper now. A prayer.

But the figure didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t react.

The sand underneath Rebecca began to feel cold. Her body trembled uncontrollably as shock set in, and she could no longer feel the bite on her ankle. All she knew was that she was growing weaker by the second.

"No..." Rebecca's voice was barely a whisper now, slipping through her dry lips as she fought to stay conscious.

She looked towards the figure one last time, pleading silently for mercy... for help... for anything but this cold abandonment. The wind howled around her, whipping her hair across her face and stinging her skin with icy gusts of sand.

And only then did he fire.

Crack. The gunshot tore through the night.

She knew no more.