Chapter 3

Kate

He's massive, as big as one of the tree trunks that surround us like the bars of a prison cell. The lower half of his face is obscured by a metal mask, slightly pointed in the center, like a shallow beak. Chains hang off the sides of it, clanking as the man wraps the fingers of one huge hand around my upper arm.

With the other, he pulls down his mask.

Bats click and squeak as they swarm overhead, and the wind tousles heavy tree limbs above us. I realize I'm pointing the flashlight directly at the man's eyes, but he doesn't seem to care. He lets the metal mask hang off his face, like a pair of spectacles on a strap.

His mouth is smeared with blood, and when he smiles, I can see in the shape of his teeth that he means no good things for me.

I swing the heavy flashlight at his arm, knocking hard into muscle and bone. He grunts, but he doesn't release me. Instead, he reaches out with his boot and slams it down hard on my foot.

I try not to scream.

I really do.

I make every attempt to keep my mouth shut as he grinds his heel into me, and my vision flickers between white and black. I'm in too much pain to stop him from stealing the knife off my belt, inked fingers wrapping the hilt before he tosses it into the foliage like so much trash.

There goes my only weapon.

The stranger lifts a hand toward my face, and I jerk backward on instinct. The pressure of his foot on mine is too much, and I end up falling to the hard-packed earth, teeth slamming together in my skull.

Don't yell, Kate. Don't say a word.

My hands scramble around in the dirt, looking for a makeshift weapon. The flashlight is lying several feet away from me, its beam uselessly pointed at a random spot in the distant forest. I'm betting on finding a stick somewhere close by, but there's nothing.

Dirt, leaves, pine needles.

A sound, like two stones clacking together, draws my attention up.

My attacker is standing above me, his foot still pressed down hard on top of mine. He's holding two glowing red stones that cast strange shadows on his face and the pointed black hat atop his head. Bones and sticks and bits of rolled paper are pinned all over it, swaying in the breeze. Purple mushrooms bloom on the brim like a bruise.

His eyes narrow when I lunge toward his leg, grabbing on and doing the only thing I can think of doing.

I bite him.

Doesn't do much, my teeth squeezing down on tough leather over yet more muscle. The man grabs me by the hair and yanks me back, releasing his grip on my foot at the same time. Pain fissures through my scalp, but that doesn't stop me from throwing a punch at his crotch.

The asshole is as nimble as he is strong. He keeps one hand wrapped in my hair and uses the other to knock the blow aside before I'm able to pulverize his dick. The motion brings him down to the ground with me, and somehow my situation gets worse.

I'm wrestled into submission, pushed into a bed of moss, crushed underneath him. He pins my wrists, climbing over me with hooded black eyes and hair like an oil slick on water. He's as iridescent and pretty as the other disturbing things that live here. The shadows cast by the red stones shift, fanning out across the tree trunks behind him like the wings of a bat.

Or a demon.

He slides one leather-clad knee through the dirt, grinding it into my crotch. His entire body bears down on me, discomfort morphing into pain. It hurts so bad. So fucking bad.

I groan, but I don't speak, thrashing helplessly underneath him and wondering why my grandmother never warned me about this. She wrote about the mystery and magic of the woods, about the way they let her see beyond, helped her realize once and for all that there's more out there than just the reality we see.

My experience is different, painful, terrifying.

The man with blood on his lips is staring down at me not with hatred, but with reluctant determination, like this is something he doesn't want to do but rather something he has to. There's a familiarity to his face that I'm not expecting, but that I can't place.

Either he's someone I only know in passing or else it's the darkness, pressing in all around us. Maybe I just can't see his face well enough to be sure?

A humming sound fills the air, and the man's head snaps up. He hums something back, a low, dark sound in his throat that mixes with the wind. Another owl sounds off. I can hear flies buzzing somewhere close, and the sound unnerves me.

The man looks down at me again, charms on his hat swaying, mask hanging low enough that it knocks into my chin when he leans close. His tongue touches the edge of my mouth, slips along that shuttered seam. The pressure on my crotch lets up, his knee gliding seductively over the denim of my overalls instead of crushing my pelvis to dust.

It doesn't hurt as much, but it's clearly intended to elicit a response from me. He wants me to talk. To be trapped here.

Why?

I go limp, trying out a new theory. This man—or whatever he is—wants me to talk, so all I have to do is ... not talk. No matter what. Easier said than done. I want to scream at him, call him every name in the book, demand to know what it is that he wants from me.

I don't.

The man releases my wrists and sits up, keeping me pinned underneath his knee. I reach for a handful of dirt to chuck at his face, but he pulls the brim of his witch hat down to block it. I can see a blood-tainted smirk on his face as he swings a leather bag over one shoulder and withdraws a small black board and something white that he uses to write with.

Tell me to stop, and I will.

That's what the board says when he turns it to face me.

I glare back at him, digging my fingers into the wet earth and shivering when I feel something slimy. Probably another banana slug. Hopefully a much smaller one than the beast I saw earlier.

The man hands the board to me, and I take it, my foot throbbing, and my core aching. He's put most of his body weight right where it hurts. I study him with what little light there is and ... something clicks. I can hear Georgia's voice in my head.

" Disappeared? That man is stone-cold dead . How many people have disappeared in the Witchwoods in the last seventy years? Four dozen? You think they're all just missing?"

That man, the one we were talking about who disappeared twenty years ago.

Marlowe Waverley. That's what I write on the board, and then I pass it back to him. He stares at it for a moment and then shakes his head, scribbles something else out. Shows it to me.

I will go as far as I need to go.

My turn to write.

Tell me why. There's not enough room to ask all of the questions that I need to ask, but I hope that's enough to distract him until I can figure out a way to escape. Maybe if he gets me to talk, I take his place or something? A flurry of old legends are ricocheting through my brain and after what I've just seen, I don't discount any of them.

Doesn't matter. Talk or I'm going to fuck you. He shrugs as he shows me the board, and my skin goes cold. My hands are shaking when I accept it back.

If you tell me, I'll say something. I just want to know why.

He smiles and shakes his head, flashing his next message.

Talk. Now.

I shake my head and write: No explanation, no words.

His lip curls up with frustration, and he spins the chalkboard around, leaning close to make sure that I can read it.

Last chance before I fuck you.

I lunge for him again, shoving my palm against the metal mask and driving it into his face. He growls, but he doesn't go anywhere. Doesn't flinch when I fling another handful of dirt at him.

He chucks the board aside and grabs my wrists again, presses them hard enough into the ground that I grit my teeth. Harder. A moan of pain escapes me, and I writhe, but he's ridiculously strong and I'm not going anywhere.

Fuck. I want to say that, too, but I won't let the word out. If this guy is Marlowe Waverley, a man nicknamed Lo by the friends and family he left behind, then he's proof that a person can and will get stuck in the Witchwoods.

Permanently.

Also, I notice that he hasn't aged much—if it all.

That makes me even more determined to keep my mouth shut.

I jerk violently against him as he uses his free hand to reach down, unbuckling my overalls before pushing my shirt up and over my bra. His eyes, cast in a red sheen from the stones, stare down at me as his fingers trail from my belly to my belt, featherlight touches that skim over my goose bumps.

There's a violation in his touch, but my body responds on its own with a small shudder. Against my will. All of it is against my will. I just want to get out of here, find Flick, and call Georgia. We'll have some drinks and some sweet potato fries at the brewery, and this night will fade into distant memory.

His fingers unbuckle my belt with deft ferocity, and then his hand dives in, brushing down my panties to cup my core. He squeezes hard , and I snap my teeth at his tongue when he tries to kiss me again. Almost get him, too, but he moves out of the way too quickly to suffer any damage.

His nostrils flare, and a muscle in his jaw ticks in anger.

Our gazes are stuck together, like a pair of wild animals with locked horns. A fingertip edges down my thigh, tracing the edge of my underwear. My breathing is labored, angry and frantic. His is the same. A curl of icy wind tousles the hair on his forehead, and the boughs above us crack and settle, like broken bones.

He slips a single finger beneath the cotton, petting the silken opening that he isn't allowed to breach. A second finger joins it. He strokes me, trying to draw out words or wetness or both. He'll get none of it.

I narrow my eyes; he widens his.

Both fingers drive into me, all the way to the knuckle. I choke on a surprised gasp. Just a gasp. Not a word. He has big hands, and he's stretching me wide. It's an achy, almost painful feeling. I'm not aroused. I'm not ready. His thumb, rough and warm, searches out my clit.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

"Stop!" I scream, and he slips his fingers out of me like they're on fire. I'm panting now, but mostly out of rage. If I'm going to be stuck in the Witchwoods, then I'm going to kill this Marlowe Waverley.

My hands fumble to hook my belt, a pathetic attempt to soothe the sense of betrayal and trespass. Marlowe pushes the brim of his hat up, gaze scanning the trees. A shriek splits the night, followed by another wild hum.

The sound kicks him into action.

"Run!" he snarls at me, snatching me by the hand and yanking me to my feet.

He's running so quickly that I can't keep up.

I stumble and then fall before I understand why we're running at all. The darkness has swarmed over us, those red stones abandoned along with the flashlight. Marlowe hums again, loud and frantic, and then snaps two more stones together. These ones are orange, and he doesn't hesitate to shove one into my palm, keeping the other for himself.

Screw this guy.

What could we be running from that's worse than him ?

I take off in the opposite direction, racing back toward the edge of the woods. I spoke, yes, but I have to at least try to get out of here. Most importantly, I need to get away from the man who just assaulted me.

He snatches me around the waist and throws me over his shoulder, sprinting through the woods as I struggle against him. The urge to scream is there, but I have this strange, innate sense that even if I shouldn't have talked at all, that talking more is a bad idea.

I put both hands over the glowing stone, and I nail Marlowe in the base of his spine with it. He growls at me, skidding to a stop and throwing me forward. I hit the ground hard and roll to my side only to come face-to-face with a skeleton, decaying flesh stretched over its bleached bones, dirty blond hair billowing in the wind.

I kick myself across the ground and away from it, holding up the stone to see what it is I'm looking at.

A hole. Filled with dead bodies. Buzzing with flies.

"If you don't want to end up in that pit, then get the fuck up and let's go. " Marlowe shoves the metal mask over his face and snatches my wrist, yanking me along with him. I can hear something with big wings flapping above us, but it's just barely audible over the wind.

Marlowe hums again, and I hear the sound echoed back at him from the woods. He drags me into the split trunk of a massive tree and then yanks the back of my body against his front. One big hand slides over my mouth.

I don't struggle because I can hear something approaching from outside.

It stops just beyond the tree, and I wonder what the hell we're going to do now. We're trapped in here; the only way out is the way we came in. Above our heads, tiny clovers glow, doing their best to illuminate the darkness.

The thing comes to a stop and then leans in.

I see a face emerging from the shadows, something human but not. It has human lips and very human eyes—blue, wide, expressive. They're rimmed with dark lashes and set above pale white cheeks. But the thing looking back at me has a yellow beak instead of a nose, and its face is surrounded by feathers.

I drop the stone in my hand, and it bounces out of the tree to rest at the clawed bird feet below. There are brown feathers just above, laced with some sort of pattern in white and gold and black. As the creature—which seems to be a gigantic owl with a human face—comes closer, Marlowe uses his free hand to cover my eyes.

A smell hits me then, like rotten meat. Roadkill. A dead, forgotten animal in an attic. Sickly sweet. Conjuring an image of maggots and flies.

" Is this what death looks like?" a woman whispers in shaky, broken tones. Is that ... the owl thing? It's definitely not Marlowe.

He hums loudly and frantically, waits. Listens. There's an answering hum, and then the sound of the bird shifting violently. It lets out a cawing screech and then takes off. I shove Marlowe's hand from my eyes in time to see its tail feathers lifting out of the scant light from the stone.

Marlowe flees the tree, dragging me with him, and I realize that my choices now are to get stuck with the man who assaulted me or the giant owl with human lips and, presumably, a pit of dead victims.

Unless the bird isn't the bad guy here. But I can't dismiss the smell that emanated from it, an uneasy feeling taking root in my chest.

I choke on the cloying cling of that scent, the greasy feel of it on the back of my tongue, stumbling to keep up with Marlowe and finding it impossible. My heart is beating in my throat, and I'm getting dizzy. Everything is dark but for the snatches of glowing flowers or animals, stags and cats and crows.

Unlike before, they're all looking at me now.

The forest spirits' heads snap to follow as we speed past them, and I can hear them moaning or crying behind me. "We tried!" they sing, and I don't know how to respond to that.

We skid to a stop before another tree, and Marlowe digs his hand into a knot of wood, yanking a hidden door open.

I hesitate.

Even with the smell of carrion, I hesitate.

Marlowe shoves me in the center of the back, and I go sprawling onto a wooden landing before he steps in and slams the door behind me.