Page 96 of Ride or Die

A sharp crack outside.

A twig snapping, maybe?

My whole body goes rigid.

The sound echoes through me, pulling old terror from places where I thought I’d buried it deep. My throat tightens. Every instinct screams at me to wake Cole, to make sure the doors arelocked, to hide. But another sound follows. A low scrape beneath the bedroom window.

I slide carefully out of bed, the floorboards creaking beneath my bare feet. I glance back at Cole, but he doesn’t stir.

The curtains drift slightly in the breeze from the ceiling fan and I reach for them with trembling fingers, pulling one edge aside and peering outside.

At first I see only darkness. The muted light of the moon laced through the trees that line the back of the property. But then I see something. Someone. A shadow standing near the fence line beneath the dying oak tree.

Him.

Cain.

My breath stops.

He’s half-swallowed by the shadows, but I know the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head.

He found us. And he’s here. Watching the house. Watching me.

My pulse pounds louder and louder until it almost sounds like footsteps. I stumble backward from the window. Behind me, Cole shifts in his sleep and mumbles something I can’t make out.

“Clara…” Cain’s gravelly voice calls softly from outside, low and dangerous, almost lost to the wind as it howls through the trees.

My blood runs cold.

“Come outside. Now.”

I know I should wake Cole. But it’s like I’m trapped in some sort of fog.

I leave the room. The hallway stretches longer than it should as I walk through it. Tom and Billie’s bedroom door hangs slightly open, and for one horrible second I think I see two small figures standing inside, staring out at me with hollow, blackeyes. I blink hard enough to see straight, but when I find the room empty, a violent rush of panic surges through me.

I run to the front door, a sob bubbling up the back of my throat when I see it’s ajar.

Wind rushes against me the second I step out onto the porch. The night smells like wet dirt and horses. Somewhere far off in the distance is a chorus of howls and barks. Coyotes?

Another twig snaps, ricocheting through the silence of the night and I turn to find Cain standing at the edge of the yard, his Harley Davidson parked at the end of the dirt drive, gleaming beneath the glow of the moon.

“You found me,” I say, though my voice sounds distant, and nothing like me.

He smiles. God, I hate that fucking smile.

“You really thought you could just disappear?”

“You don’t get to scare me anymore, Cain,” I whisper, my words shaky as I force my jelly legs down the porch steps even though every part of me screams not to. Gravel crunches beneath my feet, hard and sharp, cutting me deep, but I need to find Billie and Tommy. I need to save them from him.

Eyeing Cole’s truck, I mentally calculate how many steps it might take to get to it. He keeps a gun under the seat. He said so himself. If I could just?—

“That cowboy makin’ you brave, Clara?”

Something in the air changes. Suddenly the yard feels wrong; too big, too empty. The fence posts stretch impossibly high into the dark sky. The old cottonwood twists overhead like a hand of bony fingers reaching for me.

Cain takes one slow step toward me and his face changes. Cold and emotionless. He moves closer and I smell cigarette smoke and rainwater, and that metallic scent of old blood. I backup instinctively, but I keep my chin lifted in a show of confidence I sure as shit don’t feel in my gut.

“You should’ve stayed,” he grits out.