Page 166 of Hide And Seek

A throat cleared loudly nearby, and we broke apart. The paramedic was standing at the ambulance doors, staring at us.

“Sir,” he said, forehead creasing. “I did mention that unnecessary movement could tear the wound site and significantly worsen the resulting scar.”

Rhys didn’t even look away from me. A slow grin spread across his face.

“It's okay,” he said, leaning in like he was about to kiss me again. “My girlfriend thinks scars are sexy.”

Epilogue

Three yearslater

A branch whippedacross my shoulder as I pushed through the trees, boots sinking into damp earth scattered with dead leaves and pine needles. Somewhere behind me, almost hidden beneath the endless chorus of insects and rustling branches, I heard another set of footsteps moving in the dark.

Slow and steady.

That was the worst part about being hunted by Rhys. He never sounded frantic or desperate. He just moved through the woods with the same calm and patience he brought to everything else, like he already knew exactly how it would end and was simply enjoying the process of getting there.

I ducked beneath another low branch. My pulse was hammering hard enough to hurt now, adrenaline buzzing beneath my skin, but underneath all of that was something else too. Something hot and anticipatory that only grew more intense every time I heard him getting closer.

Three years ago, this would've felt like a nightmare.

Now it just felt like foreplay.

A little laugh escaped me at the thought, breathless and disbelieving, because if somebody had shown a younger me a snapshot of this moment, she would've thought she'd completely lost her mind.

Maybe she would've been right.

I vaulted over a fallen log and nearly slipped on the wet bark before catching myself at the last second. Somewhere behind me, Rhys chuckled softly.

“There you are,” he called.

“Fuck off,” I shot back, trying not to smile.

“No, seriously. I almost lost you for a minute there. I’m proud of you, baby.”

I rolled my eyes even as heat bloomed in my chest. Then I took off again, weaving faster between the trees now, lungs burning from exertion while our secluded little lake house disappeared farther behind me with every step.

Rhys had bought the house after I suggested that it might be nice to have our own vacation place to escape the city on occasion, and he’d taken that as permission to turn the surrounding woods into his own private psychopath playground.

Tripwires. False trails. Buried speakers that occasionally whispered my name just to fuck with me.

A branch snapped somewhere off to my right. I pivoted sharply, changing direction toward the creek, heart thudding faster as another laugh drifted through the darkness behind me. He sounded closer now. Much closer.

Shit.

I broke into a faster run, ducking between two massive pine trees just as my foot caught against something thin stretched low across the ground.

The line snapped taut instantly.

“Oh, you mother—”

The net jerked violently upward around me before I could finish the sentence, yanking me off balance hard enough that a shriek tore out of me. Leaves exploded beneath me while the hidden mechanism tightened, pinning my legs together and trapping one of my arms awkwardly against my chest.

For a few stunned seconds, I just lay there tangled in rope and netting, breathing hard. Then slow footsteps crunched through the leaves nearby.

Rhys emerged from between the trees a second later, dark hoodie sleeves pushed up to his elbows. His mouth twitched as he looked at me trapped in the net.

“Twenty-nine minutes,” he said. “That’s a new personal best.”