Page 67 of Dark Side of the Cloth (The Righteous 1)
Yasmine had no idea how she’d gotten so lost and turned around. She’d stayed on Dean like a fly on shit, more determined with each mile that she wanted to know what he was doing when suddenly he just disappeared. One moment he was in front of her, and then the next, he was gone. She’d watched enough police shows to know she needed to keep a fair distance back not to be discovered, but still.
This was the last possible road that he could have turned down, and she’d missed it the last million times she drove past it. There was no sign marking its entrance, and even with the snow and ice, the surrounding trees were so overgrown they practically covered the entrance. Why people created roads and then didn’t mark them was beyond her.
Yasmine slowly pulled the car onto the unmaintained road and almost immediately regretted it. Her teeth rattled in her head as she tried to hold the violently vibrating car on the road. The car lurched to her right and then back left, and she unceremoniously smacked her head against the glass.
“Ouch!” She rubbed her head and the spot she was sure she was going to have a bruise. “What the hell am I doing?” she mumbled.
She should turn around and go home. She had a funeral later this week, and she should be making the necessary preparations, but no. Instead, she was out here traipsing around looking for Dean or someone she thought was Dean. For all she knew, it wasn’t him, and he was back at the church or had come to see her, and she wasn’t home.
Yasmine sighed.
The sun was almost gone, and the dark forest on either side was not doing anything to calm the nerves. There was a small gap in the trees, and she slowly pulled into it to turn around and go home, but as her beams shone into the forest, there it was, the shiny black Hummer. She clung onto the steering wheel, eyes glued to the impressive vehicle. What the hell was she even going to say to Dean if it was indeed Dean?
Hey, I saw you this morning and decided to stalk you? Hope you don’t mind me chasing you down into the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. What do you say we grab a coffee since I already drank the thermos I brought for us?
“I’m ridiculous.”
She put the car in reverse to do as she intended and go the hell home…but she just couldn’t.
“Shit!”
Slamming the car into park, she killed the engine and suddenly realized just how dark it had become. She bundled up and tentatively stepped out of her very warm car to stand in the darkening forest. Yasmine’s eyes scanned the area as a shiver raced down her spine, and she zipped her coat up tight.
What would he even be doing out here? A retreat may be—a time alone in the woods type thing? Rough it with the wilderness? Did he need to refocus and ask for forgiveness for what the two of them had done last night?
The thought of Dean asking God for forgiveness for liking her, hurt. It was stupid, but she wanted a life with him. She wanted him to throw the collar to the ground and claim she was more important.
Yasmine closed her door, and her feet crunched on the icy surface as she neared the black vehicle. She hadn’t made it a dozen strides when a scream reached her ears—the terror-filled noise freezing her in place.
Oh God, what if Dean was hurt out here?
The pain-filled scream came again, and going against her instincts, she turned toward the sound and moved as quick as she dared. Each yell filled her with more dread. She didn’t even have a weapon. Besides, what could she do that Dean couldn’t? Pulling out her phone, her hand shook, and she cursed as her phone showed no service and that her battery was almost dead.
Brilliant.
The scream was much louder when it came this time, and she picked up her pace to a slow jog. Please let her be in time to save him from… she had no idea what, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to let him die after she’d had the revelation of her feelings for him.
Yasmine pulled up to a halt as the scream sounded, and she realized she was heading the wrong way. She was in shape, but she wasn’t one to work out all the time, and her lungs burned with the physical exertion in the cold air.
A soft glow barely able to be seen was off to her left, and like a-moth-to-a-flame, she turned and resumed her pace. The shrill sound that reached her ears made her blood run cold. Yasmine paused as she neared what looked to be a break in the trees. She scanned the snowy ground. Only finding a stick, she gripped it in her hand, took a deep breath, and ran full speed toward the light.
She burst through the forest and skidded to a stop. Her mind couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. A man that she didn’t recognize was strung up between two trees. His limbs pulled so tight that he made an X as he hovered a couple of feet off the ground. He’d been stripped naked, and his blood ran in long streams down his body that looked bright against his pale skin, even in the darkness. She blinked a few times, taking a moment for her brain to register that the man’s left side was void of skin. It lay in a pile on the ground like a miniature mountain of discarded flesh.
Oh, my God, he’s being flayed alive.
She shook involuntarily as her body caught up to what her brain was screaming in her head. Muscle and bone were exposed haphazardly across his body. She knew her anatomy, and nothing had been done that would kill him yet, but she couldn’t begin to imagine the pain. A hysterical bubble of laughter stuck in the back of her throat.This was insane!
The man holding the intimidating blade turned toward her, and she dropped the stick, hands going to her mouth as her mind became void of any further thought.
Dean was dressed in all black, his face streaked with paint like she’d only ever seen in movies. Weapons adorned his body like jewelry. The hands that had shown her so much pleasure the night before squeezed the knife tighter, showing off the ripple of muscle in his forearm. A flash of his hand around her neck raced through her mind, and bile hit the back of her throat.
“Yasmine?”
Her name on Dean’s lips had her eyes finally meeting his, the eyes of the man she thought of as a kind and generous man. Flawed yes, they’d proven that last night, but this? The man that she loved was—no, this couldn’t be happening. There was some mistake. Dean took a step toward her, and as he did, the blade glinted in the swinging lantern light. She could see the fresh blood dripping off the end…Run!She turned and sprinted back the way she’d come.
She had no idea where she was going. She’d been so consumed with fear for Dean’s safety that she hadn’t stopped to mark a trail. Stupidly, she looked over her shoulder, slammed into a tree, and yelped as the impact stopped her cold. He was coming for her. She could hear him getting closer. Clamping a hand over her mouth, she spun in a circle, trying to remember where her car was. Grabbing her car keys, she frantically pushed the button for the alarm, but nothing sounded, nothing flashed.
“Yasmine, stop!” Dean yelled.
