Way of the Shadows

Noelle backed up when she saw the weapon. Her feet slipped on something. She glanced down and saw a twisting mass of rope near her feet.

“Easy,” he told her, and his grip tightened around her arms. “I’m a deputy. We’re all with the Coleman County Sheriff’s Department, and we’re here to take you home.”

She’d...she’d been at home...sleeping in her bed... Noelle remembered that. She’d gone to sleep—and awoken to darkness.

“Sheriff!” Another voice cried out then, breaking with what sounded like fear.

The deputy pulled Noelle close as he hurried toward that cry.

The flashlights all hit the far left corner of the room. They fell on the man sprawled there. A man who was dead—his throat had been cut. The man stared sightlessly back at them while his blood formed a dark pool beneath him.

The deputy’s hold on Noelle tightened. “Who is that?” he demanded.

Noelle started to shake.

“Ms. Evers...” His voice gentled a bit. “Is he one of the men who took you?”

Tears leaked down her cheeks. “I don’t know!”

Voices rose. Shouted. More men and women came inside the cabin. More lights.

Too bright.

Noelle’s shoulders hunched. She looked down at her wrists. They were bloody and raw. And her hands—her hands were stained with blood. So was her gown. The gown she’d worn to sleep when she climbed into her own bed.

This isn’t my home. But she couldn’t remember how she’d gotten there. Noelle only knew darkness.

The deputy pulled off his coat. Carefully, he put it around her shoulders. “Tell me what happened.” He was leading her from the cabin keeping his fingers around her arm. “Get me a medic!” He called out to another one of the men swarming the area.

Then she was outside. The night air was crisp, but she could still smell blood.

Because it’s on me.

“I want to go home,” Noelle whispered. “I want to see my parents.” Noelle was seventeen. She was a sophomore at Coleman High School. She was cheering at the football game on Friday. She was—

Noelle’s knees gave way and she would’ve hit the ground if the deputy hadn’t grabbed her. He lifted her up against his chest, holding her tightly. “Medic!” the deputy yelled.

She wasn’t just shaking any longer. Noelle’s eyes rolled back in her head as giant shudders jolted through her.

The deputy carried her to a gurney. He and the medic strapped her down. “What the hell is happening?”

“Noelle!” She heard the scream distantly, but she knew that voice. It was her mother’s voice. Noelle tried to respond, but she couldn’t speak.

“She’s seizing,” the medic snapped. “We need to get her stable!”

The darkness seemed to close in again. She didn’t want to go back into the dark.

Something bad waited in the dark.

Death waited.

But Noelle couldn’t fight, and the darkness took her once more.

* * *

THE NEXT TIME Noelle’s eyes opened, she was surrounded by a sea of white. The scent of antiseptic told her she was in the hospital even before the room came into focus.

She blinked a few times then saw her mother’s tear-filled gaze. “You’re okay, baby,” her mom whispered.

Noelle didn’t feel okay.

“We need to ask her some questions.”

Noelle’s gaze darted to the left at those words. Her father stood close by. He looked pale, and...older than she’d ever seen him.

Right next to her father, Sheriff Morris Bartley stood, his stare on her. He leaned toward Noelle.

“She just woke up,” her father gritted out.

“I know.” The sheriff sighed. “But she’s the only one who can tell us what happened. I got a dead body, and I got her and I need to know—”

The darkness waited.

Noelle gave a hard, negative shake of her head.

“Noelle, how did you wind up in that cabin?” the sheriff asked her.

“This needs to wait,” her father barked.

The machines around Noelle began to beep, faster, louder.

“Who was the dead man? Is he the one who took you? Is he—”

“I don’t remember,” Noelle whispered. Her throat hurt. She hurt.

The sheriff exhaled on a rough sigh. His hands gripped his hat. “Start with what you know. Tell me who took you from your house. Tell me how you got to that cabin and how—”

“I don’t remember.” Her voice was even softer now.

The sheriff’s brows shot up. “Did you leave your house willingly? Is that what happened? Did you—?”

He didn’t understand. “I don’t...remember anything.”

Her mother gave a little gasp.

“I was in my room, in my bed.” Noelle’s heart galloped in her chest. The machines raced. “Then I was in the dark.” She blinked away the tears that filled her eyes.

Something happened in the dark. Something bad.