But if she could get to one of the thicker parts of the forest—maybe find a bamboo grove or a swampy area with water to sink beneath—she might be able to lay low long enough for Clay to lose her trail.

“Stop, Harley,” he shouted, sounding close but not dangerously so, not yet. “The longer you run, the worse it’s going to be for you when I catch you.”

Worse than nearly choking me to death? But she didn’t speak; she couldn’t afford to waste her breath.

She ran faster, weaving around trees as she followed the gentle slope of the hill down into a stiller place, where the air was thick and humid and the sea breeze was a distant memory. Sweat dripped down her forehead to sting into her eyes; she blinked it away and pushed harder. Clay was losing ground. His footfalls were farther away now and a hiding place was in sight.

At the base of the hill was a vast patch of thick, prickly-looking bushes interspersed with bright green ferns that stretched all the way to a moss-covered bluff on the far side of the small valley. If she could get deep enough into the press of growth and lie still, it would be nearly impossible for Clay to find her.

She reached the edge of the low-growing shrubs and dove to the ground, scrambling forward on her hands and knees beneath the thick foliage. Her hands sank into the moist soil and the sharp edges of roots sticking up through the earth tore the skin on her knees, but she kept crawling as fast as she could, putting ground between her and Clay. She heard him curse, followed by the sound of brush behind violently swatted aside, and dared to hope that her plan was going to work.

Without a machete, there was no way Clay would be able to walk through the dense growth and he was so large it would be a tight fit for him low to the ground. Harley was half his size and as the brush thickened, she was forced onto her forearms in order to squeeze between the increasingly close trunks of the bushes. If she were doing anything but running for her life, she would be fighting a panic attack.

She hated tight spaces. She and Hannah both suffered from claustrophobia. Hannah blamed hers on the time Harley had accidentally locked her in their secret attic hideout when they were kids. Harley blamed her own on the night she’d spent inside her ex-boyfriend’s trunk in high school.

She had broken up with Kerry—casually mentioning that she’d already invited her new man to her pool party next weekend and that Kerry should consider himself uninvited. He responded by throwing her in his trunk, slamming it closed, and shouting that he was going to drive the car into a lake and watch her drown.

She spent the next five hours sweating and shaking with fear as he drove around the back roads, stopping often enough that she was in a constant state of terror, certain the car was about to roll into the water. Finally, just after dawn, he let her out on the front lawn of their private prep school, about thirty minutes after she’d lost control of her bladder. He took pictures of her mascara-streaked face and the piss stains on the front of her jeans and then drove off with her purse in his backseat.

She walked the ten miles home, flipping off the one sweet little old lady who stopped to ask if she was okay. She didn’t want anyone to see her like that and asking for help would have been admitting that she needed it. Instead, she stewed the entire way home, plotting the perfect revenge for Kerry—which she pulled off without a hitch, without regret, and without getting caught, just the way her father had taught her.

Back then, there was nothing she’d hated more than being vulnerable. To be vulnerable was to be like her mother, a woman who had let a man destroy her without even putting up a fight.

But right now, she would welcome help with open arms. She would even welcome her father or Marlowe waiting at the edge of the forest with a gun. Sure, they were devils, but they were the devils she knew.

She didn’t know Clay, not anymore, and that scared her as much as anything else. If he caught her again, she had no idea how to make him dance to her tune. Here there was only Clay’s music and her blood flowing out to coat the dance floor.

Stifling a whimper as a root poked at her wound through the towel, she wriggled into a shadowed place between four larger bushes and curled into a tight ball. She tucked her chin to her chest and fought to slow her breath, not wanting to give Clay any clue where she was hiding. Her ears strained and after a moment she heard a soft grunt and another rustle of leaves from far to her left. It didn’t sound like he’d made it far through the bushes and she couldn’t see any sign of his feet.

She bit her lip as she turned to gauge how far it was to the bluff on the other side of the brush. Would it be better to keep moving and put even more distance between her and Clay? Surely she could find another place to hide—the forest was ridiculously dense—and maybe that place wouldn’t have beetles the size of her hand crawling over her bare legs and mosquitoes swarming around her bloodied knees.

And even more importantly, Clay would have no idea where to start looking for her.

Trusting her gut, she rolled back over and belly crawled slowly through the last of the dense bushes, trying not to make a sound. After only a few minutes, the small trunks began to grow farther apart again as the shrubs thinned near the edge of the grove. She came back onto her hands and knees, but kept her slower pace, not wanting Clay to see her when she emerged.

She was nearly to the wide, leaf-scattered stones at the base of the cliff, where enough sun filtered through the leaves that she was grateful that her hair was no longer sunlight-catching blond, when footfalls sounded from her left. She jerked her head to the side to see Clay sprinting straight for her.

He’d gone around the bushes, not through!

With a strangled cry, Harley lurched to her feet and turned to run only to skid to a stop when something long and dark sprung up from the ground in front of her.

She flinched then froze, eyes going wide as an ominous hissing filled the air.

Chapter Nine

Clay

The snake was a king cobra, at least twelve feet long, reared up on its belly with its hooded head even with Harley’s chest. Thankfully, she’d had the sense to stop running, but the animal clearly still felt threatened. It could strike at any second and Harley wouldn’t have time to blink, let alone dodge the attack, before the snake’s fangs were in her.

“That’s a king cobra,” he said in a soft, soothing voice. “One of the most venomous snakes in the world.”

“I know,” she whispered, summoning another long, witch’s hiss from the creature.

“Don’t talk,” he warned gently. “Just listen. I’m going to come up very slowly behind you. Don’t turn to look at me and don’t make any sudden movements until I tell you to.”

Keeping an eye on the snake, Clay slowly stripped off his white tee shirt and clenched it lightly in his hand. He eased a foot closer and then another, his steps silent on the warm stones where the cobra had been sunning itself. “Now in just a second, I’m going to throw my shirt on the ground just ahead of you to your left. As soon as you see it in your peripheral vision, turn and run toward me as fast as you can. I’ll get out of your way and follow behind you. The snake should attack the shirt and give us enough time to get away before it can recover for a second strike.”

“And if it doesn’t?” she said, so softly he could barely hear her.