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Callista is a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them.
Don’t be so sure. You seem to have forgotten your place. Perhaps you need to be reminded of it.
My blood runs as cold as the rain falling around me as I reread words because I know them for what they truly are—a very real threat to the woman I’m not so sure I can live without anymore.
Everything has changed.
I stare at the screen, trying to remember what it was like before my entire life was turned upside down, before she came into it and literally flipped everything on its head.
But I can’t.
Because I wasn’t really living then.
I was merely going through the motions. Sleepwalking through each day and night. Caring for the house and the land and doing the dirtiest part of the Barker family work.
And I never could have imagined the decision I made thirty years ago that set me on that path would throw her directly into the crucible.
My hands tremble as I type, my barely contained rage making me see red despite the darkness surrounding me.
You better not touch her.
I send my response, but deep down, I already know what the next reply will say.
It pops up and validates my worst fear.
An empty threat from a man who hasn’t left the mountain in 30 years.
Callista isn’t back when she promised to be.
Something happened to her to prevent her from returning. And it wasn’t her leaving town with her dad like I had feared.
It’s something much, much worse.
I grab my axe from the ground and storm toward the edge of the clearing, unadulterated fury coursing through my veins, making my muscles tighten almost painfully.
There’s only one thing I can do.
I have to go after her.
The thought of leaving the mountain after three decades turns my stomach, but she’s too important. I can’t lose her. No matter how difficult it might be for me to face what waits below.
I run toward the trail leading to the house, but Gray steps out from the tree line, blocking my path and advancing on me slowly, cautiously after our last confrontation.
He knows he did wrong.
The penitent look on his angular face and the soft furrow of his brow are all the evidence I need to know he won’t do it again and how concerned he is about my frantic behavior.
I burrow my fingers into his thick fur, rubbing across his neck as he leans into my touch. “I have to go, boy.”
He quirks his head at me, confusion written in his yellow gaze.
I’ve been with him up here every single day of his life. Never left him. Never left the mountain. But now, I don’t have a choice. I have to go find her, make sure she’s all right, and bring her back—regardless of what or who may try to stand in my way.
Pushing past him, I run toward the house. The sound of his paws hitting the damp earth behind me fills my ears as a river of guilt and regret, the same curse I’ve lived with for so long, suddenly charts a new course.
Away from the lives I took and couldn’t protect back then to the one in peril now.
I should have known this would happen, that growing close to her would only put her in more danger, that allowing things to go this far with her would put a target on her back.
