The Bones She Buried

Prologue

The screams followed her, echoing all around her as she sprinted along the ridge and fled into the darkness, her feet scrabbling over the brush and loose stones. To her right was a sheer drop, hundreds of feet down. She didn’t know just how far, but she knew the fall would be enough to kill her. To her left was a wall of dense forest.

When the first gunshot sounded, she veered left into the trees.

Branches slapped at her arms and face, slicing thin ribbons of blood into her fair skin. A tree root snagged her toes, sending her flying. Leaves and stones rose up to meet her and her elbow cracked against a large rock, sending an agonizing shot of pain through her arm and up into her skull. Still, she heard the screaming in the distance. Her breath came in gasps as she scrambled to her feet, holding her elbow close to her body. Tears leaked from her eyes, but panic and the will to survive drove her deeper into the forest.

Another gunshot shattered the night.

She had to get as far away from the encampment as she could, but the thickening springtime foliage overhead blocked out the light of the moon, plunging the forest into total darkness. Which way had she come?

Another gunshot cracked like a whip, but as the echo bounced around her, she couldn’t tell which direction it had come from. Using her good arm, she began to move by feeling her way, praying she was going away from the shots, her fingers fumbling over tree trunks and branches, small sticks and stalks crunching beneath her feet. The muscles in her calves cramped. How long had she been running? It felt like hours but it couldn’t have been.

The snap of a nearby branch pierced the roar of panic in her head. She whipped around, but she could see nothing in the blackness. Then came a voice, cold and calm, the sound slicing through her like a knife, paralyzing her.

“Did you really think you could get away?”

“Please,” she whimpered. “Please don’t.”

She felt the hard circle of the gun’s barrel against the base of her skull.

“You’ll never leave me again.”