MATTHEW: You okay?
ADALYN: I’m not spiraling, if that’s what you’re asking.
MATTHEW: You sure? This is a lot. It would be okay if you were… I don’t know. Running naked into the woods screaming bloody murder just out of pure frustration or something.
I rolled my eyes.
ADALYN: That’s very specific.
ADALYN: Is that how you picture someone spiraling? In the nude?
MATTHEW: I picture everyone naked. Even you. I’m a simple man with a simple enough imagination. It’s Occam’s razor theory.
ADALYN: That’s not what Occam’s razor means.
MATTHEW: You know what I mean.
I actually did.
ADALYN: Well, I’m not spiraling. Or naked.
MATTHEW: Okay. I believe you. But… call me if you need me, yeah?
ADALYN: Sure. Good night.
MATTHEW:… You’re such a bad liar. Night, Addy.
Yes. I was lying about both things.
With a sigh, I locked my phone and plugged it into my charger. I rolled on the bed, incapable of shaking that strange pressure off. As much as I tried my hardest not to give it any importance, learning of the remix had affected me. The clip was still getting attention. I was still viral. I was #LadyBirdinator, for crying out loud. And the girls—the kids of the team I was supposed to manage and use to create a success story that would redeem me and buy me a ticket back to Miami—had already found out about it. Josie had laughed it off, even bought my explanation about it being an accident. But it was a matter of time before the whole town knew and saw that video.
A very specific set of green eyes popped into my mind. I don’t think you’ll make it a single night there.
I shook myself, as if that would help shove that man’s face out of my head. I needed to relax if I ever wanted to get any sleep, and Cameron Caldani had the opposite effect. So I focused on loosening up my limbs and tried to keep my mind blank.
The tune of the techno remix slammed right back into me.
“God,” I muttered, reaching out for my AirPods.
I put them in, grabbed my phone, and hit play on a podcast.
“Hello, my true crime lovers,” the voice of my favorite podcaster started. The guy’s voice wasn’t as deep as Cameron’s, but he had a very similar accent. Which was ironic. And unimportant. I closed my eyes and let out a breath. “In today’s episode I will be taking you along with me to the wildest tundra of Alaska. So lock your doors, sit back in your comfiest chair, and let’s travel back in time, to the case of the Alaska’s slaughterer of…”
Head burrowed in the pillow, I focused on the soothing tone and rich images painted in my mind. This was an episode I’d been saving for a rainy day, but as I ventured into the story, I wasn’t so soothed by that voice anymore. And the images were no longer rich and in my mind. They were spooky and disturbingly familiar. Specifically the antlers that—
Something cackled in the cabin. Or cracked. Or creaked.
I paused the episode.
I sat up very slowly and searched the shadows filling up the cabin, praying that I was imagining things. But the truth is that I’d never had a great imagination. And I was sure I’d heard something on the other side of the cabin.
Another creak echoed. This one closer.
I held my breath, the beating of my heart quickly reaching my temples. I tore my AirPods out and searched every corner and shadow again, not finding anything.
A shiver crawled down my spine at the mere of thought of an animal or—Jesus—some crazy Alaskan butcher sneaking into the cabin and watching me. So out of some stupid instinct, I closed my hands around the comforter and brought it to my chin. The fabric was so itchy that it felt like something was crawling on my skin. But it had to be paranoia speaking. I grabbed my phone and turned the flashlight on. There couldn’t be—
A set of small feline-like eyes blinked from the darkness.
And at the exact same time, something moved under my ass. Underneath me.
I screamed. I jolted straight out of that bed, snatched everything on my bedside table, and ran.
“No, no, no, no, no. No.” I went for the first pair of shoes I found. The stilettos I’d worn today. “This wasn’t part of the deal.” I raced across the cabin. I was terrified and furious at the audacity of the universe to throw this on my already full plate. “I was supposed to be on the bottom,” I continued, making it to the antlers and grabbing my purse from where I’d hung it. “All the things that came before were supposed to be my rock bottom. There shouldn’t be more.”