“Hey, guys. Having fun?”
Mike Eversol and Shaina Dunn turned to look at me.
“Ridley,” Shaina said, leaning forward to hug me. “I thought you weren’t coming.”
I shrugged. “I’m just dropping by. I can’t stay very long.” I scanned the faces in the crowd, but didn’t see Summer. “Do you know where Summer is?”
Shaina turned to look out into the crowd as well. “Um, I thought she was over at the keg with Aisha, but I don’t see her now. I don’t know where she went.”
She turned back to me. “Sorry.”
I smiled. “No biggee. I’m sure she’s here somewhere. I’ll just ask around,”
I explained, backing away.
“See you later,” she said.
“Later, Ridley,” Mike chimed in.
I waved then turned to wiggle my way through the tight throng of bodies and weave my way around the fire until I’d arrived at the keg. There was no sign of Summer or Aisha.
I spotted Drew. As usual, he was never far from the source of alcohol. He was laughing at something Minty was saying, but when he spotted me, his smile faded.
If he hadn’t seen me, I’d have done my best to just avoid him. But, since that option was off the table and there was no polite way to not speak, I approached the duo nonchalantly and asked, “Hey, have you guys seen Summer?”
“Yeah, she—” Minty began, but Drew interrupted him.
“You here alone?”
“Yep.”
“Can’t get a date since wonder boy disappeared, huh?”
Bitterness radiated from him like cold air from an open freezer door. Drew was not so callous that he didn’t care that Bo had “disappeared,” nor would he maliciously wish for someone to be hurt or harmed; he was simply still sore from being dumped.
Men and their egos! I thought.
“Nope. Where’s Summer?” I asked again, ignoring his comment and refusing to take the bait.
With a snort, Drew turned his head and took a long pull from his cup, one presumably full of beer.
Minty, having been watching our exchange with visible discomfort, answered me when Drew didn’t.
“I saw her and Aisha walking off into the woods. I think they were going to use the bathroom. You know how girls are,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Two by two.”
I grinned. “You mean smart for not going off into the woods alone?”
“Touché, Heller,” Minty teased.
“Which way did they go?”
“Back that way,” he said, pointing behind us, into the darkest part of the woods, the part furthest from the fire.
Figures!
“Ok. Thanks, Minty.”
I walked off, not even deigning to acknowledge Drew. I wasn’t going to waste my time on him until he grew up and got over himself.
When I’d gotten into the trees and far enough away from the party to hear the night, I stopped to listen. Wherever Summer and Aisha were, their chatter would lead me to them.
As I listened, however, I realized that there was one problem with that—there was no chatter. There were no noises that might suggest that anyone besides me was in the woods away from the others.
Even while I was thinking how odd that was, foreboding was swelling ominously inside my head like a big thunderhead.
Swallowing the unease that rose to the back of my throat, I walked further into the darkness and stopped once more to listen. Nothing.
“Summer!” I called, not too loudly.
Nothing.
“Aisha!”
Nothing.
“Summer!” I shouted more loudly this time, walking a few steps farther into the night.
Still, I heard nothing but the leaves and bracken settling beneath my feet.
Just before I turned to head back to the party, a burst of wind puffed my hair away from my face. It was as if something had passed in front of me, moving so quickly that I couldn’t see it.
I held my breath and listened. The faint whispers of cloth shifting against skin reached my ears. I looked left then right, but saw nothing in the blackness.
“Summer?”
I turned in a circle, all my senses reaching out to scan my surroundings for someone, for some thing. When I was again staring into the dimmest part of the woods, that rush of wind feathered across my face again, only this time, it carried the scent of earth, as well as a sound.
“T,” the soft voice sighed.
Fear needled at my nerves. The voice was so low I couldn’t make out anything familiar in it, but that letter, that nickname, was one that Drew used to call me.
Adrenaline flooded my body, infusing my muscles and my heart with blood and oxygen, preparing me for flight. In one smooth movement, I turned on my heel and I ran as fast as I could back toward the light of the bonfire.
I didn’t have to see behind to know that something was following me.
Closely. That knowledge, that feeling like I was prey, pushed me faster and faster through the forest.
Just before I burst through the trees into the clearing where the party was happening, something hit me in the back. I screamed as the skin between my shoulder blades tore beneath the scrape of something razor sharp.
I practically fell into the arms of one very surprised Minty.
“What the h—”
“Minty, run!”
“Ridley, what the—”
“Run!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I moved away from Minty to approach the fire. “Run!” I repeated.
“Ridley, your back,” Minty said from behind me.
I turned toward him and that’s when I heard the frightened screams erupt from several girls that were standing around.
“What?” I asked, twisting my arm to reach behind me. When I drew my fingers away, they were bloody.
I looked up at Minty. He was staring at my sticky red hand.
“Minty, we’ve got to get everyone out of the woods.”
It wasn’t hard to convince the already-scared girls to stick together and get the heck out of dodge, and I found that the more reluctant partiers were easier to motivate once I showed them my back. I saw Minty pointing to me a couple of times and realized that he was using the same tactic. No one wanted to be shredded for the sake of a party.
When everyone was heading quickly back to the road, to their cars, Minty crossed behind the fire, over to me.
“Let’s go, Ridley. We need to get you to the hospital.”