Allison Brennan - The Hunt

“Miranda.”

Her attention snapped to Quinn and she pointed. “There.”

He looked, his expression unreadable. Pulling his walkie-talkie out of his belt, he depressed the mic. “Sheriff, we found a shack. About-” he glanced up the steep slope-“six hundred yards from the edge of the clearing. An orange flag marks where we left the field.”

Static crackled. “Roger that,” Nick’s distorted voice broke the quiet. “I’ll send a team.”

“Roger. Out.” Quinn pocketed the com and glanced at Miranda.

She tilted her chin up. She could do this. “Let’s go.”

Miranda stayed behind Quinn, close enough that she wouldn’t miss anything. They both pulled on latex gloves to preserve what was most likely a crime scene.

Where Rebecca had been raped and tortured.

Miranda briefly squeezed her eyes shut, then blinked, surprised to feel tears forming. Not now , she admonished, her inner voice severe.

Quinn motioned for Miranda to stand back as he walked the perimeter of the shack. She didn’t argue.

The small cabin had probably been here for decades. The wood was rough, worn, almost black. It should have been lying in a heap, rotting under layers of decaying leaves, covered in moss. Though it didn’t look sturdy, the tiny building had been well constructed. An old, abandoned cabin, like so many others.

Until the Butcher found it.

With one hand Miranda took out her topographical map and viewed their approximate location and the path Rebecca had forged.

Her gut clenched at the visual representation of the co-ed’s journey. Not because her escape ended in death, but because if she had walked four miles in the opposite direction, she would have made it to a dirt road that led to a small reservoir. She still might have died, but the open road would have given her a better chance.

Run. You have two minutes. Run!

The voice came out of nowhere and Miranda’s grip tightened on her gun as she looked around, tamping down her panic while adrenaline pumped through her system.

No one. No one was there. His damn voice, low, gravelly, evil, plagued her. Damn him.

Rebecca hadn’t had any chance in choosing her initial path, any more than she and Sharon had. They ran away . Away from their captor. If he stood there, right outside the narrow door, pointing a rifle at her heart, Rebecca would have run up the slope. Away .

“Miranda?”

Quinn’s voice was soft but firm, and she was once again reminded that he had been her rock during her darkest days after the attack. She remembered the young, up-and-coming FBI agent she’d fallen in love with, a man excited about his life, his job, fighting the bad guys. And through it all, he’d steadied her, given her the strength she sorely needed.

She forced a blank expression on her face-she had a lot of experience perfecting bland interest-and turned to him.

Quinn had grown up. He was nearly forty. He no longer fidgeted, as if he’d forced himself to develop control of his one admittedly bad habit. He stood tall and erect, still confident, intelligent, but wiser. More seasoned.

He wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with any more than she was the same woman he’d claimed to love. He’d grown into the man she’d imagined he could be.

But he was still the man who’d betrayed her.

“I’m ready,” she said quietly.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, he nodded and closed the distance to the shack. Relieved, she swallowed a sigh and followed.

Fresh scratches on the weathered wood indicated a metal lock had been recently attached. Quinn had his gun poised. So did she.

She would never be caught off guard again.

Quinn tried the door and it opened. Unlocked. Cautious, he swung it slowly in, standing to the side in case the perpetrator was inside.

It was empty. Miranda relaxed marginally. While she wanted to catch this guy in the worst way, she feared seeing his face. Was it someone she knew? Someone she’d gone to school with? A regular at the Lodge? A local? A stranger?

Would she recognize him? Was he someone she saw every day?

That thought haunted her. The Butcher could be someone she considered a friend.

“Miranda?”

“What?” she snapped, regretting her tone. She didn’t need to take her trepidation out on Quinn. It was her personal demons she fought.

Whatever he was going to say, he didn’t. He began a careful search of the premises.

The one-room cabin, eight by twelve feet, housed only a bare, filthy, stained mattress in the middle of the rough wood floor. Dried blood mixed with dirt. The ceiling was tin on wood, pitched to keep the snow from destroying the building. Rebecca’s clothes were in the corner. The jeans, yellow sweater, and blue windbreaker she’d last been seen wearing.

Her bra and panties were missing.

The smell hit Miranda. The scent of fear clung to the walls, as if Rebecca’s terror was imprinted forever in the dark, moldy wood.

Not fear. No, fear had no smell. It was the dried sweat, the faint, metallic hint of blood as she breathed in, coating her sinuses, drifting down to her tongue where she tasted the coppery terror, before filling her lungs and heart with heavy memories.

The sex. The brutal, painful sex.

I’m so cold, Randy.

Miranda glanced around the hovel, certain she had heard Sharon speaking to her.

Not Sharon. Sharon’s ghost.

The windowless room shrunk. The walls seemed to pulse, to breathe. As if they were creeping closer… and fear did have a scent. The cloying aroma of her own terror, her mortality, weighed her down, choking her.

Randy, I’m cold. We’re going to die.

We’re not going to die. Don’t give up. We’ll find a way out.

He’s going to kill us.

Stop it! Don’t talk that way.

Rebecca had been alone. No one to support her. No one to talk to, to cry with, to make promises to. All alone. Never knowing when he was going to return, when he was going to climb on top of her. When he was going to take the ice-cold clamp and squeeze her nipples until she cried out…

Aghhhh!

Sharon’s screams rang in her ears, pounded at her head.

She would be next.

The walls breathed and sagged. Coming closer, closer…

She shook uncontrollably as Sharon screamed and sobbed. He was silent. Sickly silent. But Miranda knew he was raping Sharon again, the sick pounding of his flesh on hers, the slap, slap, slap of skin on skin. The scream as he twisted her nipples in the clamp…

She would be next.

The walls reached for her, wanting to suck the life out of her. Hand to mouth, Miranda ran from the shack, stumbled over roots, until she reached out and found a tree. Holding on to the trunk, she tried to swallow the horror that threatened her sanity.

Quinn was right. You’re going to break.

No. No. No !

Deep breaths. Cleansing breaths. The smell of sweat and violent rape and blood faded away, replaced by the cool pine scent of the forest. Musty dirt and rotting leaves. Sticky sap.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Her heart slowed, the pulse in her neck lost its frantic beat. She opened her eyes and stared at the rough tree trunk that she clung to.

Tree-hugger , she thought, and found herself suppressing a smile.

She pushed off the tree, rubbed her hands on her jeans, and gathered her courage, carefully sewing the threads of her sanity back together.

Breathe, Miranda. Breathe.

She stood and turned back to the shack, ready to try it one more time. She’d fight the claustrophobia that had been her damn albatross ever since the week she lived in hell twelve years ago.