Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

Chloe

“That wasn’t very nice.” I throw my pen down on my open notebook and flop back onto the lounge chair. I’m hot, sweaty, and want a drink, but I was determined to stay out here on the dock until I came up with a detailed outline for the next two chapters of my book. I got one chapter written in the early morning hours, after waking up at four AM with my characters talking in my head so loudly I couldn’t not get up and write. I went back to sleep around six-thirty, woke up around ten, and have been out here, making myself suffer as punishment.

Because my characters are going in a totally different direction than I originally anticipated, throwing even me for a loop, which is why I’m speaking harshly to them right now. Trading my notebook for a paperback copy of the very first book in the series, I randomly crack it open and start reading, going over the details and plot I love so very much.

Three chapters later, I lie back, put the book over my face for shade, and get some sun before it starts to storm. Only about ten minutes later, my phone dings with a text, and I smile when I see Charles’s name. Neither of us like talking on the phone, yet we use the voice message feature via text message all the time.

No matter what someone says, it’s different. Yeah, we’re talking, but not in real time. And if I leave an awkward message, I can delete and try again. Which I do all the time, even though I feel just as comfortable around Charles as I do around Farisha. But if anyone can second-guess any single little thing they say or do, it’s me.

A boat passes by, and I avert my eyes from the lake to my phone, bringing it closer to my ear so I can hear.

“We just wrapped up another day of shooting,” Charles says. “And I was thinking, because I know you’re working on the next book, you should really write in a scene where Marcus has to sword fight someone.”

I let out a snort of laughter and hold down the little record icon on my text message. “Marcus is a vampire. Why in the world would he fight with a sword? He’s kind of made it a point to show off his fangs throughout this whole thing, if you haven’t noticed.” I send my voice message and gather up my stuff, needing a break from the sun. I get to the end of the dock when Charles sends another message.

“Maybe he and Kellie come across demons that can only be killed by consecrated silver?”

“Okay, I kind of like that idea,” I send back as I let myself through the gate. Balloon, inside because of the heat, jumps up and down at the glass door as soon as he sees me. “Give me a day to work it into my outline. But why swords?” I say into my phone and send the second message.

I hang my towel, which is wet from sweat rather than lake water, on the fence and go into the house, letting out a sigh of relief when the cool air hits me. Dad is over at Wendy’s today, repainting the upstairs bedrooms. They’re unofficially getting things one step closer to opening the house up to renters, and I’m enjoying the quiet of the house.

My phone vibrates in my hand, and I press play on Charles’s message. “We had some spare time on set, and I messed around with Kellie’s sword. If she has one, makes sense Marcus would be well-versed in how to use it.”

“It does,” I send back. “I’m going to think on this, but fuck you for messing with the flow of the story,” I add with a laugh, though my story isn’t flowing very well at all, and I hate how I’m stuck. I know what needs to happen, and I can see the ending unfolding in my head. It’s just getting there that’s tripping me up, and every time I start writing, my mind wanders, but where it’s trying to go…I don’t have a fucking clue.

“Hungry?” I ask Balloon, dropping my sunglasses, notebook, and book on the kitchen counter. “I’m starving.” I go to the fridge, pulling up a text message to Marcy, the owner of the posh stable my horse, Spartan, is boarded at. He’s the only pet I have, and I miss him dearly already. He’s an off-the-track thoroughbred, rescued six years ago from an abusive life on the racetrack. He slipped in the pasture on a rare rainy day recently, and we’ve been taking the last few weeks off from riding, making my escape from Los Angeles a bit easier than it normally would be. He’s well taken care of, and when I’m busy touring the world, a few girls who come to the barn for riding lessons brush him and feed him way too many treats.

Marcy texts me back only a minute later, while I’m still standing in front of the fridge looking at the vast array of food but not able to decide what to make. Spartan is doing just fine, and she adds a picture of him being loved on by three little girls. I feel a tug on my heart, missing my big beast. He’s a character in my series, though unlike the fictional Spartan, my real-life horse doesn’t have magical powers.

Settling on a block of cheese and a carton of strawberries, I plop down in front of the TV, watching a show about people with nasty wounds on their feet while I eat. Half an hour later I shower and move into the little-used office in the lake house, trying to force myself to write.

And only twenty minutes after that, I’m ready to throw my computer or cry. Or maybe do both at the same time. Closing my laptop before I chuck it out the window, or better yet, take it to the lake, set it on fire, and throw it in, I strip out of my blue dress, trading it instead for black leggings and a Shadowfall merchandise t-shirt. I rake my damp hair into a messy bun and go into the kitchen, getting a water bottle and some snacks from the pantry. I shove them into my Gucci backpack, along with my phone and a bottle of bug spray.

“Hey, kiddo,” Dad calls from Wendy’s front porch when I walk out of the house. “Going for a walk?”

“Yeah, I need to clear my head before I attempt to write another chapter.”

“Having a bit of writer’s block?”

“Kind of,” I say, not sure how to explain it. I know what I want to write, but I have to get through several chapters first until I get to the big action sequence I’ve been dying to write since the conception of this series. Technically, that’s not really “writer’s block” but more like “motivation block,” crippled by a healthy dose of pressure to make this book better than the last, not disappoint fans, and leave them wanting more. And I’m hating every single freaking word I type in my document, which is a bit of an issue. There’s nothing like deleting every other word to move a story freaking forward. “I’m hoping if I hang out at the coven I’ll feel inspired again.”

Dad chuckles, knowing exactly what I mean. When we were in sixth grade, Farisha and I found a little circle of rocks in the woods, and of course we thought the place was magical. A lot of weird things happened at the coven, leading us to one hundred percent believe it to be haunted. It inspired me to write my Shadowfall series, and going back there has to give me the kick in the pants I so desperately need.

“A storm is headed this way,” Wendy says.

“The picnic shelter is still there, right? It’s not far from the coven. I can make a run for it if it starts to rain.”

“It is,” Wendy tells me, picking up a glass of iced tea. She’s sitting on the porch swing next to Dad. “They’ve added new tables and a few firepits. It’s a popular site now. It’s probably busy today,” she adds, knowing my general dislike for people, which is funny since I moved to the overpopulated city of LA, but it’s easy to blend in there—well, it used to be.

Not like I’m some crazy popular celebrity or anything, but my fake relationship with Charles definitely got me unwanted—and honestly unexpected—attention. My name is known, and I naively thought it would stay that way. My publisher was happy to see the uptick in already-booming sales when TMZ starting reporting on the blossoming romance between the author and actor. My social media followers doubled, which forced me to actually post stuff more than once a month.

Though, contrary to what the masses think, I’m not that interesting of a person. I spend most of my time outside in my little yard, lounging by my pool with my laptop in tow, or at the stable with Spartan. Luckily people seem to love horse content, but I think most of my followers are crossover fans of Charles and are hoping for more candid photos and videos of him.

“We’re having lunch with Wendy’s sister,” Dad tells me. “We’ll be back by six-thirty for dinner. You’re eating with us, right?”

“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’ll be back before then, and will hopefully have a couple thousand words written by dinner. What are you making me?”

Dad laughs. “It’s supposed to cool down after the afternoon storm, so I’ll grill chicken.”

“Sounds good. Want me to make a salad? I’ll gather some wild mushrooms and dandelion greens from the forest,” I say with a straight face.

Dad winks. “Make sure to get the good shrooms.”

“Dad!” I say, faking my shock. “Are you suggesting I bring you illegal drugs?”

“Don’t be so uptight.”

We all laugh, and I wave goodbye to Dad and Wendy, setting off down the driveway. It’s about a ten-minute walk to the nature preserve, which surrounds the lake. There are hiking trails with gorgeous views, and it’s so hot and humid today there aren’t many people on them. Silver Ridge is a small town, but people travel from all over to walk these trails and use our lake. The stigma of glaring at outsiders is strong here, and it’s easy to spot someone visiting from out of town.

The sky darkens and the air thickens with the electricity of the oncoming storm. I pull the hair tie out of my hair and flip my head upside down, raking my damp hair back into a tight bun, needing it off my neck. I take in a deep breath, feeling almost as if I’m breathing underwater.

At this point, I’ll welcome the rain, though I am almost to the coven. A group of hikers pass me by in a hurry to get to the parking lot, suggesting I do the same before the storm rolls in. I smile, nod, and pretend to take their advice, but then veer off the path, using an old, gnarled oak tree as a guide. The coven is about a quarter-mile away from the trail, far enough to make us feel like we were in the middle of nowhere when we were kids, but not so far a search party would need to get called for us, though people do get lost out here quite easily.

In the summer, the canopy of trees makes it almost impossible to use thermal scanning to find anyone from the air, and the last time I was here visiting Dad, two thirteen-year-old kids wandered off and got lost. They were found six hours later, and the entire town was tense, thinking the worst. They were playing some sort of geo-tracking game and lost cell service in the woods, which I suppose could throw you for a loop if you’re not used to the shitty cell service Silver Ridge already has.

I get a little turned around halfway to the coven and have to stop and gather my composure so I don’t freak out. I used to pride myself on being able to find my way around the woods, and even ran into a black bear a time or two, and the encounter didn’t end in bloodshed. I’m the outdoorsy one in my group of friends back in LA, but damn, it’s been a while since I’ve been out here, and I won’t do myself any favors pretending I know my way around.

It’s changed a lot over the years.

Stopping to get my phone from my backpack, I hold my breath as I wait for the map to load. I have one bar of service, just enough for me to figure out I went a few yards in the wrong direction. I get back on the right track and come to the little circle of rocks in just a few minutes. Two are covered in moss, and beer cans, an empty bottle of whiskey, and food wrappers litter my sacred space. I’m not sure what pisses me off more: that someone else found this place or that they were an asshole and left their trash.

Picking up a stick from the ground, I use it to push all the trash into one spot, intending to come back here tomorrow with a bag so I can clean it up. I brush bird poop and dirt off a rock and sit down, closing my eyes and taking in the silence of the forest. I stay perfectly still for a few minutes, remembering sitting in this exact spot, excitedly scribbling down story ideas in a leather-bound notebook. Kellie spoke to me here, and I used to run around with a dull dagger hanging from my waist, pretending to have powers and fight demons.

Lauren Wallace teased me relentlessly for it, and when I was fifteen, she and her cronies crossed paths with me out here in the woods. Farisha and I were both wearing medieval costumes and were cooking soup in the coven over a tiny fire we built and lit all on our own. It took us nearly two hours to get the fire started and we were quite proud of it. It had rained that morning, and I ventured away from the safety of the coven in search of dry sticks for the fire.

And that was where I ran into Lauren and company. It was back before every teen had a camera phone, thankfully, but Lauren made sure to tell everyone just how much of a freak I was. Farisha was out of sight, thankfully, and I never uttered one word about her being a “freak” too. There was no need to drag her into it.

Reaching into my backpack again, I get out my notebook, hoping for inspiration to strike as strongly as it did all those years ago. It takes a while, but it does, and I outline the next three chapters, seamlessly putting in a sword-fighting scene for Charles’s sake—that totally fits with the story. Usually, I don’t like to write longhand what I then have to go back and type, but the fight scene is so clear in my head I start writing it out—and then can’t stop.

Rain starts to drip down on me, but I ignore it, not stopping until the drizzle becomes a steady fall. I close my notebook, blinking as I look up, and seal it safely away in my backpack. I stand, shaking my left foot, which has fallen asleep. I’m starting to get a headache from having my hair up in a bun. It’s both a curse and a blessing to have such thick hair. It’s heavy when I have it up, but I’ve been able to forgo hair extensions at events. I pull the hair tie out as I walk back toward the trail. Rain starts to patter down a little harder and I hold out my hand, loving the feel of rain on my skin.

Thunder rumbles overhead, and I pause, mentally debating if I should just walk in the rain or if I should go to the picnic shelter and wait out the storm. When lightning flashes, I decide to take the safe route and go to the shelter. It’s not a far hike, and I’ll be there in just a few minutes if I pick up the pace.

Stepping over a fallen log, something crashes behind me. I freeze, straining to hear over the loud sound of rain falling in the leaves.

A branch snaps.

It’s probably a deer. Or a bunny, even. They can be rather loud for how small they are. There’s also a chance a bear has wandered down, tempted by the food left out at the campground and picnic areas. The fearlessness I felt facing bears from my youth has left me, and lying on the ground, slowly bleeding to death, seems likely.

Swallowing hard, I slowly turn around, looking behind me. The rain starts to come down harder, and the wind picks up, rustling the forest and making it hard for me to hear if certain death is lurking closer and closer. A few seconds pass and nothing attacks me. Along with bears, my mind goes to serial killers or psychopaths living in the woods, kidnapping hikers and slowly peeling off their flesh in strips which they dry and eat like beef jerky.

Sometimes having an active imagination is problematic.

Forcing myself to stay calm, I increase my speed, not stopping until I make it back to the path. It’s pouring now, and thunder crashes above me, reverberating through the forest. The dirt path under my feet is slippery now, and I almost fall a few times as I hurry to the picnic shelter.

I look like a drowned rat and don’t feel like dealing with people right now, so I’m pleasantly surprised to see the covered area empty. Well, this side of it at least. There’s a large stone fireplace in the center, open on both sides for people to warm themselves by in the colder months. Something moves on the other side of the fireplace, and all I see is a flash of black.

Now there is a real chance it’s a bear. It might not be taking shelter from the storm like I am, but it’s definitely eating any scraps of food left behind by picnickers. I slow right as lightning sizzles in the sky and another clap of thunder shakes the very ground beneath my feet.

Whatever is behind the fireplace moves forward. It’s not a bear, but something much, much worse. Eyes, dark blue like the stormy sky, lock with mine, and the cold rainwater suddenly drenches my heart, making a shiver run down my spine.

"Chloe."