Page 34 of Enter if you Dare: Part One

Valli disappears between the first row of cornstalks, and they quickly swallow her whole.

People confuse my motives when I hunt. I like to wait and watch. Catching my prey isn’t the best part; hunting them is. I have been patient all night, and now it’s my time to take her.

Behind me, Noa is still lying in the dirt, reveling in his spiritual awakening, announcing it over and over again.

They are all mine, and no one will touch them ever again. I do not share people; I take things and do not give them back.

The world took something from me once before and never gave it back. I won’t let it happen again, even though it was my fault—I did not look after them right.

Cipher watches me, then smiles. “Go find her. Don’t let her get away.”

When I finally move, I don’t run. That is for people who are afraid of losing, and I’ve never lost anything in this cornfield.

I don’t intend to start with Valli.

As I step between the stalks, they close behind me without a sound, knowing me on a soul-deep level. This is my domain. I know every row, gap, and dip in the ground. Even where the stalks grow close enough together that a person must turn sideways to pass through. I know the direction the wind moves in the dark, and what it does to the sound of the stalks.

When people run from me, it’s easy to find them. When they’re afraid, they move toward the edges, searching for a way out. But there is never a way out, not until I grant one.

I can hear Valli, and her movements surprise me. She isn’t trying to leave, nor is she panicking. No, she wants me to find her.

I move parallel to her, shifting between the two rows over from her. She won’t be able to hear me like I can her. People tell me that my ability to move stealthily is unnatural, but I’ve never given it much thought. It’s simply how I am.

She stops, and I do too; I want to know why. Has she heard something? I listen to ensure no one else has come into my field. If they have entered while those who are mine are naked, they will die—slowly and painfully. Removing a person’s eyes isn’t hard, and I’m sure Banks would love a gift.

Valli moves again, circling back, and I tilt my head as I listen to her feet slapping against the ground. She is smart and has likely figured out that I would expect her to run to the edge of the field, so she started in that direction but then changed course. She is trying to think like me.

I drop back and follow her at a distance, wanting to see what she does next. To see if she can listen to the corn or if the silence of the night gets into her head.

She creeps forward, and I close the space between us to one row, needing to see her. Through the gaps in the stalks, the pale gleam of her skin in the darkness is mesmerizing. She tips her head up and listens.

I reach out and drag one finger along the corn ear to my left, just enough to make it whisper.

She goes completely still, then turns slowly toward the sound. “I know you’re there,” she whispers into the night.

“The faster you move, the closer I get. The further you go, the more I want you. I am not the dark, but I live in it. What am I?”

She whips her head in the direction of my voice, which is to the right of where I touched the corn, not that she heard me move. Valli can’t see me as I continue to shift quietly around her, waiting for her to run. She twists sharply to the left, and my hand shoots out and closes around her arm.

Using the momentum, I push her down, and she lands face-first on the ground, my body coming down on top of hers. Twisting my other hand in her hair, I bring her head up and align my lips next to her ear so she can hear my gravelly voice. “Yours,” I whisper, and she shivers, breathing hard.

She bucks beneath me, but my cock wants her, he wants her now. So I reach beneath us and pull myself from my pants, then rub along her ass crack.

“Fuck me,” she whimpers.

I don’t need to be asked twice. Twisting her hair tighter in my grip, I angle her body how I need it to be. The thought of her already filled with Cipher’s cum excites me further as I press my erection into her core. She is so wet and warm, and as I thrust forward, my eyes roll back into my head. It’s been a very long time since I fucked a woman; they are so fragile, and I break fragile things.

“Come on, Scarecrow,” she taunts. “Show me what you’ve got.”

She thinks she can handle what I’ve got? I don’t ease into it; instead, I thrust forward hard enough that she gasps, and her fingers curl into the dirt beneath her. The sound she makes goes straight through me. I do it again and again, setting a pace that is far from gentle, but it was never going to be.

She is so warm and tight, and it’s been so long that the sensation almost undoes me. Yet I don’t slow down; rather, I twist her hair tighter in my grip and pull her head back. Valli arches into it, her spine curving up toward me, and I growl against the side of her neck. This beauty doesn’t lie there and take it; she meets my every movement with passion and fire.

Dragging my mouth down the curve of her neck, I bite into her flesh. The feel of her clenching around me and the sound she makes has me biting her harder as her hips slam back against me.

“Don’t stop,” she grits out.

I pin her hips flat to the ground and drive into her, and she screams, loud enough that the entire island will hear her. I shift my mouth to her shoulder and suck hard on the skin there, needing to mark her and show the world she is mine. Everything in me needs people to know she is mine. I don’t enjoy killing people, but I will to keep them away from her.