Chapter Eleven - The Chase

(Adelaide)

The moment Adelaide’s feet hit the forest floor, the cold stabbed up her legs like knives. The shock of it ripped a strangled gasp from her chest, nerves flaring as if she’d plunged into a river of ice instead of leaves and loam.

Dirt. Roots. Frost. Stones.

Barefoot. No protection. No time. Every texture imprinted itself into her skin—slimy moss, jagged pebbles, the slick sting of frost-slick bark—until her soles felt flayed raw within the first dozen strides.

Her legs pumped on instinct—pure, feral, blinding instinct. Breath tore from her throat in harsh, uneven gasps as branches whipped at her arms and stung across her cheeks. Bristling twigs raked her shins, snapping against her skin hard enough to raise welts, the air tearing in and out of her lungs like she was breathing knives.

Behind her, the woods exploded with sound.

A roar—violent, raw, full of bloodthirst and triumph—ripped through the night, shuddering down every tree trunk. Birds burst from branches with frantic shrieks. Smaller creatures skittered into burrows. Even the wind seemed to recoil. The very canopy shivered, a wide, black ocean suddenly churned by the presence of something vast and merciless beneath it.

He was chasing them.

He was chasing her. She felt it in the way the darkness seemed to lean in her direction, in the way the air thickened whenever she veered left instead of right, like the forest itself was pointing him toward her.

The forest wasn’t merely dark—it was absolute. Blackness pooled beneath the pines like ink. Her eyes adjusted in violent snaps—glimpses of silver moonlight spearing through the canopy, illuminating flashes of movement, then plunging her back into swallowing shadow. Tree trunks loomed and vanished in stuttering frames, as if she were sprinting through someone else’s nightmare, only half developed.

Adelaide stumbled over a fallen branch. Pain shot through her foot as something sharp sliced her skin. Hot warmth spilled across cold flesh, the cut burning as if the forest had licked her with a live brand.

She bit back a cry, biting her lip so hard she tasted blood. Copper flooded her tongue, grounding her more surely than any charm iron ever could.

Keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving.

She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. All she could do was run. Thoughts shattered into bright, useless fragments whenever she tried to grab one; her body had taken command, muscles and tendons firing on some primitive rhythm older than language.

Girls scattered in every direction. Some screamed. Some sobbed. Some sprinted blindly, crashing through brambles. Their white dresses flashed in jagged glimpses between trunks—ghost-lights, here then gone, accompanied by the distant tearing of fabric and the crack of branches giving way.

Adelaide dodged to the left as two girls veered past her, white dresses flashing in the dark.

A horrible, wet crunch split the air. A scream cut off abruptly. The sound twisted her stomach; it was the noise of something soft meeting something unstoppable, and then the terrible, echoing silence that always followed.

Adelaide didn’t look back. Her stomach twisted violently, bile burning the back of her throat, but she didn’t slow. Not me.

Not me. You don’t get me. Her mind hurled the words into the dark like stones, small and furious, as if sheer refusal might alter the course of a monster.

The ground sloped sharply downward. She skidded, sliding on damp leaves, flailing her arms to keep balance. Her palms scraped the bark of a tree, tearing skin. She pushed off and kept running. The slope tried to pitch her forward, gravity yanking at her shoulders, but she rode it like a wave, teeth grit, feet slapping hard enough to send shocks up into her knees.

Twigs snapped somewhere to her right. Heavy footfalls—too heavy to belong to any human—pounded the earth, shaking loose dirt and leaves.

He was hunting close now. Close enough that she could hear him breathing. A deep, guttural huff. Then another. Each exhale rolled through the trees like a bellows feeding a forge, stoking the fire of his hunger.

Her heart slammed painfully. Her lungs burned. Her legs screamed. Flashes of white burst behind her eyes with every jarring step, pain and effort combining into a dizzying strobe.

Fear stabbed through her like a blade—but her rage followed, vicious and breathless, pushing her forward another step, and another, and another. The anger coiled tight in her chest, a hot, defiant knot that refused to loosen—even with death pounding the earth behind her.

Don’t you dare catch me. Don’t you dare.

The forest suddenly dipped into a hollow, swallowing all sound but her laboured breathing. The roar behind her muffled, the screams of other girls fell away, and for a moment it was only the rasping drag of air in and out of her lungs and the drumbeat of her feet on the packed earth.

Then in the thick, suffocating quiet, she heard it.

A deep inhale.

Closer than she’d ever felt something behind her.

A sound that seemed to pull at the air around her, dragging it toward monstrous lungs. The hairs along her arms lifted, drawn as if by the same invisible suction, her skin prickling in a wave from neck to heels.

He was scenting her again.

Her pulse lurched.

Adelaide dove behind a thick tree trunk, chest heaving, back pressed hard against the bark. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her breath. Her heart pounded so loudly she was sure the beast would hear it. The rough trunk dug into her spine, ridges carving into her skin, anchoring her to this one spot in a forest that felt suddenly too vast.

Leaves rustled just beyond her hiding place. A branch cracked. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Please… please… go the other way… She didn’t know who she was begging—forest, gods, monster—it didn’t matter. The plea tore through her chest without consent.

Something brushed the other side of the tree. The bark vibrated. Hot breath ghosted around the trunk, blowing her hair across her cheek. Her teeth clamped together, jaw aching from the force.

I will not scream. I will not scream.

She repeated it like a prayer. Every time the words looped through her mind, they steadied her fingers a fraction more, turned her trembling into a tighter, sharper tension.

A low growl rumbled. The sound burrowed into her chest, vibrating her ribs. Then silence.

For two long, horrifying seconds, she didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

A twig snapped high above her.

She startled, looking up.

A massive shadow leapt across the treetops—moving with impossible speed and fluidity. Not just running. But hunting. He flowed from branch to branch like darkness given bones, the mass of him far too big for such graceful motion. It broke every rule she knew about weight and movement, and that wrongness made her stomach pitch.

Her stomach turned over. He’s playing with us. Playing with her.

Adelaide shoved off the tree trunk and sprinted deeper into the woods. Her legs protested, muscles burning with fresh ache, but she forced them into a brutal rhythm, using the residual terror to fuel each push off the ground.

The trees grew denser. The ground was knotted with roots and tangled vines that clawed at her ankles. Every step sent jabs of pain up her legs. Burrs clung to her shins, thorns scratched against her calves, the forest trying to keep her as much as he was trying to corner her.

Her foot snagged on a root, and she crashed to the ground, catching herself with her palms. Dirt filled her mouth and nose. Her scraped skin burned.

She pushed herself up, fury spiking bright and hot.

I am not going to die in the dirt like prey. Not on my face. Not in the mud. If he killed her, he would at least have to look her in the eyes when he did it.

She staggered forward again. The moon broke through the tree line for a heartbeat, illuminating the forest floor in pale silver. She spotted a fallen branch—thick, long, pointed at one end.

A weapon.

Without thinking, she snatched it up. The weight of it steadied something inside her. Not hope—she wasn’t that foolish—but purpose. The rough wood bit into her torn palms, but the solid heft in her grip made her feel less like a fleeing girl and more like a soldier who’d just remembered she had hands.

Her thoughts came in flashes:

If I wedge it between two rocks, sharpen the end—

If I find a cliff, lure him there—

If I make noise somewhere else and double back—

If I can hide until dawn—

In the forest shook behind her; leaves exploded upward, and birds shrieked as something massive barrelled through the underbrush.

He was close again.

Adelaide swung behind a boulder, crouching low. Her body trembled violently. Her lungs felt like they were bursting. She forced a breath. Then another. The stone at her back was slick with moss and cold as bone, leeching heat from her spine as she tried to make herself smaller, quieter, less alive.

A monstrous shape crashed into the clearing she’d just sprinted through. The Devil’s beast slammed his claws into the earth, ripping up soil and rock as easily as tearing parchment.

His glowing eyes swept the darkness. Slow and methodical. Deadly. They passed within inches of her hiding spot, bright slashes of molten colour cutting through the gloom, and she felt each pass like a hot blade brushing the surface of her skin.

The forest held its breath.

Adelaide’s fingers gripped the branch so tightly her knuckles whitened. Sweat slicked her palms.

The beast sniffed the air, and his head jerked left—toward her hiding place.

Her breath seized in her throat.

He stepped forward once, clawed toes gouging lines into the ground.

Then another girl screamed somewhere deeper in the forest. The beast turned sharply, snarling, and bolted toward the sound—crashing through trees like a living avalanche. Branches snapped like bones, trunks shuddering in his wake, the echoes chasing after him until they dissolved into distant chaos.