Format: Hardcover, 384 pages
Release Date: May 14, 2024
Publisher: Berkley
Source: Publisher
Genre: Thrillers / Supernatural
A hypnotic, sinister debut mystery about a seemingly good cop who is secretly the daughter of a notorious serial killer.
Anna
Koray escaped her father’s darkness long ago. When she was a girl, her
childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a
controversial hypnosis treatment. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s
lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from
her father’s shadow.
When Anna kills a man in the line of duty,
her suppressed memories return. She dreams of her beloved father, his
hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had
sacrificed to the god of the forest.
To Anna’s horror, a serial
killer emerges who is copying her father – and who knows who she really
is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Will the
killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does
she want him to?
But as she haunts the forest, using her
father’s tricks to the hunt the killer, will she find what she needs
most…or lose herself in the gathering darkness?
The Hunter's Daughter is the debut novel by Nicola Solvinic. Nicola has a master's degree in criminology and has worked in and around
criminal justice for more than a decade at local, state, and federal
levels. Much of that time was spent in law enforcement policy and
corrections in the Midwest which makes this story a bit more realistic in nature. Nicola's main character is Anna Koray. Anna is a Bayern County Detective Lieutenant who has had something of a twisted upbringing.
Anna's father, Stephen Theron, was the serial killer called The Forest Strangler. When she was a girl, her
childhood memories were sealed away from her conscious mind by a
controversial hypnosis treatment. To make things worse, Anna was abandoned by her own mother who felt that she was too close to her father. She was adopted by the Koray's who allowed her to shine. She’s now a decorated sheriff’s
lieutenant serving a rural county, conducting an ordinary life far from
her father’s shadow.
When Anna kills a man in the line of duty after responding to a domestic violence call (which is one of the most dangerous calls a police officer responds to on a daily basis),
her suppressed memories return after being exposed by a hallucinogen. She dreams of her father, his
hands red with blood, surrounded by flower-decked corpses he had
sacrificed to the god of the forest named Veles. When a young woman's body is discovered in the same manner as her father's victims, rumors of a copycat serial killer arise.
To Anna’s horror, a serial
killer emerges who is copying her father and who knows who she really
is. Is her father still alive, or is this the work of another? Is it possible that Anna has the same gene's as her father, and therefore is likely to have sociopathic moments? As Anna and her colleague Captain Wozniak learn some twisted secrets about Anna's father, a retired FBI Agent who helped stop Anna's father, is now back helping the FBI investigate the newest killer. Does this Agent know who Anna is? Will the
killer expose her, destroying everything she has built for herself? Does
she want him to?
*Thoughts* One of the basic premises of psychology is nature verses nurture. Just because you have the same genes as your parents, does that make you have the same tendencies? If your father was schizophrenic, does that mean you are as well? If your father, who you loved unconditionally, murdered almost 30 innocent women, does that mean you will do the same? Anna's past has prevented her from moving on with her future, especially with her on and off boyfriend who she has trouble showing true emotions for fearing she will just disappoint him. She's already lost her father, and her mother abandoned her after finding a new life for herself. As Anna struggles to deal with the past and the present which are on a collision course, the real emotions come out and maybe, just maybe, the truth will as well.
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1
Awakening
The first time I killed a man was on Tuesday.
I thought I could get through my whole life without killing someone. I thought I could be virtuous. Peaceful. That I could broker treaties among evil men and shattered hearts. And I thought wrong.
I'd been driving home from work. It was late summer, when the skies become silver around dusk and the leaves begin to curl yellow at the edges. The sun was up, and I had the windows down, trying to absorb that last bit of heat on my skin before cold winter settled into my bones. Wind slid through my blond ponytail with invisible fingers while I squinted at the sunset through sunglasses. The falling light painted the two-lane country road in flashes of gold and shadow. My elbow rested on the window and my fingers combed through the air, feeling the swish of it against my palms. The police radio in my car hummed along at medium volume, and I was only half paying attention to the radio traffic. Though I was officially off duty, I was curious to hear if Sergeant Calvert was finally going to take the chief's car to the car wash after losing a bet on a high school football game.
"This is S12. C1 is out of service," a voice announced glumly. That was Calvert, admitting defeat. Finally.
"Acknowledged, S12. C1 is out of service," Dispatch chirped merrily.
Someone keyed their radio and a burst of applause echoed in the car. That was probably Chief Nelson. He'd already left the office, but I was pretty sure the chief of the Detective Bureau listened to the radio in his sleep.
The dispatcher broke in, her tone all business. "Code 20 at 7071 Stroud's Road."
I glanced at the road. I was only about a mile away. That was a domestic call, and I was likely closest. The county was seven hundred square miles, and it would take a while for backup to arrive. But I didn't like the idea of anyone getting their teeth knocked out when I could help it.
I keyed the radio. "This is L4. I'm at Sunday Creek and Route 6. En route." I flipped on the lights on my unmarked Crown Victoria and stepped on the gas, soaring over the blacktopped roads as the radio chattered.
"Acknowledged, L4. D2 is at 442 and Coffrey."
I thumbed the radio again. "Thanks, D2. I'll wait for you." I didn't hesitate because I was a woman in plain clothes. Departmental policy was that no one went to a domestic alone. Domestic violence cases could be unpredictable as fuck.
Adrenaline twitched through me as I drove down a hill and the sun slipped behind the trees. I pulled up before a dented rural mailbox with 7071 painted on the side. A gravel driveway wound into forest, and I couldn't see the house through the trees. I reached into the back seat for my vest, shrugged it on over my T-shirt, and tightened the Velcro straps. I put my detective's badge on a lanyard around my neck and buckled on my utility belt. I checked my cuffs, gun, and Taser, then pulled a radio out of its charging station. I tucked the base into my belt and threaded the toggle control up to the collar of my vest.
A shadow swept across the hood of my car. Reflexively, I reached to my belt. But it was only a bird sweeping low across the road, so low that its feathers nearly brushed my windshield. My heart rose in my throat at the magnificence of it: a great blue heron, wings moving in slow motion as it flew across the road and vanished in the forest.
A gunshot rang out in the direction of that gravel driveway winding down into a shady valley.
I sucked in my breath. "Shit."
I lunged out of the car, drawing my gun with my right hand and keying my radio with my left. "This is L4, 52A, 52A at 7071 Stroud's Road."
"Copy, L4. Hold your position. Backup is five miles away."
Five miles was an eternity. Some unlucky woman could be bleeding out on her kitchen floor while her husband was booking it out the back door. That vision was clear for me, clear as a movie playing out behind my mind's eye: a woman lying on a crusty linoleum floor, fingers twitching as the last of her air whistled through her ruined lungs.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn't let that happen. I tried to be a good cop who always followed the rules, but someone needed me more than the rules needed me to follow them. Aiming my gun at the ground, I stalked down the gravel drive. My boots crunched in the pale gray rock while the birds screamed around me. The canopy of the forest closed over my head, casting me in shadow. Sweat prickled on my brow as I came into view of a tiny yellow bungalow with algae-streaked siding. Its roof was covered in moss. A brand-new pickup truck was parked out front, and I scanned the area for a propane tank. If I had to use my weapon, I sure as hell didn't want to hit that.
I advanced upon the shiny red pickup, approaching the driver's side. I saw no movement in the mirror. I drew down and aimed my gun into the cab. The window was down, but no one was there. Keys dangled in the ignition. I didn't know what kind of clusterfuck I was walking into, but I didn't want any perps or witnesses to drive off.
I stepped up on the running board, reached in, and yanked the keys out of the ignition. I bumped my head on the visor, and a cloud of white dust rained down on me. My sinuses were flooded with the acrid smell of a Magic Marker. A plastic bag landed on the floorboards.
I swore silently and rubbed my arm across my face. The powder was all over the seat and over me. No telling what it was yet: could be cocaine, PCP, or, worse, fentanyl.
I keyed my radio: "Base, this is L4. Suspected drugs on scene with exposure. Backup should have PPE and request medic." Whatever this shit was, I wanted someone with Narcan en route . . . for myself and whoever had driven that truck.
I pocketed the keys and ducked behind the truck's front fender. I slipped my hand up to the hood. It was warm. Likely, the conflict inside hadn't been going on long . . . but long enough for a gunshot to punctuate it.
I projected my voice toward the house. "Bayern County Sheriff's Office. We need to talk."
I was hoping that would startle the perpetrator; that he-and it was statistically most likely to be a "he"-would go flying out the back door into the woods. If he came out the front, the truck was between him and me. Worst-case scenario would be him taking a hostage. Best case . . . he thought the woods were crawling with cops.
The screen door banged open, and a mid-thirties man in jeans and a black T-shirt strode down the slimy wooden steps. He held a shotgun in his hands. He was breathing fast, glowering, panicked.
"It's all right," I called. "Put down the gun and we'll talk, okay?"
My radio chattered but I wasn't listening. I was watching the guy pump the shotgun. I sucked in my breath, hoping to hell he wasn't going to shoot at his shiny new truck. His shoes crunched in the gravel. I backed up and scuttled around the edge of the bumper, gun raised. My pulse was pounding in my forehead, and I flipped the safety off.
"She fucking cheated on me," he was muttering. "She fucking cheated . . ."
And I was all of a sudden face-to-face with this wild-eyed man with a shotgun. His black T-shirt was wet, and a spatter of blood stained his arm.
I lifted my hand. "It's okay," I said soothingly. "It's okay . . ."
He aimed at me and pulled the trigger. Hundreds of pieces of birdshot rattled into me, and the shotgun blast rocked me out of my crouch into the gravel on my back. Pain seared me, and I gasped.
My pulse pounded harder, faster than the panic. I hadn't let go of my gun. I pressed both my fists around the grips, sighted through my bloody sunglasses, and fired.
I hit him in the gut. He was on the way down, but I kept shooting. He dropped to the ground, still clutching the shotgun.
I climbed, wincing, to my feet, supporting myself on the back fender of the truck. I felt surreally calm as I took a step toward him.
I fired. I hit him in the shoulder, and he shrieked.
I took another step.
I fired.
Another step.
Another bullet.
Gunfire rang out around me, deafening me. All I could hear was my blood thumping evenly in my ears. I was staring down at him, his fingers tangled in the shotgun's trigger guard. He wheezed, his mouth speckled in red, and his lips were moving, but I couldn't hear a thing.
I stood over him and shot him in the neck. His throat blossomed into red, and a piece of gravel, shattered, bounced back against my shin.
I collapsed to my knees beside him. Leaning over him, I watched his face intently. I knew he was dying. He gasped, gaping like a fish on land, as blood pumped through his shredded shirt and poured out of his torn-open throat. Bubbles emerged from the wound. He gurgled, his teeth stained red, and he twitched. His eyes rolled right and left, his pupils dilated, and his lower lip trembled above his sparse beard, sticking to it with a red string.
He looked up at me, gaze focused on my face. A drop of red dribbled down my chin and landed on his forehead.
And I felt it then . . . that moment where he was living and then not living. His chest stopped rattling, the blood slowed, and the twitching and fluttering faded. The focus of his gaze slackened, and I watched it like a voyeur, connected and yet disconnected to this vanishing of a man I didn't know.
He was dead.
I sat back in the gravel. Sound rushed back into my world, and I felt nauseous. I turned my head and vomited before collapsing in the gravel, overcome by the hundreds of piercing wounds burrowing into my body like hot worms. The shaded driveway felt cool against my body.
My radio buzzed distantly at my shoulder. I fumbled to key it.
"L4, 44," I whispered. Officer in trouble . . .
My radio squawked at me, but it sounded like a bird on my shoulder. Through my broken sunglasses, I stared up at the trees. I smelled metallic blood, leaf mold, and moss. Blood dripped into my right eye, and it stung. Disturbed by a pleasant breeze, yellow sugar maple leaves drifted down and stuck to my wet bulletproof vest. I stared, fascinated, as a whirligig seed pod spun down and stuck to my lip.
I exhaled, and its skeletal wing shuddered like a creature reborn.
2
The Fall
Sound roared around me. Sirens, yelling, and the squeal of radios. I was conscious of my sunglasses pulled from my eyes and a plastic mask fitted over my face. I stared up, up at the trees and the silver sky, as I was carried up the narrow gravel drive to an ambulance. I searched the sky for the heron but didn't find it.
I was still, croaking one-word answers to the fingers paramedics put in front of my face, tasting blood. I didn't know if I'd bitten my lip or bloodied my nose or if it was a sign of much worse.
"Do you know your name?" one paramedic who looked to be barely out of high school asked me.
I paused for a moment before answering, and he and the other paramedic exchanged worried glances.
"Anna Koray," I said finally.
"Good." The paramedics nodded as they stabbed my arms for IV lines. They cut my bulletproof vest off with scissors at the straps and cut away my T-shirt. I lay quietly, listening to the blood thumping evenly in my skull. It ticked like a metronome, a regular thud under the churning lights and motion and distant sirens. I felt myself moving quickly, hurtling over dips and valleys in the road. I knew we'd reached the hospital when white fluorescent light washed over me. I closed my eyes because the light was too bright, bright as noonday sun shining on water. Behind my eyes, I saw the life draining away from the man I killed, feeling that last instant as something ephemeral escaped him, an unseen exhalation . . .
"Anna."
I opened my eyes. A man leaned over me-a man I knew. His brow was creased as brown eyes stared down at me.
"Nick." My lips were dry, and the mask over my face fogged. I hadn't seen him since we'd broken up six months earlier. He'd pursued me hard with his wit and his charm, and I'd slowed down long enough for him to catch me. It was . . . too good. He was attentive, appreciative. We never argued; to him, my happiness mattered more than whatever petty thing we could ever find to argue about. I felt safe with him. The sex was the best I'd ever had. Unlike the men I'd known before, he didn't diminish me in any way. He and I, somehow, were more together than the sum of our parts. He'd wanted more. I . . . didn't know what I wanted. I think I was afraid to fully open up to him, to be vulnerable. I'd felt trapped in a way I didn't want to admit, like I did now, pinned under his dark gaze that searched my face for truths I couldn't give him. There were shadows beneath his eyes that I didn't remember from before.
Mercifully, he looked away from me to bark orders at the nurses. It figured that I would wind up in his emergency room, and during one of his shifts. I closed my eyes and listened to the regular beeping of the machines.
I felt a hand slip into mine before I drifted into darkness.
I dreamed I was a nine-year-old girl walking in the woods with my dad. His calloused hand was in my left hand, and we walked through a summer field. My right hand gripped a sticky dandelion. My cheeks felt warm with sunburn.
"Are we going to see the tree houses?" I asked.
He smiled, his face crinkling around his gray eyes. "You mean the tree stands?"
Awakening
The first time I killed a man was on Tuesday.
I thought I could get through my whole life without killing someone. I thought I could be virtuous. Peaceful. That I could broker treaties among evil men and shattered hearts. And I thought wrong.
I'd been driving home from work. It was late summer, when the skies become silver around dusk and the leaves begin to curl yellow at the edges. The sun was up, and I had the windows down, trying to absorb that last bit of heat on my skin before cold winter settled into my bones. Wind slid through my blond ponytail with invisible fingers while I squinted at the sunset through sunglasses. The falling light painted the two-lane country road in flashes of gold and shadow. My elbow rested on the window and my fingers combed through the air, feeling the swish of it against my palms. The police radio in my car hummed along at medium volume, and I was only half paying attention to the radio traffic. Though I was officially off duty, I was curious to hear if Sergeant Calvert was finally going to take the chief's car to the car wash after losing a bet on a high school football game.
"This is S12. C1 is out of service," a voice announced glumly. That was Calvert, admitting defeat. Finally.
"Acknowledged, S12. C1 is out of service," Dispatch chirped merrily.
Someone keyed their radio and a burst of applause echoed in the car. That was probably Chief Nelson. He'd already left the office, but I was pretty sure the chief of the Detective Bureau listened to the radio in his sleep.
The dispatcher broke in, her tone all business. "Code 20 at 7071 Stroud's Road."
I glanced at the road. I was only about a mile away. That was a domestic call, and I was likely closest. The county was seven hundred square miles, and it would take a while for backup to arrive. But I didn't like the idea of anyone getting their teeth knocked out when I could help it.
I keyed the radio. "This is L4. I'm at Sunday Creek and Route 6. En route." I flipped on the lights on my unmarked Crown Victoria and stepped on the gas, soaring over the blacktopped roads as the radio chattered.
"Acknowledged, L4. D2 is at 442 and Coffrey."
I thumbed the radio again. "Thanks, D2. I'll wait for you." I didn't hesitate because I was a woman in plain clothes. Departmental policy was that no one went to a domestic alone. Domestic violence cases could be unpredictable as fuck.
Adrenaline twitched through me as I drove down a hill and the sun slipped behind the trees. I pulled up before a dented rural mailbox with 7071 painted on the side. A gravel driveway wound into forest, and I couldn't see the house through the trees. I reached into the back seat for my vest, shrugged it on over my T-shirt, and tightened the Velcro straps. I put my detective's badge on a lanyard around my neck and buckled on my utility belt. I checked my cuffs, gun, and Taser, then pulled a radio out of its charging station. I tucked the base into my belt and threaded the toggle control up to the collar of my vest.
A shadow swept across the hood of my car. Reflexively, I reached to my belt. But it was only a bird sweeping low across the road, so low that its feathers nearly brushed my windshield. My heart rose in my throat at the magnificence of it: a great blue heron, wings moving in slow motion as it flew across the road and vanished in the forest.
A gunshot rang out in the direction of that gravel driveway winding down into a shady valley.
I sucked in my breath. "Shit."
I lunged out of the car, drawing my gun with my right hand and keying my radio with my left. "This is L4, 52A, 52A at 7071 Stroud's Road."
"Copy, L4. Hold your position. Backup is five miles away."
Five miles was an eternity. Some unlucky woman could be bleeding out on her kitchen floor while her husband was booking it out the back door. That vision was clear for me, clear as a movie playing out behind my mind's eye: a woman lying on a crusty linoleum floor, fingers twitching as the last of her air whistled through her ruined lungs.
I gritted my teeth. I couldn't let that happen. I tried to be a good cop who always followed the rules, but someone needed me more than the rules needed me to follow them. Aiming my gun at the ground, I stalked down the gravel drive. My boots crunched in the pale gray rock while the birds screamed around me. The canopy of the forest closed over my head, casting me in shadow. Sweat prickled on my brow as I came into view of a tiny yellow bungalow with algae-streaked siding. Its roof was covered in moss. A brand-new pickup truck was parked out front, and I scanned the area for a propane tank. If I had to use my weapon, I sure as hell didn't want to hit that.
I advanced upon the shiny red pickup, approaching the driver's side. I saw no movement in the mirror. I drew down and aimed my gun into the cab. The window was down, but no one was there. Keys dangled in the ignition. I didn't know what kind of clusterfuck I was walking into, but I didn't want any perps or witnesses to drive off.
I stepped up on the running board, reached in, and yanked the keys out of the ignition. I bumped my head on the visor, and a cloud of white dust rained down on me. My sinuses were flooded with the acrid smell of a Magic Marker. A plastic bag landed on the floorboards.
I swore silently and rubbed my arm across my face. The powder was all over the seat and over me. No telling what it was yet: could be cocaine, PCP, or, worse, fentanyl.
I keyed my radio: "Base, this is L4. Suspected drugs on scene with exposure. Backup should have PPE and request medic." Whatever this shit was, I wanted someone with Narcan en route . . . for myself and whoever had driven that truck.
I pocketed the keys and ducked behind the truck's front fender. I slipped my hand up to the hood. It was warm. Likely, the conflict inside hadn't been going on long . . . but long enough for a gunshot to punctuate it.
I projected my voice toward the house. "Bayern County Sheriff's Office. We need to talk."
I was hoping that would startle the perpetrator; that he-and it was statistically most likely to be a "he"-would go flying out the back door into the woods. If he came out the front, the truck was between him and me. Worst-case scenario would be him taking a hostage. Best case . . . he thought the woods were crawling with cops.
The screen door banged open, and a mid-thirties man in jeans and a black T-shirt strode down the slimy wooden steps. He held a shotgun in his hands. He was breathing fast, glowering, panicked.
"It's all right," I called. "Put down the gun and we'll talk, okay?"
My radio chattered but I wasn't listening. I was watching the guy pump the shotgun. I sucked in my breath, hoping to hell he wasn't going to shoot at his shiny new truck. His shoes crunched in the gravel. I backed up and scuttled around the edge of the bumper, gun raised. My pulse was pounding in my forehead, and I flipped the safety off.
"She fucking cheated on me," he was muttering. "She fucking cheated . . ."
And I was all of a sudden face-to-face with this wild-eyed man with a shotgun. His black T-shirt was wet, and a spatter of blood stained his arm.
I lifted my hand. "It's okay," I said soothingly. "It's okay . . ."
He aimed at me and pulled the trigger. Hundreds of pieces of birdshot rattled into me, and the shotgun blast rocked me out of my crouch into the gravel on my back. Pain seared me, and I gasped.
My pulse pounded harder, faster than the panic. I hadn't let go of my gun. I pressed both my fists around the grips, sighted through my bloody sunglasses, and fired.
I hit him in the gut. He was on the way down, but I kept shooting. He dropped to the ground, still clutching the shotgun.
I climbed, wincing, to my feet, supporting myself on the back fender of the truck. I felt surreally calm as I took a step toward him.
I fired. I hit him in the shoulder, and he shrieked.
I took another step.
I fired.
Another step.
Another bullet.
Gunfire rang out around me, deafening me. All I could hear was my blood thumping evenly in my ears. I was staring down at him, his fingers tangled in the shotgun's trigger guard. He wheezed, his mouth speckled in red, and his lips were moving, but I couldn't hear a thing.
I stood over him and shot him in the neck. His throat blossomed into red, and a piece of gravel, shattered, bounced back against my shin.
I collapsed to my knees beside him. Leaning over him, I watched his face intently. I knew he was dying. He gasped, gaping like a fish on land, as blood pumped through his shredded shirt and poured out of his torn-open throat. Bubbles emerged from the wound. He gurgled, his teeth stained red, and he twitched. His eyes rolled right and left, his pupils dilated, and his lower lip trembled above his sparse beard, sticking to it with a red string.
He looked up at me, gaze focused on my face. A drop of red dribbled down my chin and landed on his forehead.
And I felt it then . . . that moment where he was living and then not living. His chest stopped rattling, the blood slowed, and the twitching and fluttering faded. The focus of his gaze slackened, and I watched it like a voyeur, connected and yet disconnected to this vanishing of a man I didn't know.
He was dead.
I sat back in the gravel. Sound rushed back into my world, and I felt nauseous. I turned my head and vomited before collapsing in the gravel, overcome by the hundreds of piercing wounds burrowing into my body like hot worms. The shaded driveway felt cool against my body.
My radio buzzed distantly at my shoulder. I fumbled to key it.
"L4, 44," I whispered. Officer in trouble . . .
My radio squawked at me, but it sounded like a bird on my shoulder. Through my broken sunglasses, I stared up at the trees. I smelled metallic blood, leaf mold, and moss. Blood dripped into my right eye, and it stung. Disturbed by a pleasant breeze, yellow sugar maple leaves drifted down and stuck to my wet bulletproof vest. I stared, fascinated, as a whirligig seed pod spun down and stuck to my lip.
I exhaled, and its skeletal wing shuddered like a creature reborn.
2
The Fall
Sound roared around me. Sirens, yelling, and the squeal of radios. I was conscious of my sunglasses pulled from my eyes and a plastic mask fitted over my face. I stared up, up at the trees and the silver sky, as I was carried up the narrow gravel drive to an ambulance. I searched the sky for the heron but didn't find it.
I was still, croaking one-word answers to the fingers paramedics put in front of my face, tasting blood. I didn't know if I'd bitten my lip or bloodied my nose or if it was a sign of much worse.
"Do you know your name?" one paramedic who looked to be barely out of high school asked me.
I paused for a moment before answering, and he and the other paramedic exchanged worried glances.
"Anna Koray," I said finally.
"Good." The paramedics nodded as they stabbed my arms for IV lines. They cut my bulletproof vest off with scissors at the straps and cut away my T-shirt. I lay quietly, listening to the blood thumping evenly in my skull. It ticked like a metronome, a regular thud under the churning lights and motion and distant sirens. I felt myself moving quickly, hurtling over dips and valleys in the road. I knew we'd reached the hospital when white fluorescent light washed over me. I closed my eyes because the light was too bright, bright as noonday sun shining on water. Behind my eyes, I saw the life draining away from the man I killed, feeling that last instant as something ephemeral escaped him, an unseen exhalation . . .
"Anna."
I opened my eyes. A man leaned over me-a man I knew. His brow was creased as brown eyes stared down at me.
"Nick." My lips were dry, and the mask over my face fogged. I hadn't seen him since we'd broken up six months earlier. He'd pursued me hard with his wit and his charm, and I'd slowed down long enough for him to catch me. It was . . . too good. He was attentive, appreciative. We never argued; to him, my happiness mattered more than whatever petty thing we could ever find to argue about. I felt safe with him. The sex was the best I'd ever had. Unlike the men I'd known before, he didn't diminish me in any way. He and I, somehow, were more together than the sum of our parts. He'd wanted more. I . . . didn't know what I wanted. I think I was afraid to fully open up to him, to be vulnerable. I'd felt trapped in a way I didn't want to admit, like I did now, pinned under his dark gaze that searched my face for truths I couldn't give him. There were shadows beneath his eyes that I didn't remember from before.
Mercifully, he looked away from me to bark orders at the nurses. It figured that I would wind up in his emergency room, and during one of his shifts. I closed my eyes and listened to the regular beeping of the machines.
I felt a hand slip into mine before I drifted into darkness.
I dreamed I was a nine-year-old girl walking in the woods with my dad. His calloused hand was in my left hand, and we walked through a summer field. My right hand gripped a sticky dandelion. My cheeks felt warm with sunburn.
"Are we going to see the tree houses?" I asked.
He smiled, his face crinkling around his gray eyes. "You mean the tree stands?"
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