“Persephone is a mouthful,” he grumbled under his breath.
“And Queen of the Underworld isn’t?”
He sighed, running a hand over his face. “You’re making this very impossible.”
“Why are you so resigned to coming up with a name for me anyhow?"
Like I’d caught him in a trap he hadn’t realized he’d set for himself, Reyes paused. “You’re right.”
And then he dropped it.
Just in time too.
On a curve we’d yet to pass was what I’d been waiting for. I saw it coming up just ahead, a slope that led who knows where with a nestling of bushes and sprouts of stretching trees huddled around a mammoth oak.
My heart thumped, and the wind chilled the hair on my forearms to a standstill.
Johnny.
His brush of wind was my encouragement, whispering to do it. To run. To hide. To die. Jonathan was waiting for me in the sky, nothingness at the tips of my fingers.
“Uh, Agent Reyes…” I started the first line in my show of deceit. He turned to me, eyebrows a curious slant, and I jutted my chin forward to a slat of far bushes. “I know it's probably my mind playing tricks but… I swear I just saw a snake.”
“What’d it look like?”
“Like one that probably killed Jack?” I feigned a laugh, jumping my eyes back and forth from him to the bush that was laid ground for my escape. I knew I looked scared. I could tell by the way his shoulders stiffened and his eyes grew serious.
“Okay. Stay back. If it’s anything, we’ll just turn around and head back.”
I nodded, curling my fingers together and pushing out a whimper of fake fear that turned the agent’s expression concerned. He held his arm out to me, signaling me to stay put as he neared closer to the bush I’d pointed out.
As he did, I inched closer to the slope.
With every step he took towards the bush, I took one toward the hill to cover the crunch of leaves beneath my shoes with his. We both stalked, one step at a time, toward our destination.
Blood pumped in my ears as I kept my eyes sturdy on his distancing frame until I felt the scratch of bark against my back and licks of weeds along my ankles. I reached my hands behind me, flattening them against the trunk of a tree and dared a glance off to the side to gauge how far into the brush I was.
Adrenaline spiked in my veins as I found myself at the edge of the hill, alarms whirling between my ears. On careful feet, I shimmied my way along the round of the huge tree as I reached my hearing back to Reyes, listening as he shouted to me that he hadn’t seen anything yet.
When he did turn back to me, he wouldn’t see anything. No flash of red hair. No Scarlett in sight. Just him and his worry as he searched for a ghost.
Nerves tussled with my determination as I inched my way behind the huge oak, verging closer and closer to total seclusion. Just as I veered completely out of view, I heard the beginnings of Agent Reyes' concern.
“Scarlett?” he bellowed out, voice an echo of discipline between the trees. “This isn’t fucking funny.”
No, funny wasn't what I was going for. Death, inescapable and permanent, was my aim.
"Scarlett, come out, right now!"
But I remained hidden behind the trunk of the tree, toes hanging off the cusp of the hill that, the more I looked over it, the more I realized it was more of a cliff than a pleasant slope. A whine stuck in my chest as I fought not to look down.
If I had to guess, the incline was a good eighty degrees verging on ninety. At the bottom were wiry looking weeds, a terrain of shallow rocks, and earth. Hard, unforgiving earth.
A pounding devoured my head, eyes squeezing shut to drown out the heartbeat of fear that tried to convince me back onto solid ground. I wouldn't—couldn't—go back. Not when it was working. Not when I could already hear Agent Reyes’ shouts draining in volume as he searched for me farther down the trail.
Just in front of me, there was a bush I could use for long-term cover hitting right at my knees. Ever so slowly, I bent down to hide behind it.
A twig from the bush reached out and scratched my cheek, and I yanked back, hissing at the burn in my skin. I shifted my heels to the side in an attempt to turn profile to the bush.