Free Unleashed by Nancy Holder Page B

She dug her fingernails into her palms, trying to focus on the sensation, trying to make herself calm down.
    Trick turned to look at her and there was fear in his eyes. Her heartbeat picked up. “Okay, I’ll stay in the car.”
    “Good.” He nodded as if to himself. “This will just take a minute.”
    Trick slammed the door as he got out, and she watched, on edge, as he crossed into the beams from the headlights. He grabbed two of the deer’s legs and began pulling for all he was worth. She was actually glad he’d told her to stay in the car, because there was no way she wanted to help him.
    Slowly the deer inched off the road and Katelyn turned her head, not wanting to see the lifeless eyes again. But then she was staring into the blackness that pressed up against the sides of the car, and that was worse.
    She looked back and the deer was gone. And so was Trick.
    She sat, blinking for a moment, scanning the trees for his shape. The drumming began to pick up, and her heart thumped faster. Every horror movie she’d seen started like this. She’d get killed by an ax-wielding wolfman executive, and Trick would come back and find her body right before he was chopped down, too.
    “Haley was out alone ,” she whispered, desperate to hear the sound of a voice in the quiet and the dark, even if it was her own. Another thought flashed through her mind. What if whoever had slashed Trick’s tires had dumped the deer on the road to get him out of the car? So that he was alone? What if out there in the dark he was being beaten … or worse? He was being killed by the murderer first. And when that was done, she’d be next.
    Stop being an idiot. The deer wasn’t left there to stop us .
    Finally she couldn’t stand it and rolled the window down. “Trick?” she called.
    Only the sounds of the woods and the incessant drumming reached her.
    “Trick, this isn’t funny!” she shouted.
    Nothing.
    Chills shot down her spine.
    Maybe he was hurt or lost and needed help. Yet even if she could find her way back to the school or to her grandfather’s through the darkness without crashing the car on one of the hairpin turns, she’d never be able to say on what part of the road she’d left him.
    He had told her to stay in the car, but for how long? What was she supposed to do? The engine was still running and she tried to crane her neck over to see how much gas there was, suddenly worried that they would run out. The gauge showed more than half a tank left, and she sighed in relief.
    This is ridiculous !
    She took a deep breath and then opened her car door and climbed out.
    “Trick! Don’t make me come after you!”
    She scanned the area, but aside from the stand of menacing trees illuminated by Trick’s high beams, she still couldn’t see anything. The light pouring from inside the Mustang wasn’t helping, and after a moment’s hesitation, she closed the door, turned away from the wash of the headlights, and took a step forward. Cold crept into her bones and she felt as though someone were whispering to her. She couldn’t hear it, exactly; she could only sense it. Her earlier fear that the scary-looking Snow White trees would come alive returned in full force and this time she couldn’t shake it off.
    The wind moaned through the branches and they began to creak. Something reached out and plucked at her shirt and she screamed and jumped backward, slamming her elbow into the car door. Katelyn hissed sharply at the pain even as she reached for the door handle, yanked it open, and threw herself inside, slamming the door behind her. She twisted around and examined her arm by the light of the instrument panel. Her sleeve was ripped and a jagged scratch was already oozing blood onto it. A tree branch tapped at the glass next to her and she forced herself to take several deep breaths.
    The trees are not coming alive. They’re just really close to the car .
    She tried to still herself so she could listen. Those stupid drums; if