Free TheFallenStarBookSeries1 by Jessica Sorensen

entire path. Great. Going over it would take a climbing ability I so did not possess. And going around it meant wading through at least a few feet of snow. My jeans would get soaked.
    I took it as a sign that we should head back. “Umm…maybe we should…” I started, but Alex was already lifting the branch over his head like it weighed nothing. The thing had to weigh a ton, though—it was gigantic.
    “Go ahead.” Alex gestured with his free hand for me to go underneath the branch. “Ladies first.”
    Part of me wondered, as I ducked beneath it, if he’d drop it on me. I know the thought was ridiculous, but hey, after everything that had happened, could you really blame me.
    Although he didn’t drop it on me, my hair did get tangled around it somehow. I struggled to get my hair loose, but my fingers were too cold and numb and wouldn’t work properly. Plus, my neck was tipped back in this awkward position that made things even more difficult.
    “Hold on,” Alex said. I could feel him moving around and then my hair being gently pulled on. He was standing so close to me and touching my hair; it made my head buzz like a beehive full of bees.
    “There,” he said, and my head was freed from the uncomfortable position it had been stuck in.
    I’d been holding my breath the whole time, and I let it out, a white puff of smoke rising in front of my face. I quickly scooted out of the way so Alex could slip underneath the branch and let it go.
    He dusted the snow off of his hands while I smoothed my now damp hair back into place. Well, as much in place as it had been to begin with.
    Alex watched me, seeming amused. “You good?”
    I zipped up my coat and tucked my hands in the pockets. “Yeah, I guess.”
    “Alright then.” He brushed past me and headed down the trail again.
    With every step I took, my heart beat fiercer. We were distancing ourselves farther and farther from the car, and the trees were becoming denser. For all I knew, any spot could have been “the spot.” The spot where I kept dying over and over again in my nightmares. It was hard to tell, though, because a forest was a forest. Everything looked the same. And in my nightmares, my death took place during the night, when the sky was black and the ground was a giant shadow.
    I’d never been in a forest in real-life before. At least not that I could remember. I was quickly learning that, despite the stillness the air held, there was a lot of chaos. Yeah, I know, the two are a huge contradiction. What I meant by it was, even though everything seemed calm, I could almost feel the things hiding out in the bushes and trees that surrounded us. Things that I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see.
    Every time the wind blew, I swear it was whispering danger . The branches of the trees canopied above me, making it seem darker than it truly was. And then there was Alex. Amazingly, he’d been fairly quiet. Too quiet if you ask me. Maybe he was being that way because of the electricity firing between us. I couldn’t be certain how much of an affect it was having on him, but personally, I felt fully awake and alive because of it. Every single one of my senses felt sharp. My skin was tingling from head to toe, which helped fade-out some of the cold, so hey, I guess that was a plus.
    As I was plucking a piece of a dead pine needle out of my hair, I heard a branch snap from behind me. I skidded to a halt and spun around, my gaze skimming through trees. But I couldn’t see anything but branches and snow. I was about to turn back around when a huge gust of wind whipped through the air. I heard another snap , this time much, much closer. Okay. Okay.  It is just an animal…a deer or something.
    Yeah, maybe it was some kind of forest animal, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I whirled back around and hurried to catch up with Alex, who hadn’t appeared to have notice I’d fallen behind.
    As I tried to catch my breath and calm down, I heard it. Not a snapping