The first thing I taste is dirt.
Cold, loamy, in my mouth and under my nails. My cheek is pressed to something wet and rotting. Leaves. The air is sharp enough to sting the back of my throat when I drag in a breath that doesn’t feel like it belongs to me.
Crickets scream. The wind moves through the trees in a slow, shuddering roar, like the forest is breathing around me.
Then the pain hits.
It’s not everywhere at once, the way people describe car accidents. It’s focused, a blazing brand right over my heart. A starburst of agony punching through my ribs, pulsing in time with a heartbeat that’s racing hard enough to make my vision blur.
I jolt onto my back with a hoarse noise, clutching my chest. My fingers hit bare skin.
I freeze.
I’m half-naked. My pajama top is shredded, hanging off one arm in ribbons. Cool night air slicks over my ribs, my stomach. Goosebumps rush across me like a flock of birds taking off all at once.
“What the—” My voice breaks. It sounds wrong. Rougher. Like I’ve been screaming for hours.
I force my eyes down.
There, over my heart, the skin is not skin anymore.
A mark burns there—black and silver, seared into me like someone pressed a brand to my chest. It spirals out from a central crescent, lines and fangs and looping script I don’t recognize. The edges glow faintly, faint green flickers chasing each other through the ink as I stare.
The agony crests, white hot. My spine arches off the forest floor. A howl tears the night open.
It takes me a second to realize it came from me.
My lungs drag for more air. My head throbs like it’s full of bees. The trees lean in, too close, too tall. Moonlight filters through the canopy in thin strips, painting everything in silver and shadow. I don’t know this place.
I don’t know how I got here.
The last thing I remember is my bed. The small, too-warm room above the bakery. The sound of Mrs. Kellerman’s ancient refrigerator humming through the wall. My phone face-down on the nightstand, a half-read horror novel open on my chest.
Then—
Nothing.
No, that’s a lie. There was something. A pressure in my head, like hands pushing from the inside. Whispers like wind through needles. A low voice under everything, saying my name.
Luna.
Too many voices at once, echoing the same word.
Luna.
“Stop,” I whisper, pressing the heel of my hand to my forehead, as if I can crush the memory out. “This is a dream. It’s just—”
The mark flares, bright as molten metal.
I scream.
The forest answers.
Howls rise, distant but wrong somehow—too synchronized, too hungry. Birds explode out of the trees above me in a rush of wings. Something moves in the underbrush to my left, then freezes.
I am not alone.
Adrenaline slices through the haze. I scramble backward, half-crawling, half-sliding through the leaf mold until my back hits a tree trunk. The bark is rough and damp, grounding and unreal all at once.
“Who’s there?” My voice cracks again. I hate that it does. “I swear to God, if this is some Ashridge hazing thing—”
A low laugh comes from the shadows to my right.
