Chapter 87: The Brother

Cassie shivered and rubbed her hands together for warmth as she scanned her surroundings. The full moon and clear night sky illuminated the forest by reflecting off the snow, making it the brightest a forest could get by starlight and brighter than any summer night. Evergreens and naked elm trees jutted out from an endless blanket of thick, soft, knee-deep snow that frosted her ass as she crouched behind a cedar bush.

He stalked through the snow in relentless pursuit of his prey. She could sense his evil as though it floated on the breeze, but she didn't move, nothing did, and the quiet eeriness announced his approach.

Suddenly, the silence exploded with the crunch of snow underfoot. Shrugging deeper into herself, she pulled her collar up over her mouth in an attempt to muzzle the plume of breath that threatened to reveal her location.