Hunted (Riley Cray) by A.J. Colby Page A

was no big deal. Letting the vibrating tension ease out of my shoulders I swiped my hand over my jaw again.
    “Did I get it all?” I asked, craning my neck towards him. I might have enjoyed teasing him just a little too much.
    Still looking a little nauseous, he swallowed and nodded.
    “Well, I guess it’s time to face the music then,” I said, reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom.
    “Guess so,” Holbrook mumbled, opening the door and preceding me. Johnson was planted in the center of the room, thunderheads gathering in his eyes.
    I had no doubt that Johnson was entirely, mundanely human, but the red hot fury rolling off of him gave me pause. He thrummed with furious energy, the overpowering bitter smell of it wrinkling my nose.
    “Where the fuck have you been?” he asked, his face flushing a worrying shade of purple, looking fit to burst a gasket at the slightest provocation.
    “Umm...” was all I could muster as I shuffled further into the room, my hands wringing in front of me. I hadn’t felt so chastised since I was a little girl and my grandfather had found me smoking behind the garage.
    “Never mind, I really don’t care right now,” he said, waving off my failed attempt at an excuse. “While you were off gallivanting around, Reed made contact.”
    Dread washed over me as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head. My hearing went fuzzy for a moment as I swayed on my feet. The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention again, and I wondered if Samson had seen Holbrook and me pawing at each other like horny teenagers in the bathroom. The thought made me want to puke.
    “W-what happened?” I asked, swallowing the fear rising in the back of my throat.
    “I came back from getting coffee and found evidence that Reed had been in my room,” Holbrook said, the stiffness in his posture and the clipped edge to his voice making me wary.
    “What evidence?”
    “We believe it’s an animal carcass.”
    “Believe it’s...you mean you don’t know? How can you not know?” I asked, my voice rising in pitch as hysteria crept in around the edges of my frayed nerves.
    “It’s not fully intact,” he hedged.
    “Meaning?” I pushed, an unsettling idea niggling at the back of my mind, leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Holbrook sighed, obviously frustrated at my inability to leave the subject alone and just accept their terse explanation.
    “It looks like the partial remains of a deer,” he answered, confirming my suspicions.
    My hand hovered in front of my mouth, my breath whistling in my ears as the room blurred in my vision and my hearing went fuzzy again.
    “It’s mine,” I said, crackles of static hovering at the edges of my vision.
    “What?” the agents chimed in unison, directing matching looks of confusion at me.
    “The deer. It’s my kill. He was...oh God, he was there, watching me in the woods. He watched me hunt and feed. Watched me...Jesus. He watched me sleep,” I said, my voice quavering as I fought off the feeling of dizziness that signaled I was close to fainting. “I think I’m gonna throw up,” I whispered, swallowing the flood of saliva in my mouth.
    Reaching a hand out to the edge of the dresser to steady myself, I hung my head, closing my eyes as I took several slow breaths. Somehow I managed to keep the contents of my stomach from spilling over the floor through sheer force of will alone, but it was a damned close call.
    “We think he got your rooms mixed up and left it in Agent Holbrook’s room instead of yours by mistake,” Johnson was saying, his voice sounding like it was coming from a long way off. I nodded numbly in agreement, but I was pretty sure it was meant to be a warning to Holbrook as much as me.
    Samson didn’t make mistakes.
    “It’ll be okay, Riley. We’ll catch him,” Holbrook tried to reassure me as if he sensed that I was close to passing out or running away again.
    “For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together, woman,”