Raw: The Ultimate Mc Collection by Honey Palomino

provided, the forest seemed to grow taller and darker around me.  It was eerily quiet.
    “I’ll just hop in the first car that stops and ask for a ride to the nearest police station.  Or, I’ll ask to use the phone, call for help,” I said out loud.  
    Fear gripped my heart as I heard a loud howl in the trees to my left.  I picked up the pace of my steps, gathering all my inner strength as my blood pounded through my veins.  
    “Surely, someone is looking for me,” I said, my voice shaking with fear this time.  “Hopefully, because they miss me and not because they want to finish killing me.”
    My stomach churned, and my hands began shaking.  Each step that carried me away from the clubhouse, from the only guaranteed safe place that I had, just increased the knot of dread that had settled deep inside me.  That big, black box of fear threatened to overwhelm my entire soul and I walked even faster, trying desperately to stuff the fear back down before it could spill over completely.
    Tears flowed down my cheeks.  I jutted out my chin, pushing my chest out and putting one foot in front of the other, determined to continue pressing forward.   I will be fine , I told myself over and over, as the sounds of the clubhouse faded away behind me.
    You’re already survived so much.  Everything will come back. You just need a little time.
    If only I could stop crying, stop being such a fearful wimp, find some sense of courage to face whatever the real truth was, then maybe it will all come back, and I can go back to my normal life…whatever that was.
    I remembered the short denim skirt and heels that Ryder had found me wearing.  What was normal life?  What kind of woman was I that I would dress like that?  It seemed so foreign, so uncomfortable to me.  It just didn’t fit.
    But neither did the bruises on my face.  Or, the fact that someone had tried to kill me - and on this very road somewhere, too.
    My steps slowed as I remembered Ryder’s words earlier.  He didn’t tell me exactly where, but it couldn’t have been too far from here. 
    I stopped walking, and looked around.  There wasn’t much to see.  Towering trees, a deep, dark, dense forest and a dirt road.  Nothing more. What had happened to me? Why? The questions had been echoing in my head endlessly, and I still had no answers. 
    Maybe I was asking the wrong questions.  Maybe I needed to know who it was that had tried to hurt me.  Maybe I needed to know where that person was.  Were they waiting for me?  I had meant to ask Ryder a lot more questions, specifically about the man that he had found me with, and I couldn’t remember why I had stopped questioning him now. 
    Instead, we had ended up at the beach.  Instead, we had ended up kissing.
    Cherry’s words rang in my head, and once again, I wondered what the hell I was thinking.  That was just it, I wasn’t.  I was feeling.  And I couldn’t afford to do that right now.
    I started walking again, and saw something move high up in a tree to my left.  I looked up and saw huge, blinking yellow eyes.  An owl!  My heart raced as I walked over to the tree, staring up at him as he stared right back at me.  His head was turned down toward me, and he tilted his head to the right and then back to the left, as if he were sizing me up.
    “Hi, there,” I said, quietly.  I couldn’t believe he was just sitting there so calmly.  “I’m Sam.”
    “Wow, you’re beautiful,” I whispered.  He blinked at me again, and then with a big, sweeping flap of his wings, he flew off the branch and landed in the dirt directly in front of my boots. 
    Although he startled me, I resisted jumping away, keeping my boots firmly planted on the road.  I watched him, wondering what I should do.   Would he let me touch him , I wondered?  I took a few deep breaths, trying to soften my panicked energy, and then bent my knees, squatting in front of him.
    He remained still, watching me silently, his huge