Taken by the Beast (The Conduit Series Book 1) by Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley Page B

wiping a tear from his cheek. Meanwhile, Lulu lugged herself out of the backseat of the cop car. My guilt over not being where I should have been doubled at the sight of her, then tripled at the sight of her overripe belly.
    She was
so
pregnant. So. Damn. Pregnant. And here I was, blowing out the tire on her car and disappearing into the woods.
    “It’s all right,” I said, tears burning behind my eyes. “I’m fine, really I am.”
    I stepped toward her and hugged her the same way she had hugged me after Mom’s diagnosis.
    Her whole body was trembling. “They found the car—”
    “I’m sorry about the car,” I said.
    “Shut up about the stupid car,” she said, wiping her eyes, smiling through her tears. “What happened? Where were you?”
    My mind flickered back to last night, to running through the woods away from monsters and finding myself mysteriously moved inside a seemingly abandoned house. Then I thought about all the girls who had disappeared, all of the girls who looked just like me. And the note on the door of the house, warning me to keep my mouth shut.
    My lips parted, though I was still unsure what to say. It wasn’t so much the note that gave me pause. After all, I was free of whoever wrote it. But, even if I told the truth, who would believe me?
    Monsters running through the woods at night? Wolves that stood on their hind legs like men? It was one thing for people to make up stories about missing girls and wild animals, but it was another to say you knew those outlandish stories actually had merit.
    None of it made any sense, and it would have likely either branded me a lunatic or an unreliable witness. Or, ya know, maybe they would eat the story right out of my hand—this was New Haven after all. But did I want to take the risk? Once I said it, there would be no taking it back.
    So I did what any woman would do when faced with a similar situation: told as much of the truth as possible without making myself look bad.
    “The tire blew out, and then I heard some weird noises …” I started, trying not to pause too much as I made up my story on the spot. “My phone didn’t have service, and I saw a … dog or something on the road. It started chasing me, and I headed out into the woods.” I swallowed hard. “I got lost out there. It took me this long to find my way back out.”
    “Oh, my Lord. You poor thing,” Lulu said, taking my hand.
    “You didn’t hear us?” Dalton asked, cocking his head to the side. “After we found the car, a few of us went out into the woods with hounds, looking for you. We weren’t quiet about it.”
    “I … I must have been a long way out,” I answered. “Not that I was in the mood to come running toward the sound of dogs.”
    “Understandable,” he muttered.
    “There’s a house, Dalton,” I said, my stomach twisting in knots. “Out in the woods, there’s an old house. It looks like someone might live there.”
    Someone who wanted to protect the secret of what was really going on in those woods, I thought. But I couldn’t say that—not without explaining more than I cared to.
    For a long moment, Dalton glared past me and into the woods. I wasn’t sure whether he could tell I was withholding something, but it was clear that a bit of his ease melted away.
    His teeth ground together, and his jaw set. “I’ll look into that.”
    ***
    Although Dalton and Lulu insisted on me going to the hospital, the choice was ultimately mine. They settled for me heading back to Lulu’s house with both of them to keep an eye on me.
    On the ride home, I learned that I wasn’t the only person who went missing last night; there was one other woman—a real estate agent and mother of three—who disappeared while walking her dog a few hours before they found my car. Her name was Rachel, and judging by Dalton’s description of her, she looked a lot like me.
    Of course.
    We pulled up in front of Lulu’s house, the events of the previous night chasing so close