The forest was deathly silent.

Not the kind of silence that comforted or soothed. No. This was the heavy, crawling kind. The kind that wrapped itself around your throat, promising danger in every breath. Every step she took crackled against the dry leaves, echoing like thunder.

Cora didn’t belong here.

She knew it the moment she crossed the broken fence at the edge of the old wildlife reserve. The trees were wrong—too tall, too twisted, their branches like skeletal hands clawing at the ...