The river didn’t care that Riley had almost died twice in one afternoon.

  The white water raged around her, roaring like it was personally offended she’d fallen into it. Foam churned over rocks the size of minivans, exploding upward in cold spray that blinded her as she tumbled end over end.

  Riley flailed, kicking and sweeping her arms through the current, trying to orient herself. It didn’t work. The river was a brute, fast, deep, cold, dragging her downstream like a dog shaking a toy.

  The three gray-skinned monsters were now a distant memory. Whatever they were, they weren’t diving in after her. Not into this.

  Riley swallowed another mouthful of water and coughed violently, sputtering as the current slammed her into another submerged boulder.

  Her mother had enrolled her in swim lessons at four years old. “You will learn young,” she’d said, “because I didn’t, and I nearly drowned once.” Riley had taken to it well enough. In a pool, she moved through water like it was second nature, smooth, easy strokes, kicking in rhythm, turning her head for air.

  This was not a pool.

  This was nature at its ugliest and most enthusiastic. Even Michael Phelps wouldn’t have made a horse race out of this.

  Her foot hit something slick, another rock polished smooth by decades, maybe centuries, of erosion. She pushed off it desperately, trying to gain even a little control. It shot her toward the surface, and she broke through long enough to gasp a single, precious breath.

  Then the current took her again.

  Her lungs burned. Her arms felt like soggy noodles. She was running on fumes, and she knew it. She’d sprinted for her life before falling off that cliff. She had nothing left to give.

  But her body kept fighting anyway, like it hadn’t gotten the memo that this was pointless.

  Woman vs. nature.

  Except nature didn’t give out participation trophies.

  She pushed off another rock. Her tenth? Twelfth? It didn’t matter. Her legs buckled under her. Exhaustion rippled through her muscles. And then her head slammed against something hard.

  Lights out.

  ***

  The sun hung low in the sky when Riley came to. A burnt orange glow filtered through branches overhead, painting the world in long shadows.

  She lay on her side on a sandy, muddy riverbank far downstream, half-covered in silt and small pebbles. Her hair clung to her face in wet, gritty strands. Her lungs seized, and she coughed violently, rolling onto her stomach as muddy water and something slimy dribbled out of her mouth.

  She gagged, spat, gagged again.

  Her entire body hurt. Not in one place, everywhere.

  She collapsed back onto the ground, cheek resting against the cool mud. For several long seconds she didn’t move, just listened to the rasp of her breathing and the distant hiss of the river.

  Then her eyes snapped open.

  She shot upright with a sharp inhalation and looked wildly around.

  “Am I alone?” she whispered.

  The forest didn’t answer. Just the river rushing behind her and the faint rustle of leaves in the breeze.

  Riley held her breath, muscles tight, listening.

  One minute.

  Two.

  Her biology slowly steadied. Heartbeat beginning to slow. Breath coming smoother. Nothing moved in the trees. Nothing snarled. No gray-skinned monsters came crashing out of the underbrush.

  When her adrenaline finally ebbed, a different sensation took over: shivering.

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  Not from cold, not really. The air was cool, yes, but not freezing.

  No, this shaking felt like the aftershock of panic. A delayed quake, trembling through her muscles as everything inside her tried to process the fact that she was still alive.

  She wrapped her arms around herself, teeth chattering. She didn’t feel strong. She didn’t feel lucky. She felt…small.

  Tears pricked her eyes before she could stop them.

  It wasn’t just the cliff. Or the river. Or the monsters.

  It was everything. She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t understand how she’d gotten here. She didn’t have her phone. In the short time she’d been conscious in this world, her life had been in danger, twice.

  Now the sun was going down, and she had, no shelter, no tools, no food and no idea what hunted at night

  A single, horrifying thought entered her mind: If those things were the daytime monsters…what the hell comes out after dark?

  Her eyes widened.

  Her face crumpled, and she dropped to her knees, burying her face in her hands.

  “What am I going to do now?” she choked.

  Her shoulders shook with each uneven breath.

  She froze for a moment to give her ears a chance to identify the newest unfamiliar sound. It sounded like a kennel of rabid bears fighting over a carcass.

  Then in the opposite direction, something much louder and closer than the last, howled in the distance.

  Her head jerked between the two directions, eyes wide, breath caught.

  Self-pity evaporated instantly.

  Her breathing immediately quickened.

  “Hell no. Not again. I need shelter. Now.”

  Her mind, finally breaking through the fog of shock and exhaustion, sharpened like a blade being honed.

  Panic blurred things. Strategy cleared them.

  This, at least, Riley understood.

  She got to her feet, legs trembling. She scanned the riverbank, then the treeline.

  “Can I build something? A lean-to? A hole in the ground? A…tree nest? Anything?”

  She turned in a slow circle.

  “I shouldn’t stray too far from the river,” she muttered. “Good water source. Moving water is safer than sitting water. Or…something like that.”

  Her voice felt strange in the open air, but hearing it grounded her.

  She started walking a perimeter, scanning the area for anything remotely usable. Larger trees, dense underbrush, fallen logs. She placed a hand against a thick trunk and tugged.

  “Can this hold my weight?” She looked up at the branches. “Maybe if I sleep in a tree ground predators won’t reach me.”

  She shook the trunk harder. It held firm.

  Okay. Wedging myself in a crotch twenty feet up was an option.

  Not a good one though because those last things could probably climb like squirrels on steroids.

  Her instincts pushed her onward. Something about staying exposed—even elevated—felt wrong. Trees helped, but they also hid predators until they were too close.

  She moved into the forest, trudging through roots and ferns. Her soaked clothes clung to her body. Every few steps she wiped her nose with the back of her hand or pushed wet hair from her eyes.

  Five minutes of walking, and the forest abruptly opened onto a second clearing.

  This one was different.

  In the middle stood a tower.

  A lone, squat, stone tower.

  Riley froze.

  It wasn’t tall, maybe one story high, with a half-collapsed upper platform that might once have been a crow’s nest. The stone was a heavy gray, mottled with years of weathering. Vines crawled up the sides like green scars. The grass around it was long and wild, swaying in waist-high tufts.

  The door was knocked in. A broken flagpole jutted from the top at an awkward angle, snapped in the middle like someone had hit it with something massive.

  This place had seen battle. Long ago, judging by the overgrowth. But it still stood.

  Barely.

  A refuge. Maybe.

  A growl reverberated through the trees behind her, closer this time.

  Too close.

  A chill shot down Riley’s spine. Every instinct she had ignited like a flare.

  She didn’t hesitate.

  She ran.

  Her feet pounded across the clearing, grass whipping at her legs as she sprinted for the old tower toward the doorway that was open and seemed like the throat of some ancient beast, waiting to inhale her.

  The sun dipped lower behind the trees.

  The shadows lengthened.

  And Riley didn’t dare look back.

  Riley reached the doorway. Her legs buckled, nearly giving out beneath her, and she had to claw the stone frame just to stay upright. She stumbled over what seemed like a fallen piece of wood lying across the threshold. She caught herself against the stone wall, breath coming in sharp, panicked bursts. The interior yawned before her, dark, cool and smelling faintly of dust and old moss.

  For a moment she hesitated, peering into the shadows.

  “What if something’s inside?” she whispered.

  Another snarl answered her.

  Closer. Much closer.

  Decision made.

  She ducked inside.

  The tower greeted her with a hollow stillness. The floor was uneven stone, strewn with bits of broken wood, old leaves, and the remains of what might once have been furniture. A few narrow windows let in a pale strip of fading sunlight.

  But it was shelter. Four walls. A roof, mostly. A defensible entry point.

  Her heart hammered against her ribs, but relief trickled in around the edges.

  She turned back toward the doorway, gripping the wall with trembling fingers. She frantically scanned the poorly lit area around the doorway looking and only saw a bench that wouldn’t cover the doorway opening and keep out whatever was stalking her.

  “Oh come on,” she hissed.

  Outside, the grass rustled.

  Something moved at the treeline.

  Riley froze. Not breathing. Not blinking. Listening.

  A low, dark shape paced the edge of the clearing, slipping between the trees. Its eyes glowed faintly in the dim light.

  Her pulse spiked.

  She wasn’t safe yet. Not even close.

  But the tower was the best chance she had.

  She backed deeper into the room, searching for anything she could use. Stones, debris, a stick, anything. Her fingers closed around something smooth and cold, too regular to be stone, too deliberate to be natural.

  The creature outside growled low and deep, shaking the ground beneath her feet.

  Riley tore her gaze from the object and pressed herself against the inner wall, bracing for whatever came next.

  Night was falling.

  And she was not alone.