My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 54

Nina

Jessica, Lori and I had begun setting up camp not far from where the businessman had been murdered when I heard twigs and leaves crunching in the forest.

Someone was coming.

“Oh my god,” Jessica complained as she fiddled with her tent poles, “this is impossible! Lori, I need help!”

“Guys,” I said, but they didn’t hear me.

“I just helped you two minutes ago,” Lori said, standing and walking over to Jessica with her hands on her hips while Jessica whined.

“Shh!” I said, which made them finally go quiet. “Do you hear that?”

My heart raced as I listened to the footsteps. They were getting louder, and definitely headed directly for our camp. I glanced over at my tent, which had the shotgun inside -- if I could just get over there before anything bad happened.

“Hello?” a male voice called out from the woods.

I knew that voice anywhere; it was Enzo.

And hearing it didn’t make me any less terrified.

He stepped out into the clearing, holding a bundle of firewood with a backpack on his back and a big, stupid grin on his face.

“Oh, hey!” he said, as if he hadn’t followed us out here. I knew I should’ve stopped Luke! “Fancy seeing you ladies here!”

“What a surprise!” Jessica said, practically squealing with delight. Despite what she had said in the cafeteria the other day about Enzo, she couldn’t hide her fangirl nature around him.

“You’re camping, too?” Lori said while I only continued inching toward my tent in silence, trying to get closer to the shotgun in case Enzo suddenly decided that we knew too much and that he’d need to kill us, just like he did with the businessman.

“Yeah,” Enzo replied. “Me and a couple other guys. It’s a nice weekend for it.” He looked over at me just as I was about to reach into the tent for the shotgun, his eyes flashing red for a split second as if to warn me not to do it. I swallowed, my heart practically beating out of my chest.

“Ooh, you guys should camp with us!” Jessica said.

“Jessica!” Lori growled, glancing at me.

“What?” Jessica replied. “It’ll be fun. You’d be okay with it, right, Nina?”

I felt betrayed that Jessica would be so dumb at the first sign of a hot guy to forget all of our morals, but her nonchalance toward him in the cafeteria the other day made me wonder now if he was using some sort of werewolf powers to make Jessica say these things… And when I saw how focused his eyes were on hers, and how her eyes seemed almost glazed over, I knew it to be true.

Enzo was manipulating Jessica into inviting him over.

“Uh… Sure, I guess,” I said, knowing that there was no way out now. Regardless of what I said, he would find a way to get close to us.

Enzo flashed another grin at my response, then looked up at the sky.

“Sun’s setting,” he said, walking over to our fire pit and setting down the firewood he had so nonchalantly collected on his way to stalk me. “I’ll just go get Matt and James, and we’ll be over in a minute.”

James? As in… Graduate student James?

What sort of game was Enzo playing with me?

Before I could ask, Enzo disappeared. Lori turned toward me, her eyes wide.