Chapter 22 The forest takes

Chapter 22 The forest takes
SAMARA – POV

When I come to, it’s dark.
Not the soft kind of dark that settles over you. This is thick. Pressing. The kind that feels alive.

Cold air slices into my lungs the second I try to breathe. It burns all the way down, sharp enough to make my chest seize. My head throbs in brutal, uneven pulses, each one stronger than the last, like something inside my skull is trying to break free.

Something wet clings to my temple.
I lift shaking fingers to my head.
They come away slick.

Even without seeing it, I know.
It's blood.

A small, broken sound slips out of me before I can stop it.
The forest answers.

Leaves drag across the ground in long, whispering strokes. Branches creak overhead, rattling softly though the air is completely still.

“Samara.”
The voice glides through the trees like silk pulled over bone.
“Josephine…”

“No,” I whisper, the word barely holding together.

I force myself upright, though the world tilts violently the moment I move. My stomach rolls, nausea rising fast and sharp. I stagger, catching myself against the rough bark of a tree. My backpack slips from my shoulder and drops into the dirt.
I stare at it for a second.
Then look away.
It doesn’t matter right now.
Warm blood slides down my cheek.
Think. Focus.
I need to stop the bleeding.

My hands fumble for the hem of Derrick’s hoodie. The fabric is familiar, grounding in a way nothing else is right now. It still smells like him—clean, steady, safe.
The thought hits harder than it should.
He’s going to be worried.
My chest tightens painfully.

I yank the hoodie over my head. Cold air immediately claws at my bare arms, raising goosebumps across my skin. Ignoring it, I press the fabric hard against my temple.
Pain explodes behind my eyes.

“Breathe,” I murmur, my voice shaking. “Just… breathe…”

I take a step.
My knees buckle instantly.
I hit the ground hard, mud soaking into my palms, cold and slick. My breath fractures into sharp, uneven gasps.

“Derrick…” I whisper, as if the wind might carry it to him.

The trees groan in response.
I push myself up again.
A few steps.
Then the ground rushes up to meet me again.
I try again. And again. Stumbling from tree to tree, barely staying upright long enough to move forward before I fall.
Each time I hit the ground, the forest feels closer.
The shadows thicker.
Like it’s closing in.

“Samara…”
“Josephine…”
“Daughter…”
“Come home.”

The voices overlap, weaving together until they press in on all sides.

“Stop,” I sob, pressing the hoodie harder against my head as if I can block them out.
But I keep moving.
I don’t know where I’m going anymore.
Only that I can’t stop.

“Derrick…” My voice breaks. “Find me… please…”

The darkness shifts.
A root catches my ankle and I pitch forward, my shoulder scraping harshly against bark as I go down. Pain flares along my arms, branches having torn through skin, leaving them raw and burning.
The cold sinks deeper, settling into my bones.

And then—
it starts again.
That pull.
Under my skin.
Behind my eyes.
It presses inward, heavy and suffocating, like something is trying to force its way through me.

I scream.

The forest screams back.

My own voice echoes, twisted and wrong, louder than it should be.
Roots burst from the ground, snapping tight around my legs before I can move. More follow, wrapping around my wrists, digging into my skin, holding me in place as I struggle.

The hoodie slips from my grasp, landing in the mud, already soaked red.
“No—!”
Above me, the darkness gathers, thick and roiling.

“Josephine,” the voice murmurs, closer now. “Come home, daughter.”

“Derrick!” I scream, the name tearing out of me with everything I have left.

This time—
the forest doesn’t echo it.
It swallows it and me with me.

DERRICK – POV

I feel like I'm losing my mind, pacing the living room like a caged animal.
I know something is wrong.
Not a thought. Not a fear.
A certainty.
It sits in my chest like a blade, digging deeper with every second she stays missing.

We’ve searched everywhere.
The school. Hospitals. Bus stops. Casey’s house. The coffee shop.
Nothing.

My hands won’t stop shaking. I curl them into fists, then uncurl them again, like I can force control back into my body if I try hard enough.
It doesn’t work.

I pace, then stop, then pace again, like if I move fast enough I won’t have to feel what’s building inside me.
The necklace flashes in my mind.
Left behind.
Like it meant nothing.
Like I meant nothing.

My mind keeps replaying the same thing over and over
her walking out.
The way she wouldn’t look at me.
The anger in her voice.

The last thing she said to me was I hate you. And I just let her walk away from me.
My jaw tightens.

“I was trying to keep you safe,” I mutter under my breath, already pacing. “You don’t understand what’s out there. You don’t understand what would—”

A sharp, brutal pain rips through me.
I stagger forward, catching myself on the chair before I can hit the ground, breath punching out of my lungs. For a second I think it’s panic finally catching up to me.

But then the pain shifts, becoming a dull throb at my temple.
My vision blurs and a completely different view shifts into place.
The forest, dark and pressing. The taste of blood in my throat.

My head snaps to the treeline.

“No,” I say immediately, shaking it off. “No, you wouldn’t go in there. You hate it. You won’t even go near it without—”
Without me.
The words die in my throat.
My stomach drops.
“She wouldn’t,” I repeat, but I’m already moving to the door. “She wouldn’t be that stupid—”
I know it's a lie.
She would, if she was angry enough.
If she wanted distance.
If she wanted away from me.
Something ugly twists in my chest.

“Catherine!” I bark. “We’re searching the forest.”.

“She wouldn’t be in there.”

“She is.”

My voice comes out flat. Final.
There’s no room for argument in it.

“I can feel her.”
And if I can feel her—
so can something else.

That thought lands like gasoline on fire.
I’m already running before Catherine can respond.

Branches tear at me the second I hit the trees. I don’t slow down. I don’t care. They snap and scrape and drag across my skin, and all I feel is the pressure in my chest tightening, tightening, tightening—
like something is slipping.

“No,” I whisper, faster now. “No, no, no—stay where you are. Don’t move. Don’t let anything touch you—”

“Samara!”
My voice rips through the forest, raw and relentless. The forest swallows the name whole.

I keep going.
Because stopping means thinking.
And thinking means remembering—
Aleira.
Bloodied in my hands.
Her body going still.
The way I held her and begged and promised and failed anyway.
My breath fractures.

“I’m not doing this again,” I say, louder now, teeth clenched. “Do you hear me? I am not losing you again. I won’t—”

The air shifts.
Metallic.
Sharp.
I stop so hard it nearly throws me forward.
My head tilts slightly as I inhale.
Once.
Twice.
And then it hits fully.
The smell of blood hanging in the air.
So much blood.
My vision tunnels as I look down.
The rock.
Dark. Wet. Coated.

“Samara!”

I drop to my knees, tearing through leaves with shaking hands until I see it—
Her backpack.
Discarded a few feet from the rock.
Like she no longer had the strength to hold onto it.
Something inside me caves in.

“No. No, no, no—”
I grab it, gripping it so tightly the fabric strains.
Rage hits me so fast it almost blacks out my vision.
“You think you can take her?” I say, voice low, shaking with it. “You think I won’t tear this place apart to get her back?”

The shadows don’t answer.
But I feel them rolling through the darkness, mocking me.

“Samara!” I roar, forcing her name into every corner of the trees. “Answer me!”
For a second there's no sound at all.

Then a faint voice on the wind.
“Derrick…”

Everything in me locks onto it.

“Sam?” My voice drops instantly, wrecked. “Say it again. Baby—say it again.”

Silence.
Gone.

“No, don’t do that,” I snap, panic spiking. “Don’t go quiet on me. Call to me. Call to me Sam!.”

Then—
a scream.

“DERRICK!”

It rips through me.

“I’m here!” I shout back, already running, already chasing the sound like it’s the only thing keeping me alive. “I’m coming—just keep calling, don’t stop, do you hear me?!”

The forest twists the sound.
I don’t care.
I will tear through every inch of it if I have to.

“Again!” I shout, voice breaking. “Call again. I need to hear you!”

Branches rip into me. Thorns tear my skin open. Blood runs down my arms.
I don’t feel it.

Because I feel her now more strongly than my own body and she's fading fast.

“No,” I whisper, faster, desperate. “No, no—stay with me. You don’t get to leave me. Not like this. Not again—”

Another scream.
Closer.
Weaker.
Rage surges hot and blinding.
Whatever did this—
whatever touched her—
is going to die.
Slowly.

I burst into the clearing and stop.
She’s there.
Buried in the mud. Roots wrapped around her body, crushing, holding her down. Above her, darkness writhes like something alive, something hungry.

For one second—
I see it again.
Aleira.
Dying in my arms.
Blood everywhere.
Gone too quickly.

The scream that tears through me isn't human

“No!”

I reach for my hip, the glamour evaporates instantly.
The sword slams into my hand in a violent burst of white-gold fire. Light explodes across the clearing, tearing into the darkness. It recoils with a scream.

I don’t hesitate.
I attack.
I hit the roots with everything I have, blade cutting through them like they’re nothing, like they should have known better than to touch what’s mine.

“Let her go.”
It’s not a demand.
It’s a threat. They don’t move fast enough.
I rip them apart.
Light tears through the darkness, forcing it back, burning it away piece by piece.
“Touch her again,” I snarl, voice shaking with fury, “and I will burn this entire forest to the ground.”
The blackness recoils.
Retreats like the coward who sent them.

I drop to my knees beside her, pulling her into my arms immediately, hands frantic now, searching, checking.
She’s freezing.
Her skin is too pale.

“Sam—” My voice breaks completely. “Sam, look at me. Open your eyes baby—come on, don’t do this, don’t do this to me—”

Her lashes flutter.
Barely.

“D… Derrick…”

Relief hits so hard it hurts.

“I’ve got you,” I breathe, pulling her closer like I can force life back into her. “You’re okay. You’re okay, I’m here—no one’s touching you, no one’s taking you from me.”

Her body goes limp in my arms.
And this time, I don’t think. I don’t breathe.
I just move.

Because if she dies—
I will tear this world apart trying to follow her.