As she’d been doing since Tony had picked her up off the floor and calmed her, Addis followed him around his cabin. Unlike their kidnapper’s place where the coffin-like walls were covered in cheap, dark wood paneling with fungus seeping through the cracks, this one was old but still more modern – and almost obsessively clean, at least in Addis’s limited opinion of what a hunting refuge should look like.

Every wall in every room was decorated with various hunting trophies and garish animal heads of all shapes and sizes, the largest being that of a bear, its face forever frozen in an angry snarl. And regardless of where she stood, the eyes of each displayed animal followed her, almost as if accusing her of being the predator to its prey.

It might be a taxidermist’s dream place, but to her, it sprang well past the creepy-as-all-hell vibe, which spoke volumes considering all she’d been through. Frankly, she was done with creepy. On the other hand, Uncle Mack, an enthusiastic hunter, would salivate over this place. Addis tugged at the ripped collar of her shirt and shivered inside the bulky oversized camouflage jacket she still wore. All these dead animals shrank the space around her, making it far more suffocating.

Ignoring the mounted head and shoulders of the mountain lion leering down at her like she was his lunch, she continued shadowing Tony as he amassed piles of supplies, shoving them into his already bloated knapsack. Fighting back a shiver and the urge to peek behind her to make sure the sleek cat wasn’t about to leap off the wall and latch onto to her jugular, she continued the argument she’d started ten minutes earlier. ‘You can’t make me stay here. I’m awake now, and I’ll just follow you if you try.’

‘Oomph,’ was the only response he offered as he set his bag down with a thunk and lifted a framed photograph of a magnificent Mexican grey wolf, tall, proud, and partially hidden in the midst of a stand of trees, off the wall. Like all the other animals, stuffed or photographed, its yellow eyes followed her as she watched Tony open a panel that, at first glance, looked like nothing more than a fuse box, and place his finger against a scanner until a whispered series of clicks revealed a hidden door that opened to a massive safe.

Tony shifted to block her view, but Addis leaned to the side and peeked around him. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t what she saw. Lightheaded from a sudden lack of oxygen, she stumbled backwards. ‘What are all those?’ she breathed.

Tony reached in and grabbed a rifle and two smaller guns. ‘Bows, various rifles, muzzleloaders, other hunting gear.’ His voice was clipped, almost angry.