All he could do was continue and hope he didn’t end up with bullet holes in his rear window. And since he’d been driving for at least fifteen minutes, there was no way he could make it back on reverse-not on a road invaded by plants, not in the dark. What use was that warning now when the track was way too narrow to turn around.

So there had been one at the start of this road, but it hadn’t been as adrenaline-inducing. Research was definitely too far from real life to be relevant, goddamnit!Ĭolin groaned when faced with a huge red sign with the picture of a shotgun and Private Property written in bold letters below. Problem was, all of said research has been conducted in peaceful environments, not in the middle of nowhere, West Virginia, in a car filled with the sound of dirt crunching under the wheels and the scratching of branches against metal. There was plenty of research on that kind of stuff. He just needed to breathe slowly to trigger a biofeedback response and trick his mind into feeling relaxed. Perhaps he’d conditioned himself to fear the dark because people had such free access to light nowadays? Nothing to worry about. So what that there could be anything hiding in those woods? For all he knew, Satan himself could be tracking his car, and there was no way of knowing until it was too late.īut this was not a horror movie. He needed to be clear-headed about this thing. Colin took a deep breath and followed it with a slow exhale. The greenery around him seemed to thicken more, with long fern stems reaching out of the darkness like phantom fingers, and the farther away he was from the asphalt, the more plants invaded the single-track road. “ When Taron looped the heavy metal collar around the slender neck and closed the padlock, his body throbbed with the excitement of knowing he owned this boy. One that isn’t right, yet tempts him every time Colin’s pretty eyes glare at him from the cage. It’s only when he finds out the city boy is gay that an altogether different option arises. Colin doesn’t deserve death for setting foot on Taron’s land, but keeping him isn’t optimal either. The last thing Taron needs is a nuisance of a captive.

He deals with his problems on his own, but the night he needs to dispose of an enemy, he ends up with a witness to his crime. But what seems like his worst nightmare might just prove to be a path to the kind of freedom Colin never knew existed. He ends up taking a detour into the darkest pit of horror, abducted by a silent, imposing man with a blood-stained axe. What he doesn’t realize is that it’s the last time he has a choice. On impulse, he decides to take a different route. Like every other weekend, Colin is on his way home from university, but he’s taunted by the notion that he never takes risks in life and always follows the beaten path.

Wrong Way Home by K.A. Merikan