In Her Heat - Ainsley's Story

In Her Heat - Chapter Two

Here's chapter two. Enjoy !

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The trees seemed to crowd onto me as the three of us made our way through the dense forest. My kitchen window had the view of the forest and I'd looked at it many times, but never would I ever have thought I would be walking through it. I'm not the outdoorsy type.

"Why are we walking through the forest again?" I asked as I stumbled over a tree root. Ashton's grip tightened on my waist, keeping me from falling and embarrassing myself. I gave him a smile of thanks before realizing he probably couldn't see me in the dark night and with the trees adding to the darkness.

But I could see him. It was weird - I could make out every single detail on his face. He had a beauty mark above his lip, I could see. But I'd had bad eyesight, so how could I see that? I swept my gaze through the forest. I could see every tree, every bush and every owl. I felt like I could almost count the individual leaves on a tree. What was happening to me?

"Hello, earth to Ainsley," Reese said.

"Huh?" I shook myself and tried to focus. I had a short attention span at times.

"We're in the forest because Ashton parked the car out here. We wanted it to be out of sight and there's a back road we can take to get to our destination," Reese told me.

"Oh. Where's our destination?" I asked him. The trees were beginning to thin out now and there were fewer bushes.

"Ultimately, the reserve me and Ashton grew up on, but for now, a safe house."

"Where's the safe house?" I asked.

"So many questions," Ashton laughed. "It's a few hours from here. We'll rest up and get things ready for us to leave for the reserve."

"Oh. Okay." I fell silent.

We continued to walk deeper and deeper into the forest. With every step it got darker and my eyelids, heavier. Our pace was fast, but I felt like we were getting nowhere.

The sound of a trickling river filled my ears after what seemed like an eternity. Two minutes later, a river came into view. I knew the river would be cold, even though the weather was very hot.

"Okay, we're almost there. The car is just on the other side of this river," Ashton said, as we stopped in front of it.

"We have to cross it?" I asked. "Where's the bridge?"

"There isn't one," Reese told me.

"So we'll be walking across the river." I stated.

"That's the plan," Ashton said. He was already rolling up his pants. I realized for the first time that Ashton wasn't wearing shoes. I looked at Reese. He wasn't either and I wasn't since I hadn't had time to grab a pair.

"Where are your shoes?" I asked them.

"In the car. We knew we would be crossing a river, so we left them," said Reese.

I wrinkled my nose. "But there are bugs on the ground. And the river is cold."

"I know. And it's only going to get colder the longer we wait," he told me.

I sighed. "Fine, fine, fine." I rolled up Reese's sweatpants, mumbling to myself the whole time.

"Okay, good. I'll go first. Reese, you follow Ainsley."

"Got it," Reese agreed.

Ashton stepped into the river and began to cross it. He walked across like it was nothing, but I knew the water would not be pleasantly warm, like I liked it.