Chapter Two

Caroline's POV

The sharp pain in my wrist only made my expression colder.

I looked at Blake’s self-righteous face, and my stomach churned.

How blind had I been to hide the fact that I was the Carrington family’s heiress just to please a complete fraud who lived off a woman’s money?

“Let go of me.”

“Not until you apologize! Caroline, you’re being completely unreasonable!”

Instead of releasing me, Blake tightened his grip.

I let out a humorless laugh. Without hesitation, I grabbed the cup of scalding coffee from the table with my free hand and flung the coffee in his face.

Blake screamed and released me. He clutched his face and doubled over in pain.

“Blake!”

Brooke rushed over and frantically dabbed at his face with napkins.

Wyatt and Harper stood frozen in shock. When Wyatt snapped out of it, he pointed at me and shouted, “Have you lost your mind, Caroline? You just attacked him!”

I pulled out a wet wipe and wiped down the wrist Blake had grabbed.

“I told him to let go. If he can’t understand words, then I have to teach him in a language an animal can understand.”

I tossed the wipe into the fire and watched it burn to ash.

“You bitch!” Wyatt rolled up his sleeves, his eyes blazing.

I shot him an icy look.

“You can keep this stupid trip. I’m done.”

Without looking at any of them again, I turned toward my tent and quickly stuffed my essential supplies and car keys into my backpack.

“Then leave!” Harper called after me. “We’ll have more fun without you! Just don’t come crawling back!”

Brooke held Blake upright, his face still bright red from the coffee. Still crying, she spoke with sugary concern. “Caroline, it’s dangerous in the mountains at night. If something happens to you on the way down, Blake will blame himself forever. You should stay. I’ll give you the spray...”

“You can keep your precious gift. I don’t want it.”

I slung the backpack over my shoulder and walked out of the campsite without looking back.

Night had completely fallen. The cold Rocky Mountain wind cut through my jacket, but I felt lighter than I had in years.

Even the air felt cleaner now that I was away from those assholes.

I switched on my flashlight and hurried down the mountain trail we had taken earlier.

Once I reached the parking lot halfway down the mountain and got into my SUV, I would finally be rid of them.

But about twenty minutes later, I stopped short.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

The mountain wind carried the scent of pine needles and damp earth, but now there was something else beneath it.

A faint, sickly sweetness.

It was the smell of Brooke’s “special spray.”

I froze. I shrugged off my backpack and frantically searched through it by flashlight.

At the bottom of a waterproof compartment, my fingers closed around a cold cylinder.

I pulled it out.

It was one of the pink spray bottles.

The safety lock was already off, and liquid was slowly leaking out, soaking the inside of my backpack.

“Brooke...” I ground out her name through clenched teeth.

This wasn’t some stupid prank.

It was attempted murder.

At some point, she had slipped this death trap into my bag.

A thick branch snapped in the dense woods less than fifty yards away.

Then came the low growl of a wild animal.

My blood ran cold.

There was no time to think. I hurled the entire backpack, spray bottle and all, as hard as I could in the opposite direction.

Then I threw myself down a steep slope and rolled through a thicket of thorny bushes.

The sharp thorns tore through my jacket and left deep cuts across my arms and cheeks, but I bit down hard on my lip and didn’t make a sound.

A few seconds later, I heard heavy footsteps.

In the faint moonlight, I saw a massive grizzly mauling the backpack I had thrown away. The sickly sweet scent had clearly driven it into a frenzy.

If I had reacted one second later, it would have been tearing me apart instead.

I lay flat on the cold, muddy ground and stared at the blood running down my arm.

The memory of my brutal death collided with Brooke’s latest attempt to kill me, sending rage surging through me.

Brooke, you want me dead that badly?

I clenched my teeth, gave up on going down the mountain, and headed straight back to the campsite.

When I reappeared at the edge of camp with blood running down my arm, the others were still partying without a care in the world.

The campfire was blazing. Wyatt was mangling a song on his guitar while Harper clapped and laughed beside him. Blake sat back in his chair with burn cream smeared across his face as Brooke gently fed him.

What a touching scene.

I scoffed and strode into the firelight.