His Arrogant Human Mate novel Chapter 78

This park was my favorite because you got to walk through the forest a little bit to get to it and it was made out of wood! My mom told me that they built it to try and bring nature closer to children and teach them that we should be living with the natural resources, not destroying them. I didn't understand what she meant at the time, but it sounded nice.

I liked to pretend there were fairies hiding in the nearby trees and would run through them, looking for holes in the tree trunks. That's where the fairies lived, of course.

On this particular day, I was on a fairy hunt and had gone several yards in when I heard a spooky noise. A dark growl and a yelp, from the trees on the other side of the playground. My first instinct was to run to my mom, but when I sprinting around the play area, I discovered both of my parents gone. There was another cry, but this one sounded manly. Kinda like dad's voice.

"Mom? Dad?" I called, standing on the edge of the forest nearest to the noises I was hearing. Why did they leave me? They never let me out of their sight, especially when it starts to get dark and there aren't any other adults or kids at the playground. "Mama! Daddy!"

My brain was conflicted. The sounds in the trees sounded kinda like them, so maybe they were playing hide and seek, but Dad always said that if we got separated and there wasn't anyone around, I needed to stay put. Maybe they were testing me?

So I went to the biggest slide and sat down inside it, swinging my legs impatiently. The woods got very quiet as I sat there and the noises stopped. There weren't any birds or even any wind blowing through the area. It was a bit unsettling. The sun was below the trees now, but it was kinda cloudy so it wasn't casting a pretty glow like it normally did. Instead the air had a cool tone to it and the temperature began to drop.

Mom and Dad wouldn't leave you. Parents don't leave their kids. They always come back and get me, even when they're running late. Like at school. They never leave me there. They wouldn't leave me alone here.

Right?

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Hours passed and the only thing I remember while waiting is being cold and confused, but I kept telling myself that they wouldn't leave me. When you love someone, you stay with them. That's what Mom always said. And Mom and Dad loved me and I loved them. So we had to stay together.

I was sprinting through the woods blindly, my breathing seemingly deafening. Above my own footfalls, I could hear the footsteps of the men coming after me.

"Hey, little girl, come here! We only want to talk!" one of them shouted, but his voice was anything but kind.

I was under no impression that I could run from them, but I thought hiding was an option. Maybe if I climbed up the slide and got myself stuck in the middle, they would leave me alone. They were way too big to fit in there. As I looked around in hopes of finding the playground, which had a single lamp to illuminate it, I lost my footing and was thrown down a steep hill, rolling and sliding all the way to the bottom.

At the bottom, I was immobile for a few moments, crying out in pain as sticks jabbed at my body. I didn't even have time to calm myself down before a hand latched around my ankle and another two hands caught my arms and pulled them behind me.