Into The Peaks

By: Ryan Lill-Washington, Paperback, 2024

The car speeds up, heading through the tall pines that line the winding road. I feel the vibrations of the music rattling up the door. I turn to face him, and he smiles at me-

"-Izzy...where did you go this time?"

"I was in the woods again...In the Pines." I closed my eyes and mentally repeated the words I had been chanting for the last five years.

"What have we said about it? Use your words, Izzy. It's alright to say them out loud."

"I'm safe, I'm alive, I'm strong, I survived," I said in almost a whisper. But I knew that wasn't completely true...

I wasn't safe.

Once known as a young, rising, Hollywood star, Isabelle "Izzy" Chambers's life was completely turned upside down after narrowly escaping a serial killer. Her formerly busy and vibrant life was now dull and lonely, especially when her once-missing girlfriend, Eyvette, was pronounced dead.

Then, on the fifth anniversary of her homecoming, the rest of the world would soon learn what Izzy knew: that the woods surrounding the mountains of South and North Carolina had become a nightmarish hunting ground for missing women.

"A deceased hiker was discovered this morning in the mountain foothills while another local climber is still reported as missing. This is the third woman to go missing in the North Carolina mountains..."

Now, Izzy is left to pick up the pieces of her disillusioned world while it crashes around her. Riddled with guilt and fear, she struggles to grapple with reality as she's forced back into the woods to help find these missing women. Their very survival could depend on her.

Because there is no such thing as coincidence.

Someone was still out there... preying on women.

All the signs everyone missed.

All the things she knew.