Return Of The Cannibal(Hannibal x Reader)(Book 2)

Chapter 53

you were running through the falling leaves in a Virginia state park an hour from your house, a favorite place, no sign of any other person in the park on this fall weekday, a much-needed day off. You ran a familiar path in the forested hills beside the Shenandoah River. The air was warmed by the early sun on the hilltops, and in the hollows suddenly cool, sometimes the air was warm on your face and cool on your legs at the same time.

The earth these days was not quite still beneath you as you walked; it seemed steadier when you ran.

You were running through the bright day, bright and dancing flares of light through the leaves, the path dappled and in other places striped with the shadows of tree trunks on the low early sun. Ahead of you three deer started, two does and a spike buck clearing the path in a single heart-lifting bound, their raised white flags shining in the gloom of the forest as they bounded away. Gladdened, you leaped yourself.

Still as a figure in a medieval tapestry, Hannibal Lecter sat among the fallen leaves on the hillside above the river. He could see one hundred fifty yards of the running path, his field glasses proofed against reflection by a homemade cardboard shroud. First he saw the deer start, and bound past him up the hill and then, for the first time in ten years, he saw you whole.

Below the glasses his face changed slightly, and his nostrils flared with a deep intake of breath as though he could catch your scent at this distance. The breath brought him the smell of dry leaves with a hint of cinnamon in them, the molding leaves beneath, and the gently decaying forest mast, a whiff of rabbit pellets from yards away, the deep wild musk of a shredded squirrel skin beneath the leaves, but not the scent of you, which he could have identified anywhere. He saw the deer start ahead of you, saw them bounding long after they had left your sight.

You were in his view, running easily, not fighting the ground. A minimal day packed high on your shoulders with a bottle of water. Backlit, the early light behind her blurring her outline as though you had been dusted with pollen on your skin. Tracking with you, Dr. Lecter's binoculars picked up a sun flare off the water beyond you that left him seeing spots for minutes. He wore a hoodie over his head, got up and started jogging behind her. Keeping quite a distance away from you.

As you continued jogging your path, you got the feeling that someone was around, you looked over your shoulder and realized that someone else has begun to jog on the same path as you, you couldn't see his face but dismissed it and continued running down the path.

 After about another 10 minutes of running and also looking over your shoulder, you found it odd that he either had the same route as you or he was following you, you decided to take a different route, completely off path. Your heart was a beating pretty hard not just from running.

You turned off somewhere even you didn't know and went on a different path, the person behind you seemed to carry on the same path that you were gonna take and your heart settled a little bit. Half-way down the new path you've taken you felt like you were being followed again, you looked back and it was the same person from before and your body shivered head to toe. You picked up your speed and tried to lose them but they picked up their speed as well.

You lost count of how many times you were looking over your shoulder and without looking where you were going, you tripped over a tree root, you landed on your hands and knees hardly. You could feel the rocks scrape your hands and you swore they were bleeding. For being a FBI agent you sure are clumsy.

The person that was following you stopped as you fell and just stood about 10 feet away from you, "why are you following me!" You say, reaching your hand to the side of you where you had pepper spray and threatened to use it on them.