Chapter 2 Annalise
Annalise
“Who the shit are you?” I scramble in place, grappling with the seat belt as the car skids in and out of the ditch before ungracefully finding its way back to the main road.
The vehicle jolts left and right, vying for stability, and I topple sideways, nearly face-planting on the floor.
“Fuck. My. Life.” The driver slaps a flat palm against the wheel.
My eyes dart around as I try to gather my bearings: familiar gray upholstery, a stain on the back seat from the Blue Slushy Fiasco of 2019, and a little red guitar charm swinging from the rearview mirror.
I’m still in Tag’s car.
But the driver is most certainly not Tag.
Instinct has me searching for my phone, but I already know that my brother has it.
An unfortunate consequence of drunk texting.
Shit.
I manage to prop myself upright, dragging the belt across my chest and locking myself in. “What the hell? Who are you? Where’s my brother?” The evening’s alcohol haze is gradually replaced with confusion and terror. “Let me out!”
I scream again, tugging on the door handle.
“Whoa!” The stranger cants his head over his shoulder, his face ashen, eyes wild. “Hey, hey, I’m not going to hurt you, okay?”
“Bullshit!” I gape out the window as starlight blurs with the occasional streetlamp and snow barrels down in angry white swirls. “Stop the car!”
“It’s blizzarding!” he yells back, voice pitching. “There’s nothing but snow and woods for three miles.”
“Jesus, I’ll take my chances!”
Oh my God.
This isn’t happening.
My fingers curl around the door handle. The wind is howling outside, rattling against the car, promising a wintry mix of hypothermia and death.
I probably wouldn’t survive ten minutes in this dress and these heels, even with the cropped faux-fur jacket I threw on for style over substance. But I refuse to let that be the reason I end up murdered.
This guy just kidnapped me.
A messy mop of light-brown hair swings back and forth as the man scrubs a hand from forehead to jaw. “Christ.” His fingers tighten around the wheel, his knuckles pale from the force of his grip. “Look, I’m not dangerous. This was a mistake. I didn’t know you were back there.”
My hands are trembling, my nails biting into my bare thighs beneath my cocktail dress. “Where are we going?”
He exhales sharply, squeezing his eyes shut for half a second too long before focusing back on the road. “Jesus. I need to think.”
“You need to explain yourself! Where the hell is my brother?” I bounce up and down in the seat, tears pricking my eyes, my pulse acting as the percussion in a marching band. “Did…did you hurt him?”
“No, God—I told you I’m not dangerous,” he insists.
I cup a hand around my mouth, my stomach coiling with alcohol and anxiety.
One minute I’m gulping down cocktails, dancing the night away with Kenna, and the next I’m trapped in a stolen car with a frantic stranger and no way to call for help.
I glance outside at the precarious weather conditions, then at the emergency brake. I’m not sure if pulling it would increase or decrease my chances of dying.
My mind races with different scenarios: hydroplaning on the icy road and flipping over in a ditch with the car bursting into flames, or becoming the tragic main character in a true crime documentary.
Neither was on my bingo card tonight.
Swallowing the fear, I try to reason with him.
“Listen, you don’t want to do this. You’re a good person, right?
I’m sure you are. We can still chalk this up to a random, terrifying, extremely far-fetched accident and giggle about it later.
” Feigning a nervous laugh, I take in his reflection, and it looks like he’s in pain.
I’m rambling. And that’s never been a great motivator for getting my way.
“If you’re not dangerous, then drop me off at the next gas station.
Or just—” But the words die in my throat as my gaze dips, and the moonlight catches on something dark and wet.
His jeans are soaked through, the fabric clinging to his thigh.
“Wait, is that blood?” My voice raises an octave as I jerk forward in the seat to get a better look. “Are you bleeding? Oh my God.”
He clutches his injured leg, blood seeping through his fingers. “Someone shot me.”
“Excuse me?” My stomach does backflips. Surely, I misheard. “Someone shot you? Why? Are you in a gang?”
“Jesus, no,” he says, wincing through the obvious distress. “Gas station clerk.”
“Holy shit. Is Tag okay?”
“Who the hell is Tag?”
“My brother!” The car briefly swerves into a ditch again, and I slam against the side door, bonking my head on the glass. “Jeez, you’re going to get us killed!”
The guy saws out a breath, struggling with the wheel, the movement making him hiss before he regains control. “Last I saw, your brother was fine,” he finally says. “I was leaving with something I couldn’t pay for. The clerk panicked and lost his mind.”
“You were stealing?”
His jaw tics, but he doesn’t deny it.
This horror-movie evening has just taken a sharp turn into full-on Reservoir Dogs territory. “And then you stole my brother’s car?”
“I didn’t have a lot of options, okay?” He cuts me a sharp, poignant glance in the mirror. “I was bleeding all over the floor, and I didn’t exactly have time to weigh my moral choices.”
“Where’s your car?”
“It died. I walked.”
“And your phone?”
“In my car.”
I let out a stunned sigh, my head spinning, temple throbbing. I don’t know anything about this guy, except that he’s committed multiple felonies.
I’m so screwed.
“Listen,” he grits out. “I’m telling the truth. I just need to get home and deal with this. I wasn’t thinking. I’m not a bad guy—”
“You’re not a bad guy?” I interrupt, my voice cracking under the weight of everything. My pulse is a damn train wreck. “You’re hemorrhaging all over the place, and you’re driving me through a snowstorm. I don’t know you. I don’t know who the hell you are!”
“Chase,” he answers quickly. “My name’s Chase. Please, just let me get home, all right? I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”
“Home…” I gawk at him, my focus shifting from his face to his bloody leg. “You clearly need a hospital.”
He lets out a humorless laugh. “You think I can walk in there with a gunshot wound, a kidnapped woman, and no story? Cops would surround me before I even sat down.”
“Not my problem!” I shake my head, trying to make sense of the mess, the chaos, the fear pooling in my gut. “But if you pass out behind the wheel, that is my problem. You say you’re not trying to hurt me, so prove it.”
A moment of silence stretches.
His jeans are drenched with blood, his complexion ghostly white.
I’m locked in the back seat of my brother’s car with this wounded stranger in control of my fate. And yet I’m not getting psychopath vibes—more like a person on the verge of a full-scale breakdown. I don’t trust him, but he doesn’t look like he knows what the hell he’s doing either.
Tag always says that my inherent trust in human beings will be my downfall one day, and maybe he’s right.
But I don’t get the sense that this guy wants to hurt me. He’s trying to survive.
And I suppose that’s the only thing we have in common right now.
I rake a hand through my tangled hair, my heart rate still in shambles. I should be running. I should be demanding he stop the car, blizzard be damned. But there’s something about the way he’s slumped against the door, hand gripping the wheel like it’s the only thing tethering him to this world.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “What were you stealing?”
The car swerves again, tipping me off-balance. Fear creeps up my windpipe, and I wonder if he’s going to lose consciousness before we make it someplace safe.
He steadies the vehicle, flicking me a glance in the mirror. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it matters. Did you pull a gun on the clerk? Were you robbing the register?”
“No,” he forces out. “I don’t have any weapons. It was just a can of dog food. Fucking stupid.”
My gaze pans to a little tin can rolling around the floor of the passenger’s side.
A can of dog food?
“What’s your name?” he asks me, tone tentative.
I tap my feet in opposite time and wring my hands together in my lap. “You don’t need to know my name.”
He nods once. “Fair enough.” His profile is illuminated by dashboard light, his expression tortured.
When I sweep my eyes over him, taking in the way he’s gripping his thigh, trying to stop the bleeding, I spot the faint outline of ink etched into his forearm beneath his rolled-up sleeve.
A guitar tattoo.
The neck of the instrument is wrapped in flowy sheets of musical notes, the body a vibrant shade of violet.
My chest tightens.
Tag has a guitar tattoo. Different placement, different size, different design.
But I know what kind of guy gets that tattoo.
My brother got his when he was nineteen, the night he swore music was the only thing that would ever keep him alive.
He’s been scraping by ever since, working as a car detailer, playing gigs that barely cover anything outside of rent, and drowning in the same desperation I see in this man’s eyes now.
I’m familiar with that kind of struggle. I know what it looks like when someone is losing.
And I can’t help but think that in a different life, this could’ve been my brother.
“My name is Annalise,” I say slowly.
Our eyes lock for a moment in the rearview mirror before he returns his attention to the road. And then he practically wheezes out a lung when he lifts up and reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a tattered wallet.
He tosses it in my direction.
The wallet lands on the seat beside me, smeared with blood. Gingerly, I open it, squinting at the name on his driver’s license: Chase Rhodes.
“Why did you give me this?” I glance at the birthday and attempt to do math while still inebriated and going in and out of shock.
He’s twenty-four. Hardly a year older than Tag.
“Just in case,” he murmurs.
I blink up at him. “In case what?”
“That’s my current address. My dog is there. Toaster.”