28. Alex
ALEX
By the time I turn onto the service road, dawn has started pushing gray light through the trees.
I’m late enough that the thought keeps circling no matter how many times I tell myself Preston gave me until dawn, not some exact minute written on a clock. The road is little more than wet gravel and mud beneath Ryder’s tires, narrowing as I follow it deeper into the old Mason Ridge property.
Every rut sends another pulse of pain through my head, so I drive with one hand braced against the steering wheel and the other resting uselessly against my stomach while I fight the nausea that has followed me since I left his house.
The maintenance building still isn’t visible when the road curves and opens into a wider patch beside the trees. I slow until the truck stops, then leave it angled where anyone coming down the service road will see it immediately.
Where Ryder will see it.
I put the spare key in the cup holder and leave it there in plain sight. I’ve done everything I can to leave the trail for Ryder to follow.
My phone is already beside him. Preston’s messages are open. The cameras at the house recorded me leaving, and now Ryder’s truck is sitting exactly where the trail picks back up.
If this goes the way I think it’s going to, nobody will have to wonder whether I ran.
Nobody will have to listen while Preston invents a version of me that can’t argue back.
The thought should scare me more than it does, but I used up most of my panic somewhere between Ryder’s bed and this road. What’s left feels colder and more useful than anything I’ve felt before.
I grip the door handle and look across the cab before opening it. There’s an old station receipt tucked near the console and a sweatshirt shoved behind the passenger seat. Normal pieces of him scattered around a truck I stole less than an hour after telling him I loved him for the first time.
My throat tightens.
I don’t let myself sit there long enough to make staying possible.
The cold air hits my lungs as soon as I step down, and I close the door carefully instead of slamming it.
My legs feel wrong beneath me after the drive, weak in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the fact that I left a hospital when I probably should have stayed there another night.
I keep one hand against the truck until the dizziness eases enough for the trees to stop shifting in my peripheral vision.
The service road continues ahead, disappearing around another bend. According to the location Preston sent, the maintenance building should be somewhere beyond it.
I start walking.
Wet gravel grinds beneath my shoes. The rain stops, but water still drips from the branches overhead and runs along the edge of the road in thin streams. I keep watching the trees, the road ahead, the space behind me when I can manage it without making my head protest.
Nothing moves.
That bothers me more than if Preston were standing in the middle of the road waiting for me.
He wanted me here. He should know I arrived.
The certainty helps me keep moving.
Mrs. Vance is somewhere ahead of me, and every minute I spend standing beside the truck is another minute Preston gets with her.
I take another few steps.
A sharp sting hits the back of my upper arm.
I jerk around so fast my balance goes with me, one hand flying out until my palm catches the side of the truck. Pain flashes behind my eyes from the sudden movement, and for a second I’m more focused on keeping myself upright than figuring out what just happened.
Then I reach over my shoulder.
My fingertips find something small caught in the fabric of Ryder’s hoodie.
I pull it free.
The object in my hand is narrow, with a short point at one end.
My stomach drops.
“No.”
I scan the trees.
There’s nobody there.
No movement between the trunks. No footsteps. No car door. Nothing on the road behind me except Ryder’s truck and the wet tracks I left getting here.
I throw the dart into the mud and reach for the driver’s door.
My fingers miss the handle.
I stare at my hand because I know where the handle is. I’m looking directly at it. Somehow my arm isn’t doing what I’m telling it to do quickly enough.
I try again and catch it this time.
The door opens.
Relief hits so hard I almost laugh, but when I lift my foot toward the running board, my knee buckles instead.
I catch myself against the seat.
“Come on.”
My voice sounds distant.
I drag myself higher, trying to get enough weight forward to climb back into the cab, but my arms have started feeling heavy. They still work, only every movement takes longer than it should, like there’s a delay between deciding what I want and my muscles agreeing to do it.
I know enough to understand I’m not going to be able to drive.
That doesn’t stop me from trying.
My hand searches across the seat for the horn, the keys, anything that could make noise or get the truck moving. The key is still in the cup holder exactly where I left it for Ryder, several inches farther than my fingers can reach from this angle.
I almost move it.
Then I stop.
No.
Leave the trail.
Ryder needs the truck exactly where it is so that he can make sure Preston pays for this.
I slide back down onto both feet because there’s no point trapping myself halfway inside. One of my knees gives almost immediately, and I hit the wet gravel hard enough to tear through the thin fabric covering it.
The pain barely registers.
I brace one hand against the side of the truck and force myself upright again.
If I can’t leave, then I have to get to Mrs. Vance.
The logic is terrible, I know that.
I start toward the bend in the road anyway.
My first step works.
The second drifts sideways.
By the third, I have to reach for the truck again, but I’m already past the end of it and there’s nothing there to catch me. I stumble onto the muddy shoulder, recover badly, then keep going because stopping feels more dangerous than falling.
The road ahead looks longer now.
I know it isn’t.
My legs simply aren’t going to carry me there.
I make it a few more yards before one knee folds beneath me. My hands hit mud and gravel, sending a dull shock through my wrists. For several seconds I stay that way, breathing hard, staring down at my own fingers while I order them to push me back up.
They move slowly but it isn’t enough.
I turn my head toward the truck.
It’s still visible behind me.
Good.
The phone is with Ryder.
The messages are there.
The cameras saw me leave.
The truck is here.
He’ll know where I went.
He’ll know Preston did this.
I roll onto my side, cheek against cold gravel, and try to focus on the pale strip of sky between the trees.
I listen for footsteps.
For Preston’s voice.
For anything that tells me where he is.
There’s nothing.
The gray morning fades at the edges until even the trees begin disappearing.
The last thing I can still see is Ryder’s truck at the edge of the road.
Exactly where I left it.