CHAPTER 1 TESS
The highway stretched before me like an endless shadow, swallowed by the coming darkness of the Texas Hill Country.
I gripped the steering wheel of my lavender Hyundai, my knuckles pale in the dim glow of the dashboard lights.
Every mile marker I passed felt like a temporary reprieve, a bit of distance gained between me and what I'd left behind.
But the silence only made room for the memories I was trying to outrun.
The road wound through the Texas Hill Country.
Twilight had almost slipped into night, and the hills loomed darker by the minute, their rugged shapes casting long silhouettes against the last strips of purple sky.
My headlights caught flashes of old barbed wire fences, broken posts, and the occasional deer eye reflecting back like a warning.
Every curve in the road felt sharper than it should, every distant engine hum a threat.
Just nerves, I told myself for the hundredth time.
But nerves didn't make me check the rearview mirror every ten seconds, searching for headlights that never appeared.
Nerves didn't make me white-knuckle the wheel like it was the only thing anchoring me to reality.
Ugh, just a totally normal, casual anxiety spiral. Love that for me.
Three days ago, I had a life in Vegas. Or I'd thought I did.
Not a perfect one, but something I could call my own.
I had a job waitressing at a casino restaurant that tipped really well, an apartment that was finally starting to feel like mine, and Lance.
Two years together, and I'd almost stopped questioning the holes in his stories, the vague non-answers about his work.
"Security consulting," he'd say with that disarming smile.
"Just boring stuff, baby. You don't want to hear about it. "
Yeah, because “international arms dealer” just doesn’t roll off the tongue.
So I hadn’t asked. I focused on building something for myself, even if it was fragile.
Waiting tables wasn't glamorous, but it had built me up a nest egg in the go bag I had no choice but to leave behind.
Fat lot of good that money did me now. It hadn't been much, but it was a quiet corner of independence carved out of a chaotic city and a chaotic life.
Until three days ago. Until I'd walked into that warehouse.
I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, trying to banish the image.
But it rose up anyway, as vivid as the moment I'd lived it.
The cavernous space, the haphazard stacks of crates.
The smell of gun oil and sweat. And in the middle of it all, Lance, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls in a language I didn't understand.
He'd told me to meet him there after my shift.
Just a quick stop, he promised, then we'd grab dinner.
I'd been early, and I went inside without texting.
And that's when I saw it. Lance, surrounded by men who clearly weren't there to talk about blackjack tables.
They were opening the crates, pulling out guns.
Big ones, the kind I'd only seen in movies.
Lance was inspecting them, nodding, speaking in low, clipped phrases that sounded Eastern European.
Oh good. Just your average Tuesday-night mob meeting.
I didn't scream. I didn't gasp. Some deep-buried instinct kicked in, the same one that had gotten me through all those midnight moves with my mom when I was a kid. I'd backed away slowly, silently, until I was out of sight. Then I ran.
I made it to my car, blood pounding in my ears.
My hands shook so badly it took three tries to get the key in the ignition.
I didn't go home. I didn't even go back for my bag, my extra cash, the few precious things I'd managed to hold onto through all the chaos.
I just drove, no destination in mind except away.
Later, at a gas station somewhere in the desert, I'd turned on the burner phone Lance had given me for emergencies. Just once, just to see. Two messages waited, from a number I didn't recognize. The first one made my stomach drop.
Where you going, baby?
He knew. Of course he knew. He must have seen me or sensed it somehow. Because privacy is for people not dating men who turned out to be dealing arms.
The second message chilled me in a different way.
Tess, I will find you. You’re heading south. Just come home.
I had dropped the phone in the bathroom toilet, ran back to my car, and kept driving.
Now, miles deep in the heart of Texas, I had no idea where I was going. I'd picked a town at random off a gas station map, a tiny dot called Hollow Ridge. I had no ties there, no reason for Lance to look. It was as good a place as any to disappear.
But disappearing cost money, and I'd left Vegas with a tank of gas and the clothes on my back. I always kept a bit of cash taped behind the glove box. That was all I had. Three hundred smackers.
Living large.
My eyes burned, but I blinked the tears back savagely. Stupid! Stupid to get involved with Lance in the first place. Stupid to ignore the signs. Now my life was in shambles, and I had no one to blame but myself.
Awesome. Just freaking awesome.
The truth of it was, I should've left sooner.
Should've trusted that crawling feeling in my gut that screamed Lance's charm had been a mask for something darker.
I'd seen it escalate. A slap turned into a punch, then a full-blown beating.
Each time, his heartfelt apologies would follow, twisting me back in.
Soon, I was just watching every action, every word, doing anything to please him, just to sidestep another confrontation.
Yet I'd wanted so badly to believe that this time would be different, that I could have something normal. Something safe.
The road blurred, and I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. I couldn't fall apart now. I had to stay focused, stay alert. Lance had shown me with one text that he could find me with that phone. If he could do that, there was no telling what else he was capable of.
I scanned the dark road ahead, looking for any sign of Hollow Ridge. It had to be close. But all I saw was more night, more empty miles. More time to wonder if I'd ever really be able to outrun my mistakes.
I tightened my grip on the wheel, feeling the bite of the seams against my palms. Jaw clenched, I watched the broken white lines disappear beneath my headlights.
I didn't know what waited for me in Hollow Ridge.
Didn't know if I'd find sanctuary or just another dead end.
But I couldn't stop running. Not until I was sure Lance couldn't find me.
I leaned forward, scanning the blue road signs for any mention of the town that was my flimsy lifeline.
A flash caught my eye, and I glanced down at the passenger seat.
The map I'd grabbed at the last gas station had slid to the floor, forgotten in my haze of exhaustion and paranoia.
I reached for it, unfolding it awkwardly with one hand still on the wheel.
The map crinkled, the thin paper almost transparent in the weak dome light. Thank frick my mom had taught me how to read a map. I glanced between the road and the web of snaking lines, searching for that tiny dot in a sea of unnamed space. If I could just find it, just orient myself...
A shape loomed in my headlights. Massive, dark, hurtling towards me. I yanked my eyes up from the map, adrenaline spiking. A deer, frozen in the glare of my high beams. Time slowed, narrowed to the space between heartbeats. I wrenched the wheel to the side, swerving on pure reflex.
But it was too late. The impact shuddered through the car, then the horrifying thud and crack of flesh and bone against metal. The deer rag-dolled over the hood and windshield. Glass exploded inward, and pain blossomed hot and bright against my temple.
The car fishtailed, careening off the road in a spray of gravel and shrieking metal. My head slammed into the wheel, and—
For a hazy, timeless moment I couldn't remember where I was or what had happened. There was only the throb in my head, the ache in my ribs, the sticky trickle down my temple.
Then it came back in a nauseating rush. The dark road, the deer, the hideous crunch of impact.
My eyes flew open, and I immediately regretted it. The world tilted and spun, my vision doubling before snapping back into queasy focus. I was slumped over the steering wheel, my neck kinked at a painful angle. Gingerly, I straightened up, hissing as my bruised body protested.
Yep. Still alive. Unfortunately.
I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my brain. The car was dark, the engine silent. How long had I been out? Minutes? Hours? I fumbled for the door handle, clumsy and slow. I needed to get out, needed to see how bad it was.
I half stumbled, half fell onto the pavement. A wave of dizziness washed over me, and I clung to the door frame, breathing hard. When the world stopped spinning, I forced myself to look at the damage.
Oh, damn. It was bad. The front of the car was crumpled, steam rising from the cracked radiator. The windshield was gone. Tangled in the wreckage, still and broken, was the deer. Dead. Poor Bambi.
Bile rose in my throat, and I turned away, gagging. I'd never hit anything before, never even been in an accident. The sight of the animal, its limbs twisted at unnatural angles, made my stomach heave.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to center myself.
I couldn't fall apart, not now. I needed to think, to assess my situation.
A small, hysterical part of me wanted to laugh.
Assess my situation? I was in the middle of nowhere, miles from anything resembling civilization, with a wrecked car and probably a concussion. There wasn't much to assess.
Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.