Chapter 2
Allison
By some small miracle, the truck does not collide with the rear end of my car.
But its grille remains all but pressed against my fender.
Where did this guy come from? He must be going twice the speed limit at least. Adrenaline rushes through me as I jerk the wheel straight and slam the accelerator hard, past thirty-five, past forty-five, past fifty.
But the truck with its jacked-up tires stays on me, filling my rearview mirror with chrome and rage.
The road is narrow, a single southbound lane with a speed limit of thirty-five, no shoulder, just a drop-off into black forest. I can’t pull over, can’t let him pass. I’m trapped in a tunnel.
His lights flare, high beams burning into me. My fingers clamp the wheel. My heart thunders. Every nerve in me screams, Move faster, but where? How?
Up ahead, the stoplight, an intersection. A left turn lane opens beside me as Woods Edge joins a connecting southbound street. Maybe he’ll pass. Maybe he got the rage out of his system. Maybe he’ll flip me the bird or cuss at me. I’ll let him. Let him get it out and go away.
Instead, the truck swerves hard left, rumbling up beside me and jerking to a stop at the red light. I don’t look in the driver’s direction, just wave my hand, a concession, an apology.
Then I hear the door slam. He’s out of his truck.
A mountain of a man, denim overalls over a T-shirt, coming around the front of his car and barreling toward me.
His face twisted, spit flying as he shouts.
I can’t hear the words—just the rage. He grabs my door handle and yanks.
The lock holds. I flinch back, my whole body pressed against the far side of the seat.
Go away, I say in my head, though terror chokes my throat. I raise my trembling hands in apology.
He rattles the handle again, violent, hungry. “You stupid cunt, where’d you learn to drive?”
I don’t think. I just floor it, tires squealing, my SUV lurching through the red light. My chest feels like it might split open, but I don’t look back. Not until the roar of his engine tells me he’s coming again.
Closer. Faster. Angrier than ever.
What do I do, where do I go? If I drive home, he’ll know where I live. That’s what they tell people in my position, right? Don’t go home. Find the nearest police station. Call 911.
But I have no phone. Just an unregistered, unloaded gun and a box of bullets, inside my middle console.
I’m breathing in quick, shallow gasps when I see it up ahead, the hulking shape of Mortimer College’s athletic building—where my brother, Luke, works—its parking lot wide and empty, lit by a scatter of overhead lights. Like an oasis in the dark. A safe place. Maybe.
I veer hard into the lot, my tires bumping over the curb. The space yawns open, empty this late at night. But even as I draw into the lot, I know how little sense it makes. Even if Luke were inside, his office is on the other side of the building. And I have no phone, no ability to reach him.
The truck follows, bouncing in after me.
I cut across the asphalt toward a corner where I know there’s another exit. I pray it’s open, that I can slip away. But when I reach it, the gate is down, a chain stretched across, padlocked, shut off for the night.
My stomach drops.
I wrench the wheel, turning the car in nearly a 180, desperate, aiming back toward the open space.
And then he’s there. The yellow truck lunges sideways, tires squealing, sliding until it blocks me. Perpendicular to me, his souped-up truck the long end of a triangle, the corners of the lot the short sides. With me in the middle.
I am trapped.
The man gets out again. This time, slower. Measured. He reaches behind his seat and pulls out something long, dark, glinting in the light. A crowbar.
He grips it in one hand like he’s been waiting to use it. His voice thunders across the empty lot, ugly and raw, words jagged with hate, cunt and bitch prominent among them. Then, calm as anything, he fishes out his phone. Puts it to his ear.
I don’t dare take my eyes off him, but I reach into the middle compartment.
“Yeah,” he says into his phone, loud enough for me to hear. “You know the Mortimer College parking lot? On Woods Edge? Yeah. Come quick. We got ourselves a live one.”
The words slither through me. The gun is now in my lap. I try to load the bullets, but my hands shake too hard.
“You wanna play, sweetheart?” He comes around to the driver’s side, raising his crowbar. “Okay, now we’re gonna—whoa.” He stops short when he sees me pointing the gun at him. I haven’t been able to load a bullet, and my hands tremble, but the gun sends enough of a message.
He backpedals, returning to the front of my car. “I ain’t done with you, you dumb bitch! You’ll see me again!” He holds out his phone and aims it at my front fender, wanting to photograph the license plate that isn’t there. “I’ll be seeing you real—”
I floor the accelerator, smacking into him, sending him sailing backward into his truck, his head cracking against the side with a dull thud before he collapses to the ground.
Oh God oh God what did I do what did I do—
I’ve stopped just short of his truck. I put the car in park and get out.
He is lying in the small space between our two vehicles, face down.
Not moving, from what I can tell, though the lighting is terrible; he’s lying under the beams of my headlights.
I squat down near him, but hear nothing.
Is he dead or is the thumping of my pulse drowning out—
An ambulance. He needs an ambulance. I reach for my pocket but—no phone.
I look around in the dark and find his iPhone.
I tap it. It comes to life, a screensaver of a Playboy centerfold.
I don’t know the code. Should I put it up to his face or—emergency, yes, there’s a way to make an emergency call.
I press the buttons on each side of his phone. Two messages pop up:
slide to power off
SOS Emergency Call
Slide to call Emergency Services
Then I hear him. I startle to my feet at the sound. A baritone growl like nothing I’ve ever heard, menacing and predatory, more animal than human.
I rush back to my car. Lock the door. Back up my SUV until it’s bumping the fence. Shine my headlights on him.
I squeeze the buttons on his phone again, get the same two options. I slide my finger as instructed.
Not to call emergency services but to power it off.
I navigate slowly, careful not to blow out a tire, moving right to get around the truck, my right front tire rolling over a parking block by the building’s brick wall.
Then I floor it, peeling out of the parking lot, with only one thought in mind:
The security cameras, at every corner of the school’s parking lot.
Finley’s car is still gone when I return home. I rush inside and find my phone charging on the kitchen island. I unhook it and take a deep breath, trying to settle myself before I call Luke.
My brother is my only prayer, if he’s still at work, a distinct possibility this time of year.
Please be at work please answer your phone please be at work please answer your—
“Hey,” he says, answering on the third ring.
“Are you still at work?” I ask, unable to hide the quiver in my voice.
“Yeah, the transfer portal closes— Is something wrong?”
“I need your help,” I say. “Are you somewhere where you can see the parking lot?”
“Um—no, I’m in my office, other side of the building. Hang on. Why?”
“Just hurry. Hurry.” My pulse echoes in my head. For a moment I think I hear the garage door lifting. I do not need Finley coming home right now. I pat my pocket, which holds the phone I stole from the man. I’ll have to decide what to do with it.
“What the fuck?” Luke hisses into the phone. “There are cops in the parking lot. An ambulance is pulling in. Someone’s…Is that guy dead?”
I draw a breath. “Do you have access to the video room, Luke? For the parking lot security cameras?”
“Well, yeah, all the video’s in the same room, but…Jesus, what’s Finley done now?”