Chapter Four
Krista
We’ve been driving for a while now, and I keep turning around to see if he is following us.
He is never there, but I know he is. He is out there somewhere, and we are literally fucked.
We have no fucking idea where we are or what to do.
Without our phones, we can’t navigate. We don’t have a map either, so we have no way to know which way is the right way back to civilization.
We have uttered a word, but we all know how bad this is.
No food, only a few bottles of water. The gas light has been on for so long that the poor truck isn’t going to make it much longer. Just as I start thinking about the possibility, the truck starts to rumble as it loses power. “Shit,” Luke barks.
“There,” Brady points. “Get in the dirt road. We shouldn’t be on the main road.”
Luke turns the wheel and lets the truck coast off the road and down a dirt road.
Once we are hidden in the treeline, he parks us and shuts the truck off before it does so on its own.
He lets the power for the truck stay on so he can roll the windows down, and Brady opens the back glass so we can get some nice cross breeze.
No one says anything, but I finally break the silence with just a few words. “We are going to die out here,” I say calmly.
“Kris, baby…” Brady starts to say.
“No!” I scream at him. “He was following us the whole goddamn time… He saw… Fuck, he saw everything. Everything, Brady. Do you know what he will do to me? You? We are going to fucking die.”
I throw the door open and step out before Brady can grab me. I am falling apart as I walk down the trail more. I need to get away from them. If they aren’t around me when Austin gets here, he will leave them alone. Maybe I can convince him that they left me behind.
Arms wrap around me, and instead of fighting it, I collapse. Sobs crack from my chest, and I cry as they surround me. He always told me I would never escape him.
The words echo in my head as Brady’s arms tighten around me, holding me together while I fall apart in the middle of the dirt road.
My knees give out completely, and if he wasn’t holding me, I’d be on the ground right now.
Luke is right there too, one hand on the back of my neck, the other gripping my arm like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
“Hey, hey… breathe,” Luke says, his voice low and steady, even though I can hear the tension in it. “You’re okay. We’ve got you.”
“No, you don’t,” I sob, shaking my head. “You don’t understand. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t get tired. He doesn’t fucking let go. He will find us, and when he does…”
“He won’t touch you,” Brady cuts in, sharper than I’ve ever heard him. His hands come up to cup my face, forcing me to look at him. “Do you hear me? He will not fucking touch you again.”
“You don’t know that!” I scream, shoving at his chest. “You didn’t see him before. You didn’t…”
“I saw enough,” Brady snaps, his jaw tightening. “And I’m still here, aren’t I?”
That stops me for half a second.
Just long enough for Luke to step in closer.
“We’re not leaving you,” Luke says quietly. “Not for a second. Not for him. Not for anything.”
“That’s the problem,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “If you’re with me, he’s going to hurt you too.”
“Then he’s going to have to try,” Luke says simply.
There’s something in his tone that makes my chest tighten all over again, but not from fear this time.
From the realization that they mean it when they said that they’re not going anywhere.
“No,” I shake my head again, panic clawing its way back up. “No, you don’t understand. If he gets you… if he…” My voice cracks, and I choke on the words. “I can’t watch that. I can’t…”
“You won’t,” Brady says firmly. “Because we’re not letting it get that far.”
“You can’t control that!” I snap.
“No,” Luke agrees. “But we can control what we do next.”
That pulls me up short, and I blink at him, my breathing still uneven, and my whole body is trembling. “What do you mean?” I ask weakly.
Luke glances back toward the truck, then out into the trees surrounding us, his expression shifting into something more focused. “We don’t stay here,” he says. “This is too open. Too easy.”
“He could already be out there,” I whisper, my eyes glancing toward the woods.
“Maybe,” Brady says. “But standing here freaking out in the open isn’t helping us.”
I hate that he’s right. I hate that everything right now feels like the wrong choice. “What do we do?” I ask, my voice smaller now. Luke runs a hand through his hair, thinking.
“We need distance from the road. Somewhere, we can hear him coming if he’s out there. Somewhere we’re not just sitting ducks.”
“The woods?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says.
“That’s a terrible idea,” I laugh, only it sounds scared.
“Probably,” Brady mutters. “But staying here is worse.”
Silence falls over us for a second. The kind that feels heavy. Like whatever choice we make next… there’s no undoing it. I look between them, my chest still heaving, my thoughts spinning out of control, but then I nod.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay… we go into the woods.”
“We’ve got you,” Brady says, squeezing my shoulder. Luke reaches for my hand again, grounding me the same way he did on the trail earlier, like he’s trying to remind my body what safe is supposed to feel like.
It almost works.
We move back toward the truck just long enough to grab what little we can—a bottle of water each, a flashlight from the glove box, and a throw blanket slung over Brady’s shoulder—and then Luke shuts the door quietly, as if the sound might carry and we are already being hunted.
That thought makes my stomach turn, because it’s true.
The trees loom ahead of us, dark and endless, swallowing what little light is left. For a second, I hesitate, just like I did before the waterfall, only this time… It’s not about choosing to live. It’s about trying not to die. “What if he’s already out there?” I whisper.
Luke squeezes my hand once. “Then we face him together.”
That should terrify me—and it does—but as Brady moves closer on my other side, boxing me in again, I realize something that settles deep in my chest, right alongside the fear. I’m not running alone anymore. “Okay,” I say again, a little steadier this time.
As we step away from the truck and move down the dirt road, all I can do is pray that we make it out alive.
The dirt road doesn’t stay wide for long.
It narrows into something almost impassable, forcing us closer together as the trees thicken around us.
Branches stretch overhead, blocking out what little light is left, and the deeper we go, the darker it gets.
Every step feels too loud, gravel crunching under our shoes, leaves shifting with every movement we make.
No one says anything, but I can feel it in both of them. They’re listening just as hard as I am.
A sharp snap echoes somewhere off to our right, and I freeze instantly, my grip tightening around Luke’s hand as my heart jumps into my throat.
“Stop,” I whisper, barely able to get the word out.
They both go still without hesitation. We listen, all three of us holding our breath, straining to hear anything else.
For a moment, there’s nothing but the faint rustle of leaves in the wind.
“It’s probably an animal,” Brady says quietly, but there’s no confidence in it.
“Yeah,” Luke adds under his breath. “Probably.”
That word doesn’t mean anything anymore. Probably doesn’t keep us safe.
“Keep moving,” Luke murmurs, and we do, but slower now, more careful.
The flashlight cuts a narrow path ahead of us, but everything beyond it feels wrong, like it’s hiding something just out of reach.
My eyes keep drifting past the beam, trying to see into the darkness anyway, as if I’ll somehow catch him before he catches us.
“How far are we going?” I ask, my voice low and unsteady.
“Far enough,” Brady answers.
“For what?” I press.
“So we’re not easy to find,” he says.
That makes my stomach twist, because Austin doesn’t need easy. He just needs time.
I try to focus on anything else. The feel of Luke’s hand in mine, the steady presence of Brady at my side, the sound of our breathing. The silence around us is deafening. After a few more minutes, Luke slows to a stop and looks around, his expression tight.
“Here,” he says quietly.
I glance around, but nothing about this place feels safer than anywhere else. It’s just trees and darkness, the same as before. “What makes this better?” I ask.
“It doesn’t,” he admits. “But we can’t keep moving forever. If he comes down the road, we’ll hear him.”
“If,” I repeat, my voice barely there.
Brady shrugs the blanket off his shoulder and spreads it out on the ground, brushing away a few sticks before looking back at me. “Sit,” he says gently.
I hesitate, every instinct in my body screaming at me to keep going, to not stop, to not give him a chance to catch up, but my legs are shaking, and I can barely catch my breath anymore.
I know I won’t make it much farther like this.
Slowly, I lower myself onto the blanket.
Luke sits beside me, angling the flashlight outward, while Brady settles on my other side, close enough that our shoulders press together again.
We sit there in the dark, listening and waiting, and I lose track of time almost immediately. The quiet is suffocating.
“You’re shaking,” Brady mutters.
“I know,” I whisper.
His arm loops around me, but he gives me time to pull away if I want to, but I don’t. I lean into him instead, needing the contact more than I want to admit. Luke shifts closer too, his knee pressing against mine, steady and grounding in a different way.
“I don’t want to die like this,” I say quietly.
“You’re not going to,” Luke replies.
“You can’t promise that,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “But I can promise we’re not letting him take you.”
The word hits something deep in my chest, something darker than fear or the memories of his abuse. Take. Like I don’t get a choice. Like I belong to him.