We have no weapons. We might be walking into something we won’t be able to walk out of. But in moments like this, I work on instinct.

I hear the knocking before I realize that’s what I’m doing.

Chapter Eighteen

A CAR door slams outside and both of us go still. I am just about to scream for help when his bloodied hand wraps around my face so tight, it cuts off my mouth and nose at the same time. I flail my arms as I try to find a breath, but it’s no use. He’s smothering me.

A few seconds later there’s a knock at the door.

Chapter Nineteen

WE wait. We place our ears up against the door and listen. We shuffle our feet and knock again and again and again. But no one comes.

“Let’s break in.”

“Felicity, if this isn’t the place, we’ll go to jail. We’re not breaking in.”

“And if this is the place and Grace is being murdered right now because we’re standing out here on the doorstep like idiots?”

She breaks the window next to the front door and reaches inside to unlock the latch. I twist the handle as soon as I hear the click and slowly open the door.

Chapter Twenty

THE door unlocks as we lie on the floor, him panting, me smothering. Both of us bleeding.

The door opens with a creak.

“Derek?”

My captor relaxes for a moment and I twist my body. His hand slips off my mouth and I gasp for air. My chest fills up, the burning in my lungs almost taking my mind off my dizziness.

And then hands are pulling me to my feet.

“Jesus! Derek! You’ve got blood everywhere!”

I stare at the old man in the doorway. He’s got long, greasy gray hair and soiled jeans. His boots are covered in mud and his shirt is stained with food. He smells.

I recoil with too much momentum and when Derek lets me go, I crash to the floor once more.

This time I stay down. I can’t see right. My vision is suddenly black and blurry and I feel like I’m going to faint.

“She tried to escape,” Derek says to the old man as he walks forward to meet him. “She stabbed me in the fucking face with a piece of glass!”

“I told you, son, children and grown women are not the same thing. You waited too long. She’s never going to be what you want her to be.”

“I don’t want to kill her. I want to keep her. You said I could keep her.”

Derek sounds more like a child than a kidnapper right now and I force myself to take deep breaths, hoping the dizziness will subside. These men are discussing my life. They are discussing whether or not they will kill me.

I know Vaughn got that message. I know he’s in Nebraska and I think that’s where I am right now. But I’m not sure. I’m on a farm, but it could be any farm. Farms are everywhere.

“She needs to go, son. People are looking for her.”

My eyes dart up but when I find the old man’s face, I immediately cast them downward again.

Those eyes tell me the decision has been made.

“I just got a call from Brenda over at the extension office. She said some out-of-towners were on their way over to my place. I came over right away to help you get rid of her.”

“I don’t want to get rid of her, goddammit! I told you, I want to keep her!”

“Now listen, boy—”

“I’m not your fucking boy anymore!” Derek pushes the old man hard enough to send him backwards. The old man’s arms flail and then he trips over the rug and goes down.

A gunshot blasts through the room and I have to cover my ears to stop the ringing.

Chapter Twenty-One

“WAS that a gunshot?” Felicity and I stand still, our heads tilted as we strain to hear. Another pop comes from outside and we bolt through the door of the house and stop on the porch.

Another shot.

“That way!” Felicity says, pointing across the field. She takes off running but I grab her arm and point down to the muddy driveway. “Look. Tracks. And boot prints.”

The foot prints end near four deep depressions. Tires.

“He left in a car. Come on, we follow the tracks and I bet we’ll find out where those gunshots are coming from.”

We scramble back inside the car and I start the engine. “Hurry!” Felicity says. “The shooting is still going on! He could be killing her right now!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I’M crab-walking again, only this time I’m not the one being hunted. I’m just trying to get away from crazy Derek with the gun.

The old man is dead. His brains have been splashed all over the front door. I get to my feet, stumble, and then bolt for the kitchen. I grab the biggest knife out of the block and wield it like a woman who is about to be raped or murdered or both. “Don’t come near me.”

He aims the gun at my head.

“I’m warning you.”

“Bang, bang, little flower. I have a gun, Daisy. Now put the knife down and be a good girl and get back in your closet.”

“Fuck you!” I slash out at him, missing by feet, but it makes me feel like I’m putting up a fight. I know I can’t win, but I can put up a fight.

I dart around the kitchen island and another shot goes off. This time it shatters the granite countertop and sharp slivers of stone shrapnel make their way into my skin.

I feel nothing. Nothing but fear. I duck and crawl, desperately trying to find a way to save my life.

“Daisy,” Derek says from the other side of the island. “If you give up and be good, I’ll only wound you.”

Oh, fuck!

“If you run, I’ll shoot you in the back on your way out the door.”

I glance over at the door. It’s open from when the old man came in.

“Now be good, child. I’m going to come around the island and take you back to your closet. We can settle up your punishment tomorrow—”

I see his feet under the cupboards, making their way towards me, one step at a time.

“—and I won’t hurt you at all tonight. How’s that?”

Another step. I glance at the door again. Can I make it?

Probably not, but I have to try. This time I will not let this asshole corrupt my mind and hold me prisoner. I refuse to give him permission to keep me as his prisoner. I refuse to live through it. I refuse. I’d rather die escaping with a bullet in my back than live this life again.

Another step and I raise my knife.