Chapter 1
Risa
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Trying not to hyperventilate, I focus on kicking out the tail light. When it finally shatters, a sob wrenches from my throat, muffled by the duct tape. With my wrists bound behind my back, I can’t even stick a hand out to try and get someone’s attention, but I’m praying a foot will work.
While the wind threatens to tear my shoe off, I fumble around awkwardly, trying to find anything that I can rub my wrists against to break through the tape. But the trunk’s completely empty, cleared out because whether or not he was actually after me in particular, this sick son of a bitch planned to grab someone from the running trail.
Tears track down my face when minutes pass and nothing, but it’s really not a surprise. When your entire plan revolves around a stranger actually giving a damn, you’re going to be let down. Nobody fucking cares unless it affects them.
My head suddenly slams against the side of the trunk hard enough that my vision wavers, though I quickly wish it’d been enough to knock me out. Shards tear into my leg as I’m flung back, the metal collapsing around me. Whoever t-boned the car was going fast enough that there’s no way both vehicles aren’t completely totaled, and I send up a silent thanks that we weren’t rear-ended.
Jagged pieces of metal pierced through my stomach, my leg. With my arms pinned behind me, I can’t even utilize the twisted blessing to saw the tape from my wrists. I’m simply stuck trying not to break down and panic, to suck air through my nose and keep from passing out.
Okay, this is actually good. Someone will call the cops, and there’s no way that he’s driving out of here like this. He tries to drag me on foot, I’m bleeding enough to leave a trail. It’s going to be okay, I’m going to be okay.
I’m not sure where we’re at, but wherever it is, the road must be narrow. Not two minutes later, another jarring impact sends the shrapnel cutting into my stomach even deeper. My legs are crushed beneath the contorted metal, locking me in place worse than before as the car lurches, skidding before slamming into something else. Blood fills my mouth that I can’t cough up with the tape or bring myself to swallow, and it slowly trickles down my cheek, forcing a small path free to loosen a corner.
Every shallow breath I manage to pull in through my nose sends pain lancing throughout my entire body, tears running rivers over my face as the panic I tried so hard to hold at bay sets in. Claustrophobia like I’ve never known has me picturing being buried alive, lying trapped here for days as I slowly bleed out, dying alone and forgotten.
It hurts, so goddamn much, and every sob just makes it worse, choking on blood that I can’t cough up or spit out fast enough. Far too soon, the shock begins to wear off. What I thought merely hurt before is absolutely agonizing now. When I finally start getting light headed, it’s a blessing, and I lean into the pull instead of fighting it.
At least if I die here, I’ll never have to find out what would have happened if we’d made it to wherever that bastard was taking me.
Chapter 2
Stryker
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“Fuck, man. That looksbad.”
Bane pulls off onto the side of the road a short way past the three car pileup so we don’t end up causing another accident. The bend in the road here’s a death trap, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that some idiot was flying around the curve and didn’t see the crash until it was too late and couldn’t stop, sending the lot of them skidding off the road and into the nearest tree.
Pulling out my phone, I call the police, since I doubt anyone in that mess will have been able to. Bane, Mason, and I jog over, bracing ourselves for the corpses we’re likely to find. One of the cars is wrapped around a tree, t-boned by another, and then that one was rear-ended.
