Page 33 of What Remains

Her own breath trembled loose from her chest.

She scanned the shadows. No movement. No shapes. No sick people. No people. Still, she double-checked the locks, hit the child lock on Layla’s door, and wedged folded blankets along the bottoms of the windows to smother any stray light. She pulled the hand gun from the glove box where she had stored it and tucked it under the seat.

Just thirty minutes, she told herself, letting her head fall back against the seat. Maybe an hour. Just enough to stay awake behind the wheel when the sun comes up.

“Mommy?” Layla whispered.

“Yes, baby?”

“Are we safe?”

Josie’s breath hitched, but she steadied her voice. “Right now, in this car, we’re safe. I promise.”

Layla smiled sleepily and drifted off, Mr. Ranger tucked beneath her chin.

CLACK.

Metal on metal.

Not the car cooling. Not the wind.

Josie’s eyes snapped open the instant the back passenger door wrenched free of its latch with a crash that shook her bones. A man filled the opening—heavyset, his face oddly calm above a beard matted with what looked like pine needles and dried mud. A long, healed burn pulled the skin tight from one cheek toward his ear. His clothes were spattered with earth and something dark and sticky she refused to name. A pistol hung from his fingers with the ease of long habit.

The air left her lungs.

Before her mind could choose between scream and grab her hidden gun, he rammed the barrel inches from her face.

“Don’t,” he seethed, his voice low. “Don’t you dare scream.”

Layla whimpered, curling into the corner of her seat like a wounded animal. Josie forced a trembling hand toward her, palm out—it’s okay, don’t move.

The man shoved half his body into the cramped backseat, sweeping the gun across Josie, across Layla, across the overstuffed trunk. His eyes burned with something feral and starved, as if his veins ran on nothing but pure, desperate hunger.

Her throat went dry as sandpaper. “Please—she’s just a kid. We don’t want any trouble. We’re only trying to get to Denver⁠—”

A harsh, empty laugh burst from him. “Denver? You’re going nowhere but where I say.” Cold steel pressed into her temple hard enough to blur her vision.

Her heart thundered so loudly she barely caught Layla’s tiny sob.

He slammed the back door shut, rattling the window, he reached the front passenger side door open and climbed in, the gun trained on Josie. He leaned close, his breath rancid against her ear. “Drive. North. I’ll tell you when to turn.”

She pressed her palms flat against the wheel, fingers splayed. “Please⁠—”

The barrel dug into her temple.

“I said drive. It would be a shame is something happened to that precious brat in the back, now wouldn’t it.”

With a strangled sob, Josie eased the car into gear, tears blurring the world beyond the windshield as the abandoned lot slid away behind them.

“You look smart,” he sneered, the word an insult. “Good. Smart means you understand what happens if you cross me. Keep moving. Keep quiet…” His gaze drifted to Layla, and a twisted grin carved across his face. “…and maybe I let the kid live.”

Terror split through Josie’s chest. But beneath the panic, something fiercer ignited—a mother’s wrath, pure and incandescent, burning steadier with every mile.

She drove into the darkness, the gun never leaving her head, her mind racing through every desperate shred of hope: through escapes, through strategies, through any means to keep Layla alive. If only she could reach the gun.

She would do anything. Anything.

Seth froze from the his perch on the hood of the SUV, breath tightening in his chest as headlights swept across the abandoned church lot. For hours he’d listened to nothing but wind and the occasional creak of settling metal—the sudden appearance of a moving vehicle snapped his body to high alert.