Mom’s eyes never left my face as she lifted her hand to cup my cheek.

“Love you, Nina,” she whispered.

“Love you too, Mom,” I whispered back, my hand coming up to curl around hers at my face.

“And I’m happy for you, sweetie,” she kept whispering.

“Me too,” I kept whispering back.

“I think you’re right about this. It would be what Charlie wanted. He’d want you to have everything you want and he’d want you to be happy.” Her fingers curled around mine and brought our hands down where she tightened her grip and shook them between us. “He’d like Max,” she finished.

“Yes,” I agreed.

Yes, Charlie said in my head and I laughed at Charlie.

Then I said to Mom, “Let’s get back to the house.”

We filled the trunk and Mom got in the passenger side as I hoofed the cart to the bay. I was turning around, my mind on pasta bake, family, friends and getting back to Max so I wasn’t looking where I was going and I ran smack into something solid.

I took a step back, lifting my chin, muttering, “Sorry,” when I saw Damon standing in front of me and my body locked.

“Pressed charges, English,” he hissed, “stupid. Seems you never learn but I’m gonna teach you.”

My body prepared to take flight as my mouth opened to scream but he landed a roundhouse punch to my temple and everything went black.

***

I came to in a truck bouncing along the main street in town. I blinked away the unconsciousness and could see I hadn’t been out for long. We’d barely left the grocery store.

My head turned left slowly and I pushed away from the door I was leaning on. Damon was behind the wheel.

I lifted my hand to my pounding temple and kept blinking against the fog in my eyes.

“Damon, pull over,” I said quietly.

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, English,” Damon clipped back.

“Please, pull over.”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth!” he snarled.

“Don’t do this,” I urged. “This isn’t smart.”

“Fuck you,” he bit out.

“You’re already in trouble. Don’t –” I started to explain but his beefy arm shot out, his knuckles impacting on my lips, pushing them into my teeth and I instantly tasted blood. My hand at my temple dropped to my lips as his arm disappeared.

“Like I said, bitch, shut your fuckin’ mouth.”

I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to rile my mountain man stalker any further. He was already riled enough.

My mind was whirling but through the haze still over me from his first punch all I could think of was that if I opened the door and threw myself out, I’d likely give myself broken bones and I didn’t want broken bones because it would be difficult to cook pasta bake after Max rescued me if I had broken bones.

I was still thinking this when I heard Damon mutter, “What the fuck?” and then I saw another truck speeding alongside us.

We were out of town and on the open road. I leaned forward, looked passed Damon and saw the driver was Harry.

Harry.

Thank God! Harry! He must have seen us and come to rescue me.

Harry sped several car lengths beyond us and then I watched in shock as Harry cut the wheel and then Harry’s truck turned sideways into our lane, cutting us off. Damon stood on the brakes and I flew forward, throwing up a hand and it slammed into the dash as my body not in a seatbelt flew forward too and kept going. My head cracked against the windshield then immediately I was thrown left as Damon cut the wheel to avoid colliding with Harry’s truck and then I was thrown forward again when we rocked to a bone-jarring halt in a ditch.

I was blinking away stars as I pushed myself back in the seat. It was pure instinct that lifted my hand and guided it to the door handle. I pushed my door open and nearly fell to my knees as I shoved myself out of the cab. My body was making its escape before my mind caught up with it but I lost my footing as I climbed the ditch, scrambling up the last of it on my hands and knees. I pulled myself to my feet at the top and rounded the back of the truck where I saw Harry standing, his eyes on the driver’s side of Damon’s truck.

“You fuckin’ asswipe! Are you fuckin’ nuts?” Damon bellowed and I looked to him to see he was out of the truck and charging up the ditch toward Harry.

Then my whole body jolted as I heard the sharp crack of a gunshot and I stood stock-still when I saw the blurred, hideous spurt of blood spray from Damon’s chest before he fell down to both knees.

Stunned to immobility, I stared as Damon’s body dropped face first to the grass, gravel and mud beside the road then slowly my head turned and I saw Harry moving toward me, a peculiar look on his face, a gun smoking in his right hand and he was shifting it to his left.

“Harry,” I whispered, my voice trembling, my tone a mixture of horror and shock, “he hurt me but you didn’t have to –”

I stopped talking when the look on Harry’s face penetrated and his right hand lifted.

He no longer had the gun in that hand. He now held a syringe.

Too late I took a step back but he caught me at the waist, yanked me to him and I felt the needle plunge in my neck.

Then his face was all I saw.

“Just like Max told me to do, I’m mannin’ up, Nina. This is me mannin’ the fuck up.”

My lids lowered against my will, I forced them open as I felt my body lifted in Harry’s arms and we started moving toward his truck.

Then they lowered again and I was gone.

***

My eyes opened and I was confused because I was certain my eyes were opened but all I could see was dark.

I started to move and it was then I realized both my arms were over my head. I thought this was strange until I tried to move them and it was then I realized they weren’t only over my head, there was something cold biting into my wrists and it hit me my arms were secured over my head to something.

I went still and my mind raced. Then I remembered Damon. Then thinking Harry was there to save the day. Then watching Harry shoot Damon. Then Harry taking me.

Oh my God. Oh my God!

I sucked in breath and that was when I felt the gag. There was something in my mouth and something tied around my head to hold it in place. I fought back the panic that surged through me and tried to take stock.

I was on something soft, a mattress. It was cold, not bitter but not comfortable. My limbs were stiff from inactivity and lying in the chill. My arms were not only secured to something over my head but my ankles were also tied together. My head hurt like hell and I was still fuzzy from whatever Harry injected me with.

And I was in the dark. Lying gagged and tied up in a foreign location in the dark. Just like the heroine in a horror movie but real.

I kept fighting back the panic by turning my mind to trying to figure out where I might be. I was either someplace dark, like a room with no windows or I was someplace secluded and it was dark outside, someplace the moon couldn’t light.

Either way, I was in trouble.

Cautiously, I tested my wrists against whatever they were secured to and it made a clinking noise so I stopped.

“Nina?” I heard a woman call and stilled.

Bitsy. Oh no, that was Bitsy’s voice.

The mattress under me moved and I felt a hand light on me. “Nina, it’s me. Bitsy.”

I rolled to my back, turned my head in her direction and tried to see through the dark.

“Oh honey,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Oh God, Nina. Oh God. God. God. God. What have I done?”

I tried to say something from under the gag, she heard it, her hand left me and I felt the gag being pulled from my mouth. When it was free, I spit out the material and then swallowed against the dryness coating the inside of my mouth.

“Are you okay?” Bitsy asked.

No. No, I very much wasn’t okay.

“Harry’s turned,” I whispered back, my voice slurred. “I think, Bitsy, I think I watched him murder Damon.”

The mattress moved again, I heard her dragging her body closer to me and I knew she was lying on it with me but apparently she wasn’t shackled to the bed. Then again, Bitsy didn’t need to be tied down. Bitsy couldn’t go anywhere.

Her hand curled on my neck and I felt her face close.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“Bitsy –” I started to tell her she had to find a way to get me lose so I could get out of wherever we were, get away from this true, real life horror movie and get us some help but she interrupted me.

“It is, it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t, sweetheart, we have to –”

I stopped this time because I heard the noise of a door opening and then light flooded the room, blinding me. Bitsy’s body jerked away from mine and we both twisted as best we could. I blinked against the light and saw Harry walking in, the lower half of a woman over his shoulder.

Oh God, what now?

Then I saw him dump the woman on the floor, her long, straight ebony hair flying as he did it and he did it unceremoniously, not like she was a human being but like she was a sack of sawdust. Her head cracked against the planks just as her body thudded against them. I watched in horror as her body settled, her hair slightly obscuring her beautiful face.

Shauna.

By the looks of her, clothes dirty and in disarray, hair greasy, she hadn’t seen the inside of a shower for awhile and I knew instinctively this was because Shauna Fontaine didn’t take off with her mantoy. Shauna Fontaine, like me, had been kidnapped by a mountain man gone bad.

The mattress moved again and I tore my eyes from Shauna, unconscious, or worse, dead on the floor to see Bitsy pushing up on her arms.