I stare through the windshield at the road winding before us, creeping closer to the ranch every second. The shopping bags sit between us on the bench seat like a barrier, full of clothes I picked out in another lifetime. This morning feels like it happened to someone else. Some other girl who could try on dresses and laugh over lunch and pretend she had a future.
That girl is gone now.
Calder drives with both hands on the wheel now, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the road. We’re both tense, with our emotions heightened.
I should say something. Ask questions. Demand answers. But my throat feels too tight, my chest too hollow. What’s there to say? What can we do? I still have no idea what’s happening. Will I have to actually endure the ceremony now?
Will Calder let it happen? And why did he sound so menacing about dinner?
The thought sits in my chest like a stone. Heavy. Cold. Undeniable.
I press my forehead against the cool glass of the passenger window and watch the trees blur past. Pine and aspen. Rock and sky. The same landscape I’ve known my whole life, suddenly foreign.
“Saint.” His voice breaks the silence, rough and low.
I don’t answer. Don’t move. Just keep staring at the darkening forest.
“I need you to listen to me.”
“Why?” The word comes out flat. Dead. “So you can tell me it’ll be okay? That you have a plan, not that I even need to know what it is?”
I see his hands tighten on the steering wheel, knuckles going white.
“This is different. I told you to trust me.”
“How?” I turn to look at him now, anger finally breaking through the numbness. “How is this different, Calder? In what possible way is tomorrow night different from any other nightmare your family has put me through? When I know nothing about what is going to happen? Is he going to have you fuck me over the dinner table?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just keeps driving, that muscle in his jaw working. When he finally speaks, his voice is carefully controlled. Too controlled.
“I’m working on fixing things. I told you that.”
“Working on it.” I laugh, and it sounds bitter even to my own ears. “That’s great. Really reassuring. You’re working on it while Roman plans to parade me in front of your entire family and watch you fuck me like I’m livestock being bred.”
The words are ash in my mouth, but I don’t take them back. Can’t take them back. They’re true.
“I won’t let it get that far.”
“You won’t let it get that far.” I repeat his words slowly, like I’m trying to understand a foreign language. “What does thatmean? Are you going to kidnap me again? Take me back to the cabin and hide me until Roman finds us and kills us both?”
“No.”
“Thenwhat?” My voice rises, hysteria creeping in at the edges. Even though I know it’s irrational, and he’s told me over and over he won’t let it happen. I’m still terrified and consumed with fear. “What’s the plan here, Calder? Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re driving me home to get ready for the worst night of my life tomorrow. At dinner. Like I’m the appetizer before the main course.”
He pulls off the main road onto a smaller track. Drives another hundred yards before pulling the truck to a stop in a small clearing. Kills the engine.
The silence rushes back in, thick and oppressive.
“Get out,” he says quietly.
“What?”
“Get out of the truck, Saint.”
For a moment, I think he’s going to leave me here. Just drive away and let me walk back to town. Part of me almost hopes he will. At least then I’d be free, even if it meant freezing to death in the mountains.
But I get out anyway, my new boots crunching on frosted grass as I round the front of the truck to where he’s standing. The sun has fully set now, stars beginning to prick the darkening sky. It’s beautiful out here. Peaceful.
I hate it.
