A warehouse.
The smell hits next. Oil. Old machinery. Damp cardboard. Rot.
My vision sharpens slowly, the world swimming into focus under flickering fluorescent lights that buzz like insects overhead. The space is cavernous, shadows stretching up into the steel rafters and disappearing into darkness. Crates stacked haphazardly. Tarps draped over shapes I don’t want to think about.
I suck in a breath, chest tight.
Okay.
Okay.
I’m alive.
That matters.
My heart starts to race as my memories crash back in jagged pieces. The crash, the van, the voice in my ear.
You’re exactly the right one.
“Sutton?” I croak.
My throat is raw. It hurts to speak.
I strain against the restraints, the chair scraping loudly across the concrete. The sound echoes back at me, too big, too lonely.
“Sutton!” I call again, louder now. Panic creeps in, cold and insistent. “Sutton, are you here?”
Nothing.
No answering voice. No movement. No other breathing.
The silence presses in, thick and suffocating.
They didn’t take her.
Relief and terror slam into me at the same time. Relief because she might be safe. Terror because it means that I am utterly alone and that this really is all about me. Theydidcome for me.
My gaze darts around the warehouse, cataloging exits, threats, anything I can use. You don’t grow up with a junkie mom and her abusive boyfriends without learning how to find the exits. One large rolling door sits at the far end. A smaller side door half-hidden behind pallets. All of it too far and unreachable.
My pulse hammers harder.
Why here?
Why now?
Why—
Footsteps sound and my breath catches.
They’re slow. Unhurried. Coming from somewhere behind me, out of sight. Each step is deliberate, like whoever it is knows exactly what they’re about to find.
I go still.
The footsteps stop.
Then a voice cuts through the space.
“Well, look at you.”
