A parallel set of lines gouged into the slush.
The kind that heels make when someone is being dragged.
Just like that, the air leaves my lungs.
I stand there with the granola bar wrapper in one hand and the Remington in the other. The world contracts to a single, white-hot point of clarity that burns away everything else. The silence I came here for is gone. The peace? Gone. The redemption? Long fucking gone.
All of it. Gone. In an instant.
Because I know those drag marks. I've seen them before, in other snow, in other places, in a life I was supposed to have left behind.
I already know where the tracks will lead me, but I follow them anyway, just to be sure.
And sure enough, they meet up with the tire marks. The path heads north, toward the highway.
I guess the life I thought I'd left behind has decided to keep me with it, for a little while longer, at least.
I stride back to the Bronco and open the driver's door. I set the Remington on the passenger seat, then smooth the granola bar wrapper flat against my thigh and fold it once before tucking it in my breast pocket.
Then I start the engine and follow the tire tracks north.
9
CAROLINE
Every bump in the road hurts.
That's because my face is pressed against the floor of the van, which is corrugated metal, freezing cold, and coated in a film of something sticky and nasty-smelling. My wrists are zip-tied behind my back. The tie is cinched too tight—I can already feel my fingers going numb, that awful pins-and-needles tingle that means the blood supply is being slowly choked off. My ankle, the same one I've been babying for two days, is screaming from how Buzzcut wrenched it when he grabbed my legs.
The van takes a sharp right turn and I slide across the floor, slamming my shoulder into what feels like a metal toolbox. Pain erupts white-hot down my arm.
I don't scream. Dr. Levinson would be very proud of me, though she'd probably point out that the reason I'm not screaming has less to do with bravery and more to do with the strip of duct tape they slapped over my mouth after the doors closed. Buzzcut did it while the van was still accelerating. His buddy was driving. The whole operation took maybe ninety seconds fromthe moment they grabbed me to the moment we were moving, which suggests a level of choreography that does not bode well for the hope that this was spontaneous.
These men were waiting for me.
The bumps are getting worse. We can't possibly be on a paved road anymore. It feels like ruts in mud every ten yards. Every pothole sends me airborne for a sickening half second before gravity slams me back down and worsens my bruises. I try to brace with my knees, but the angle is wrong and I keep sliding around, abusing my cheekbones, aching and doing my best to stay conscious and level-headed.
Breathe, Caroline.
Think.
That's what my dad would tell me.God put that big ol' melon on your neck for a reason, Caro. Use it.
From an early age, he taught me how to move in the city. I always figured that's just what dads raising their kids in Manhattan did.
What do you do if someone follows you on the street? You cross to the other side.
What do you do if someone grabs you? You fight, you scream, you make yourself as difficult a target as possible.
What do you do if you're taken?
You survive. You observe. You wait.
Okay, Dad. I'm observing.
Observation one: we've been driving for maybe thirty or forty minutes now. We turned right out of Pike Hollow, which meanswe're heading north or northwest, deeper into the mountains. At least, I hope that's what it means, and that my sense of direction is correct. I flunked that badge several times when I was a Girl Scout.
Observation two: Buzzcut and Beanie don't seem to be chatty. They haven't spoken to each other since we started moving, which either means they have nothing to say or they've done this enough times that the silence is just protocol. Another day in the life, I guess.
