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Not much information, but more than I had.

“Stop.” I know the voice.

I think I know the voice.

My head is still ringing, and before I can place it, I'm pulled forward. My hip catches the edge of the trunk hard enough to send pain shooting down my leg. “Let. Me. The fuck. Go.”

He doesn't.

An arm hooks around my middle, then I'm out of the trunk, my feet useless beneath me. I twist hard enough that his grip slips, but he catches me before I hit the ground.

He's strong enough to lift most of my weight without much difficulty.

Not Pastor Scofield.

He’s too old. Even if he's in better physical condition than I remember, hauling an unconscious adult down from the ridge, getting her into a trunk, and then carrying her somewhere while she actively tries to make herself as difficult as possible to move would be an ambitious undertaking for a man his age.

The chief is also unlikely for the same reason.

Which leaves the third person from the video as one possibility. The one we couldn't identify. But there are dozens of others, and the fact that an unknown man appeared on Casey's recording doesn't make him the unknown man currently dragging me through the woods.

My captor shifts me against him and starts moving.

I force my eyes open.

Gravel. Trees. The edge of a building.

Then water.

I catch only a flash of water between the trees, but the roar is unmistakable.

The river.

The tube launch.

Great.

My earlier list narrows itself with vicious efficiency.

He gets the door open and hauls me inside. The darkness is immediate.

I lose whatever visual information I had and concentrate instead on movement. Three steps. Turn. Another several feet before he lowers me—not gently—onto the wooden floor.

He moves away.

A door shuts.

A lock turns.

My pulse accelerates.

I pull my knees toward my chest and work myself upright, using the wall behind me for leverage. The room is almost completely black, but a thin line of fading daylight cuts beneath the door.

Footsteps cross the room, followed by the scrape of something being forced upward. A window groans open, letting in a wash of late-afternoon light that takes my eyes a moment to adjust to. The figure in front of me slowly comes into focus. Dark hair. A familiar face that I recognize before I’m willing to process what that recognition means.

“Ian?”

He doesn't answer immediately.