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Everything since has been improvisation.

The realization doesn't make me less afraid. If anything, unpredictability introduces considerably more ways for this to end badly. But it gives me something I didn't have five minutes ago.

Time.

Ian still needs something from me. Maybe understanding. Maybe absolution. Maybe simply the relief of finally saying aloud the things he's spent all this time trying to work through in his own head. Whatever it is, he's been talking instead of deciding what to do with me.

Behind my back, I shift my wrists.

I've been working the zip tie against the same rough edge every time I move my hands, a strip of exposed metal jutting from the base of the wall behind me. The first few passes accomplished nothing except scraping skin from my knuckles. Now there's a shallow groove across the plastic.

“You've spent so much of your life cleaning up one bad decision after another,” I say. “Casey. The tapes. Your father. And now me.”

“You think you're so fucking smart,” he says.

I pull the tie across the metal again. “No.” Again. “I think you're scared. You didn't plan this,” I say. “You saw me on the ridge and panicked.”

His eyes narrow. “Careful.”

“You hit me. Put me in your trunk. Brought me here.” I keep my voice level despite the nausea rolling through me. “And now you don't know what to do with me.”

He comes at me, and I drag the zip tie across the metal one more time. The plastic gives behind my back with a tiny snap. He's already reaching for me when I bring my hands around and catch him high in the chest, shoving with everything I have. Surprise does most of the work. He stumbles backward, swearing, and I lunge forward with my ankles still bound.

My feet catch and I hit the floor hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.

Ian grabs my leg.

Panic takes over whatever strategy I had. I kick backward, heel connecting with bone, then twist onto my side and claw at the tie around my ankles. My fingers won't work properly. They're slick with blood from my wrists and shaking badly enough that I fumble the tie around my ankles before I manage to get both hands around it. I brace my feet against the wall, grip the plastic, and pull in the opposite direction with everything I have. For one horrible second, nothing happens. Then the tie stretches, bites deeper into my skin, and snaps hard enough that my legs jerk apart, one heel catching against the floor as my shoe comes off.

I don't stop to find it. The second my feet are free, I'm scrambling upright and running for the door.

I slam into it shoulder-first, wrench it open, and stumble outside into cold air. For several steps the ground refuses to stay where I expect it to be, but I keep moving, one shoe on and one foot bare, branches tearing at my clothes as I push toward the river.

30

FLIGHT RESPONSE

SERENA

Behind me, the door flies open again and bangs against the side of the building.

I run faster.

I know this place.

Casey knew this place too, my mind supplies.

She was scared. She was trying to get away from someone she trusted, with him crashing through the brush behind her exactly as Ian is behind me now. The distance between what happened to Casey and what is happening to me disappears beneath the sound of my own breathing.

I don't have to imagine it anymore.

I am inside it.

My foot slips on loose gravel. I catch myself against a tree, pain shooting through my bare sole, and keep going.

“Stop!” His footsteps get closer.

There is no reason for me to be faster than him. I'm concussed, one shoe short, and my balance has become an unreliable suggestion. The river appears intermittently through the trees to my left, white water flashing between trunks, and I angle away from it.