Never Die Alone

Her stomach roiled and she began to shake.

“Pull over!” she cried as the truck sped across a bridge spa

Jase cast a glance in her direction, got the message and once they were off the bridge, eased onto the shoulder as Bria

She dropped to her knees as the truck idled and a long shadow fell over her. Jase’s shadow . . . Dear Jesus, how fitting. Hadn’t his damned shadow been cast over her all her life? Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block out not only his image but all the pain, the truth, the horrid thought of her sister dying alone and bereft. Guilt consumed Bria

“For what it’s worth,” he said, his voice raw, “I’m sorry.”

“Go away!”

“I can’t—”

“Just leave me the hell alone!”

“Bria

“I—I can’t even think about this,” she admitted, on the edge of hysteria.

“Then don’t.”

“But I can’t freakin’ stop!” She was sobbing now and when he tried to help her up, take hold of her shoulder and pull her to her feet, she threw out her hands. “Don’t touch me,” she warned, then finally looked him full in the face again and saw the agony wrenching his features, the regret pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t!”

He let his arm drop. “Get in the truck.”

“No!”

Again her stomach turned over, but she fought the urge to dry heave and was able to finally straighten.

“Please,” he said softly as over the fading scream of sirens, a motorcycle whined in the distance. “Get into the pickup.”

“I. I. I just can’t.”

He grabbed her then and she fought him, wildly, violently hitting him, wanting to kick and scream and rail at the heavens in her guilt and frustration. Jase held her tight, refusing to let go, allowing her hands to beat his chest impotently, almost as if he welcomed the pain she inflicted as if it were somehow a kind of penance. A balm for all the guilt and torment he, too, had suffered.

Slowly her sobbing subsided and she let her balled fists fall to her sides as she realized what she was doing, how her anger was misdirected.

Still he held her, drawing her even closer, whispering to her. “Let it all out.”

What the hell was she doing fighting ghosts, charging at windmills, focusing her own pain in the wrong direction? For a second she listened to the rhythmic beat of his heart, slow and steady. Comforting. And she closed her eyes to drink in the smell of him as her thoughts swirled not only with images of Aria

Chloe. That poor girl.

Bria

“So am I,” she admitted, then pushed herself out of the arms that held her so intimately against him. What was she thinking, letting him comfort her? “Just drive,” she ordered, as the motorcycle roared by. “Just . . . get in and drive.”

She made her way to his damned truck and hoisted herself inside without his assistance. As he slid behind the wheel and engaged the gears, her heart bled one more time and in this instance she realized her pain was because of the torture he’d obviously been through ever since witnessing Aria

From the opposite direction, a huge truck piled high with bales of hay rolled by but she barely noticed as Jase eased the truck onto the pavement, then hit the gas.

Dashing the tears from her eyes, Bria

Right now she’d concentrate on their destination: the Tillman farm where, she hoped beyond hope, they would find Chloe.

Alive.

From her underground jail cell, Chloe heard him arrive, the excited yips of the dog, the heavy tread on the floor above. So this was it. He was back to kill her. She wondered about Zoe and prayed that her sister was alive. Please, God, save her, she thought as she heard the latch on the lock click open, then the scrape of the ladder as he was readying it to be slid into this rotten-smelling prison.

God, she hated it here, and it pissed her off to think that she would die here, rot here, her body left for who knew how long. She thought of her family, not just Zoe, but her mom and dad. She’d been so mad at her dad for leaving them, for marrying her damned cousin, for having a new set of babies who were her brothers and her second cousins or something as ridiculous all rolled into one, but now, in this darkness, knowing she was about to die, she forgave her father and wished that just once more she could see all the members of her family again, including CJ and Jayden, who were i

The hatch opened fast. Trapdoor hitting the floor above.

Chloe startled, jumped, and her bonds pulled tighter, pain streaking down her shoulders, agony ripping through her back muscles. At least the torture would end with her death.

Quickly he descended. Faster than usual.

She closed her eyes, didn’t want him to see that she’d given up, that her fear had evaporated into acceptance. Just get it over with, she thought.

“Well, it’s not your birthday,” he said as both booted feet landed on the floor, “but it is your lucky day.”

Her heart pounded and for the briefest of seconds she thought he might let her go. No such luck. “Today, bitch, you die.” He said the sentence without inflection, without a lick of emotion. “So let’s get ready.”

She peered through the slit of a nearly closed eye and saw him cutting lengths of the red ribbon, for what purpose, she had no idea. She wanted to scream at him, ask him about Zoe, but she didn’t. What did it matter? Her curiosity would die with her in this subterranean hell.

He was whistling now, that same damned birthday song, as if reliving his intention of killing them on their birthdays though God only knew how many days had passed since she’d actually turned twenty-one. She had no idea of time but belatedly realized that her sister must be dead. He’d been adamant about Zoe dying first, so if he was back here, it meant that part of his mission had been accomplished.

Bastard!

Sadness welled deep within her, but no tears came. She’d cried them all and now . . .

He turned and reached down, intent on placing the ribbons around her in some precise ma

It hadn’t worked.

He was tough.

But the inside of his throat was vulnerable.

If she could somehow reach it—

He placed a hand on her and she saw his neck stretched over her.

She could bite him! If she had the guts, all she had to do was clamp her teeth down on his Adam’s apple. He’d never suspect . . . Oh dear God. Could she? Yes!