My stomach twists. I swear I'm going to be sick now. I look around wildly, suppressing another cough, trying to figure out what to do. I need to save Sebastian. But I already know I can't overpower this man myself, and my gun was probably destroyed in the crash. A sinking feeling hits me. How am I ever going to save him? Do I just make a break at the man and hope for the best?

I decide to see if there's a window in the room and figure out what's going on from there. Keeping as silent as possible, I slip alongside the shack. I find it on the other side of the building. It's a small window, covered in dirt, but if I squint hard enough, I can just make out what's going on inside the shack. My heart pounds and I hold my breath as I watch with baited breath.

The floorboard creaks within the room as the man, who looks to be about Sebastian's height and who has a deep tan and a bulky body, steps toward something. That's when I realize it's Sebastian, facing me, tied to a wooden chair and gagged. I have to cover my hands with my mouth to keep from gasping. Seeing Sebastian like this, this vulnerable, makes my heart physically hurt.

"Where are they?" the man is saying, taking a step toward Sebastian. "Where are they hiding? Tell me or you and the girl both die."

"Don't bring her into this," Sebastian hisses. I see his eyes then, as the other man shifts out of the way. They're filled with pure hatred. I've never seen him like this before.

The man laughs. "Sorry, I forgot how sensitive you get when you fall in love."

Sebastian narrows his eyes and spits on the man, who just laughs some more and punches Sebastian across the face like it's nothing. Sebastian grunts again and blood trickles out of his nose, and I have to clamp my mouth shut with my hand to keep from screaming. I know I have to do something, anything, but I don't know what.

"You aren't getting anything out of me," Sebastian hisses, spitting blood at the man. "You might as well give up now."

He laughs, his dark boots crunching against the wood floor as he walks slowly back and forth in front of Sebastian, dragging this whole interrogation out with some sort of sadistic pleasure. "You're right, I might as well. I would love to, actually. Nothing would please me more than to kill you right now. You are a fucking traitor. You left me, your own friend, in the dust when you didn't kill those people. You betrayed all of us. You deserve the worst of deaths. But the boss made me promise to keep you alive until he gets here. And hey," he says, grabbing Sebastian's collar and breathing into his face. "Orders are orders."

Then he throws Sebastian back against the chair and laughs. "I'll happily wait, Sebastian. Anything to see you die."

My heart is pounding furiously now. Just the thought of Sebastian dying makes my whole body ache. I'm just about ready to burst through the door and randomly attack this man torturing Sebastian, my Sebastian, when something insane happens. Sebastian looks up, up to the window, and his eyes lock with mine. My toes curl at the intensity in his stare even through the glass. He looks into my eyes, and then, just like that, he nods. It's slight and almost nonexistent, but I catch it immediately, and I translate it to: distract him.

So I do just that.

Slowly, I reach down and pull a rock from the ground. I roll it around in my hand for a second, feeling the coolness of it, the heaviness, and then I take a step back and aim it at the window. The man is back to talking to Sebastian now, saying something I can't make out, but I don't let him finish. Squeezing my eyes shut, I reach out and hurl the rock at the window. It shatters almost instantly, glass going flying everywhere, and I sprint at the front door while he's distracted.

"What the hell?" the man says, coming toward the window, I think. Then I hear a crack, a grunt, and the man shouts something. There's a crunch of wood as he's thrown to the ground, and the next thing I know, Sebastian is bursting out of the shack, his hands untied but his gag still on.

Relief washes through me as soon as I see his face, and I want nothing more than to kiss him then, just hold him and hug him and cry, because we've survived, at least for now. Sebastian rips the gag off of his mouth as he bursts outside. "We have to move, angel," he says immediately, getting right down to business. "Marco will be coming here any second now."

I nod and follow him down the road. "And the man in the shack?" I call after him.

Sebastian pauses. "Unconscious. Won't bother us again."

I open my mouth to ask another question, but he's already taking off down the road, off past the shack and the car wreckage, past the calling of birds in the maples trees beside us, down the totally empty dirt road until we reach civilization. My legs burn as I run, and my muscles feel so sore from the crash, but I just keep pushing, following Sebastian. We run for several minutes until we make our way back onto the main road, periodically checking to make sure we aren't being followed--we weren't. My lungs are heaving and I gasp for air by the time we slow at an abandoned car on the side of the road. Sebastian punches open the window and reaches in and unlocks the car in one fluid motion, and I watch him, wide-eyed. His suit is beat-up and covered in dried blood, but he still looks great in it, and I find myself wanting to touch him some more, to put a pause to all of this and go back to those Wednesday nights when it was just me and Sebastian, and nothing else mattered.

Sebastian motions me inside. I snap out of my thoughts and follow his lead, climbing into the passenger door as he settles into the driver seat. We both shut our car doors at the same time. Sebastian reaches beneath the car's steering wheel and expertly presses the wires together, brushing them against one another until the hum of an engine sounds.

I smile despite myself. Here we go.

"Not going to cuff me this time?" I joke as soon as Sebastian starts pulling the car off of the side of the road, then speeds down the street, but the bitterness in my voice is obvious.

Sebastian cringes. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to save you. I can get… overbearing at times."

I laugh, annoyed. "No kidding," I mutter as we gun down the maze of roads, heading to who-knows-where.

We don't speak for another hour or so.

As Sebastian drives, looking almost as focused and determined as he was when we were being chased, I find myself relaxing. My muscles ache and the exhaustion seeps in. I drink some water from a water bottle left in the side door, and I offer some to Sebastian but he refuses to drink any. We head in silence all the way there, and I close my eyes, letting sleep take me away. But before I slip into unconsciousness, I find myself thinking about what the man had asked Sebastian. "Where are they?" he'd asked. "Where are they hiding?"

Distantly, I find myself wondering who this 'they' the man is talking about is, and if I am soon to become one of them.

When I wake up, the car is parked. I take in a deep breath and look around. It hits me how I was, once again, so close to dying just hours earlier. It's twilight now, and the air is dark and thick and hazy, sending shivers throughout my body. Cool wind slips by me through the open window, and I hear the sounds of crickets chirping, then the slam of a door beside me as Sebastian steps outside.

"Where are we?" I ask him groggily as he comes around and opens my door for me. I step out, barely able to stand, but I force myself to nonetheless.

"The one place we have left to go," he says under his breath, more to himself than me.