I can only suck on my tape in response, but that must be all he’s looking for, because he straightens out my body a little, and then we lurch forward.

He weaves in the tracks we made coming out this way, not on course at all. And this is when the panic hits home. He really could crash. Or fall asleep. And we really will freeze to death out here.

My eyes close, looking for a way to escape my terror. I hold very still as we start and stop. His coordination is getting worse by the second. And after what seems like hours, we pull up to the cabin. He stands up, hauls me up over his shoulder, then drops to his knees in the snow, spilling me face first as he does it. The snow blocks my nostrils, making me panic and wiggle. Noise is coming out of my mouth, but the screams for help are mistaken for resistance. And so he handles it. The hard whack against my head makes the whole world spin and while that is happening, he gets back on his feet and drags me by the arms, my body finally limp.

I am pulled inside and left near the kitchen table as he falls to his knees beside me.

Oh, God. If he dies, I will be left here in the middle of nowhere, tied up and helpless.

I start shivering uncontrollably. My teeth want to chatter very badly, but the damn gag stops them. My body convulses to make up for it.

Case turns his head so I can see his face. His eyes are very heavy, like he’s about to pass out. But he reaches for my arm and slides me over next to him, embracing me with his body heat. I tip my chin up and find we are face to face. Very close together. He reaches up and pulls on the tape over my mouth. It takes him several tries to get a good grip, and then he rips it off.

I sob after that. It’s all too much.

“Look at me, Sydney.”

How he can be so commanding when he’s about to fall unconscious, I have no idea. I look at him. He’s my whole world right now. This cold, heartless killing machine who has no aversion to violence against women. He’s all I have. So I look up at him.

He’s barely there. His eyes are tiny slits, his mouth going slack from the drugs. But then he opens his lids once more and says, “If we’re going down, we’re going down together.” And then he has another syringe in his hand. He stabs me in the arm. The needle goes through the coat and pierces my skin. I watch the burning anger in his eyes as he presses the plunger.

I just watch helplessly as his eyes close, his grip on me weakens, and his breathing becomes heavy.

I try to push him off me, but he’s too big.

It’s cold in here. The fire is very low. With no one to feed it, it will probably go out before he wakes up. And when he does wake up, he’s gonna kill me anyway.

So I stop struggling and just enjoy the warmth from his body instead. Thankful I have clothes on. Thankful I’m not outside. Thankful he’s asleep. For now.

My eyes get heavier and heavier as the minutes tick off, and just as I’m about to close them and give in, he whispers, “You know why I hate you, Syd?”

I force myself to wake a little. Make my lids open.

His eyes are open too. Just barely.

“Why?” I slur back.

“Because you love him.”

I know he’s talking about Garrett, but why does he care?

“And it kills me.” His eyes close, flutter, and then open again. “It kills me that you fall for it. You’re in the dark about everything. Why can’t you fucking see it? Why can’t you see through it?”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

I wait for another response, but it never comes. He’s out.

“Or maybe you’re the one in the dark and not me.”

“Pick and choose your battles, Syd.”

I look up at Garrett and smile. “I always do.”

“No,” he laughs. “You’ve got a little too much fight in you.”

I shake my head and cast out my fishing line. “How do you figure that?”

“You want to stay when you should go. You want to go when you should stay. You want to fight when you should yield and yield when you should fight. You’ve got it all backwards, Syd.”

I draw in a breath of fresh mountain air. “Says you.”

He chuckles with me. “When someone has the upper hand, you let them keep it.”

I give him a sideways glance. “That sounds a lot like giving up.”

“Nope,” he says, reeling in his line. I wait for him to check the bait—gone—and then change to a lure before casting out again. He looks over at me then, his eyes gold in the sun, his body tanned and muscular. He’s shirtless, because it’s very warm today. “It’s not giving up, Syd. It’s strategy. You gotta let them think they’re winning when they get the upper hand. But you never stop fighting. Even if it’s only on the inside.”

I wake up blind. My bindings are gone, my clothes are gone, my body is freezing. I crawl over to the fireplace but when I touch the metal, there’s no warmth.

He died.

“Don’t be stupid,” I say out loud. He drugged me again, untied me, took off my clothes, and dumped me into this room.

Why didn’t he light a fire? He must be cold.

But I can already hear water running. For half a second this makes my heart stop. He’s coming with the hose!

But then I realize that’s not what’s happening. He’s in the shower, I bet. Basking underneath hot water.

I tremble, cold. And I hate him. I hate that man so bad. Why is he doing this to me? Why?

“You are stupid,” Case says off to my left.

I sit up and look around in the dark.

“I mean…” He laughs a little. He sounds like he’s sitting down on the floor only a few feet away. “If it had worked it might’ve been a great plan. But I told you that machine had no gas. It’s twenty below outside and snowing. And that house you thought was your salvation? Is empty.”

“You’re lying.”

“Really? Which part of that is unbelievable?”

“I think there’s people in that house. I saw lights.”

“There’s no light out there, Sydney. It’s winter in Montana. People who own big log cabin homes like that don’t come here for the winter, cowgirl. You know better. You were cold and delirious from too many drugs. There was no light on in that house. You saw the moon reflecting off the windows, that’s all.”

Montana. But he’s right. Rich people who buy big homes out here come for the summers. For fishing, and hunting, and rafting. All things you don’t generally do in January.

“I know you dream about him. So that’s where this is gonna start.”

A chill runs up my spine and manifests as the hair at the nape of my neck standing on end.

“Oh,” Case says, getting to his feet with a shuffle. “You didn’t think this was over, did you?”

He pulls me to my feet by my hair and then half drags me, half walks me, over to the door. When he opens it, the light blinds me for a moment and I have to close my eyes. He doesn’t stop, just pulls me along a hallway until we get to the bathroom where warm steam rushes out in a mist. I inhale, enjoying every bit of warmth, and when I crack open my eyes, taking care not to look up into the light, I see the feet of an old white cast-iron tub.

I force myself to look up now. Right at his face.

“You smell,” he says, reading my mind. “You shit yourself. Which is why I took off your clothes.”

I look away, embarrassed, of all things. I shake my head a little to make that go away. Of all the things I should be ashamed of, shitting myself isn’t even in the top one hundred.

“And you’re covered in blood. I’m sick of looking at you like this. So wash. And be quick because you don’t deserve it.”

“Then why not hose me down?” I cringe as soon as the words come out. Shut up, Syd!

“I’m a little bit tired,” he says, ignoring my sarcasm. “And holding a hose filled with freezing water isn’t on my list of things to do right now. You have two minutes. And if you don’t get yourself clean in that time, I will get the hose.”