“Fuck.” Her head comes up and searches around and she stops dead as she realizes I’m standing about twenty yards off. “Hey,” she yells. “Did you see that?”

I say nothing, simply reach into my pocket.

“Can you help me?”

I raise my gun and squeeze the trigger, hitting her square in the left shoulder.

She flies backward into the snow, not even a scream.

I walk towards her slowly, taking my time and looking around for any sign of headlights in the distance, but there are none. We are completely alone tonight.

I stop a little way off and watch her body in the snow. Her arm jerks a few times, a dark patch appearing underneath her, and then I check my watch and wait three minutes before walking out to pick up my trophy.

When I get to her blood-covered body her eyes are closed and her mouth is open. I grab the rope from my pocket and tie her legs first, then her hands. And then I hike her small body up over my shoulder and walk back to my truck bed. I open the tailgate, pull the lever that keeps the bed cover in place, and it rolls back to give me enough room to lay her down on top of the tarp. I wrap her limp body up, and then roll the cover back over the top of the bed and lock the tailgate closed.

Done.

Well—I laugh—she’s done. But I’m certainly not.

The snow is coming down harder now, and I estimate that all evidence of my truck and footprints will be covered in about twenty minutes. Long before anyone at the resort realizes the bride-to-be is gone. Long before they realize they can’t drive down the mountain because of the fallen tree trunk. Long before they call—well, I laugh out loud at that thought.

People I target don’t call the police.

They call killers.

Like me.

I get back in the truck and put her in gear, upping the heater since it’s damn cold out. Poor Syd will be shaking pretty good when the tranquilizer wears off. But she’ll be shaking more from the fear than the cold by the time that happens.

Eight Years Ago

“That feeling? When your mind is blank and your heart is empty. And then you have to pick up that gun and do your job. You mean that feeling? Yeah, I know it. It’s called giving up.”

- Sydney

“Sydney?”

I lie there on the ground, listening to the retreating womp-womp-womp of the helicopter, willing this not to be my reality.

A boot to the ribs tells me that’s pointless.

I turn my head towards Garrett, pain radiating up through my chest, and find his face. He’s got his leg back, ready to deliver his foot to my body again, when he stops.

I swallow and close my eyes.

“Tell me he was lying.”

“He—” My throat is dry and my words falter.

Garrett kneels down and grabs me by my jacket, pulling me up and shaking me hard at the same time. “Tell me. He was lying.”

“He was lying,” I whisper. And he was. “I never did anything. I have no idea who he is!”

“You were leaving,” Garrett says. Usually Garrett is a raging asshole when I piss him off. But he’s so calm now. He’s so calm this scares me even more and my whole body starts shaking. “You were running away, weren’t you?”

I swallow again and then before I know what’s happening, I piss myself. The heat leaks between my legs and I start to cry. I just close my eyes and start to cry.

I don’t know how long I stay like that, but the next thing that happens scares me even more than the threat of his boot.

Garrett picks me up and holds me in his arms. I never open my eyes, not even when he places me in the truck and drags the seatbelt across my chest, clicking it into the lock. He shuts the door and walks over to the driver’s side and gets in. Starts the truck. And we drive off.

We drive for hours. The sun comes up behind us and we’re still driving. Going west.

Hours later we pull off the main highway and take a dirt road. That’s when I speak. “You’re going to kill me.” It’s not a question.

“I was,” Garrett says. “Before last night.”

I can’t even muster up a sob.

“But—” He stops. Just stops. Never starts up again. And I don’t push it. I just sit quietly, listening to the song he’s playing on the stereo, letting it calm me, until we finally come to a rest outside a cabin.

I reek of piss, but my pants have long since dried and my bladder is full again, even though I haven’t had anything to drink in the six hours we’ve been on the road together.

Garrett turns the truck off and we sit in silence for a few seconds. A ticking noise from the engine is the only sound.

“We live here now.” And then he gets out and walks around to the passenger door. He opens it for me and then unbuckles my seat belt. “Can you walk?”

I look up at his face and try to find the anger. The hateful, evil, and sadistic man I have come to know. But all that is missing right now.

Garrett reads my silence as a yes and tugs on me until I swing my legs out and stand up. My back hurts. My ribs hurt from where he kicked me. My face hurts from where that assassin punched me.

“Just kill me,” I say, looking up at Garrett. “Just kill me and let me die. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“I don’t blame you,” he says. “If I was you right now, I’d feel the same way. Even if I didn’t know what was gonna happen next.”

And then he turns around and walks away, leaving me standing there. He climbs the front porch steps to the small hunting cabin, opens the door without using a key, and walks inside, closing the door behind him.

The wind picks up and reminds me it’s winter.

I wrap my arms around myself and shiver.

I do the only thing I can. I follow him in.

“He always told me that the secret to staying alive was stillness. I’ve seen it in action too many times to disagree.”

- Sydney

I wake up and immediately wish I hadn’t. I’m blind.

No, it’s just dark. It’s the definition of pitch black.

I squirm and realize I’m tied up. My hands are secured to whatever it is I’m lying on. My legs are spread apart, also secured, and the ass of my jeans is wet.

I smell the piss and realize that’s where the memory came from. I’m living in a time loop.

No. This is the present. I was in my truck, running away from my wedding to Brett. But there are too many similarities between now and then, so my mind is revisiting them.

Shrink talk. That’s what that is. But it’s true, I can feel it.

I’m a prisoner again.

Has there ever been a day in my life when I was not someone’s prisoner?

Don’t get on your high horse now, Syd. You signed up for this.

I did, I remind myself. I did. But if your last name is Channing, even if it’s a secret, then what choice do you have?

Excuses.

I try to swallow, but my throat is so dry, I can’t make it work. So I do nothing. I don’t move, or struggle, or scream.

It’s no use. I know this.

So I do the only thing I can do. I slip back into my old habits. I go inside myself, looking for the darkness that is even blacker than my reality.

And it comes easily.

It’s a summer day. The dry wind is hot as it blows across my face, but the humidity from the river flowing nearby counteracts it. Makes everything perfect.

“You ready to learn to fish?” Garrett asks me. “I can’t always take care of you, Syd.”