Fear crept in, like it did before every delivery. Deep breath. This was the last one. She pinched the bridge of her nose, drew in another calming breath, and returned the phone to the woman.

For the next two hours, she smoked one cigarette after another. The stimulant intensified her edginess, so she sang while she smoked. When the tears sneaked in, she changed up the song. The towns grew smaller with each passing mile, stretching farther apart, separated by rocky scrub land. Fifteen minutes outside of Brady Reservoir, she stopped on the side of the road and changed into her costume.

The Deliverer wore a silver under-bust corset over a bra and boy shorts, both made of black latex. The gun went into her thigh-high boot. The knife’s scalpel blade folded in, and the pen-like design fit down the center of the bodice, snug in the corset casing that had originally held a steel bone.

With a few minutes to spare, she knelt beside Kate and brushed the girl’s hair from her sweaty forehead. “I delivered another girl once. Six years ago.” Her chest tightened, testing the seams of the bodice. “She was very brave.” She leaned down, pressed a kiss on trembling lips. “You remind me of her.”

Thanks to the pitch-black interior, she couldn’t see the fear in Kate’s eyes. She didn’t need to. It breathed through the van in a ghastly shudder, desolate and needful.

She returned to the driver’s seat, a sheen of dread dampening her skin and chilling her spine, and faced the next phase of the plan. As she maneuvered the winding roads, dipping and curving around hillocks and banks, she couldn’t escape the grip of doubt.

The emotionally detached letter she’d left Josh weighed on her the most, but she couldn’t leave him with the damaged whispers of her heart. He might’ve clung to her words, searched for her, tried to save her. There were too many people involved in her deliveries, too many identities to safeguard. The less he knew in his freedom the better for everyone.

Stunted bushes crowded the landscape, forming smudges against the inky backdrop of barrenness. The last building was ten miles back. The occasional headlight bobbed in her side mirror and vanished behind the bends in the road. The desolation preyed on her nerves.

The navigation system directed her onto a narrow path that faded into a gnarled expanse of wilderness. As the clutch of trees closed in, she put on her mask, tying the strings to hold the round white face in place.

Up ahead, an arced glow rose through the dark, striping through the skeletal branches. Her boot shook against the gas pedal, and her palms slicked the wheel.

“Glory and Gore” by Lorde invigorated her lungs and heart as she scanned the trees, searching for a sign of her secret saviors.

Ricky, Tomas, Luke, Martin, Tate, and her very first captive, Camila.

She knew them by the names she’d once refused to use, by the bruises on their skin, and by the strength of their forgiveness. Her six deliveries in seven years were dead to her. Until she called. Her freedom fighters always came when she called. And they came for blood.

A car blocked the road, its headlights aimed at her and cut by the silhouettes of two men. She shielded her eyes with a forearm, turned off the engine, and grabbed the phone. In the back, she unstrapped Kate, straightened the girl’s knee-length cotton dress, and led her out. “Stay beside me,” she whispered. “Shoulders back. Eyes down.”

“Yes, Mistress.” No chains or cuffs. The girl was broken in her despair.

With the confidence of the Deliverer, she swayed her hips and flexed her bare thighs with each stride toward the waiting men.

Chapter 34

Liv closed the final few feet with her chin held high, and her strides wide and easy. Her insides, however, shook with a violence that strangled her breaths.

The shorter of the two men wore a Guy Fawkes mask, painted with a mustache, goatee, and a cynical smirk. The bodyguard didn’t share his employer’s creativity, his face distorted in a transparent sleeve of nylon.

“Good evening.” Guy Fawkes cocked his head.

“We’ll see.” Her cool voice tangled in the autumn air.

The bodyguard approached her, and she remembered the drill from the intro meeting. She stretched out her arms, her phone in one hand. Beside her, Kate stared at her bare feet.

He prodded around her mask and hair and patted down her bra, corset, and skin-tight shorts. When he reached her boots, he lifted the gun as she’d expected. Pocketing it, he moved to Kate and repeated the search. That done, he stepped back.

The Guy Fawkes mask turned toward Kate. “Come to your Master.”

Liv clasped her wrist and walked a step ahead of her, holding her to the side. Was Camila there yet? Could Liv cut the fucker before his bodyguard shot her? Stall, stall, stall.

She released Kate’s arm. “Kneel.” As the girl descended to the ground, Liv arched into Guy Fawkes’ suit-clad body, inhaling the stench of musk and greed. She cupped his groin.

He swelled in her grip and held a palm out, halting his guard’s advance. “How much for both of you?”

Same question he’d asked last time. If he saw her scarred face, he’d probably choke on his persistence to buy her.

“Pay me for one slave.” She tightened her fist around him. “Then we’ll discuss the prospect for two.”

He pulled out his phone, his fingers tapping on the screen over her shoulder. She stroked his erection, bile burning through her chest, challenging her steady breaths.

“Sent.” He pocketed the device and slammed a hand down on her ass. A heavy fucking hand.

The sting rippled down her leg and burned through her muscles. He reared back and hit her again. Her fingers fell away from his dick to clutch his hip. She was sure he broke blood vessels, the sadistic prick.

Her phone vibrated in her hand. She held it between their chests, unlocked it, and glanced at the text.

Van: Funds received

Her heart soared. It took a great amount of discipline to hold in the relief blubbering to escape. She breathed to the beat of “Glory and Gore” and lowered the phone to her bodice. As she worked it beneath the binding, she slipped the pen knife free, her body pressed to his in a wretched embrace.

The bodyguard stood a few paces away, his nylon-smashed expression skimming the surrounding woodland.

She flicked the blade open, her hand hidden beneath the rise of her chest, her pulse thrumming wildly. Trusting that the Guy Fawkes mask limited his field of vision, she swung the scalpel upward, and sliced his carotid artery. He shuffled back, cupping the spray of blood beneath his mask.

The bodyguard straightened, drew a pistol from his hip. She stopped breathing.

One shot fired from the trees. Two. Three.

He jerked back, stumbled. Oh, thank God. The beam of headlights illuminated a crimson stain at the center of his white shirt. He snapped his gun up, aimed at her, and fired.

The bullet whistled past her. She leapt on him. Took him to the ground. Landed on his chest, the knife slick in her grip, her heart beating at a dangerous velocity.

The buyer hit the ground beside them, one hand squeezing the flow of red at his throat, the other clawing through the dirt to grab her leg. His fingers caught her calf in a blood-slicked grip.

She jerked her leg free and stabbed downward, hitting the bodyguard’s chest. The blade sank an inch and stopped. The sternum? A rib? Shit, shit, she couldn’t push it in. He shoved her away, raised his gun.

A gunshot cracked from the brush.

The beige of his nylon hood turned red, seeping blood. The gun dropped, and his body slumped.

A ragged breath tore from her throat. She unlocked her limbs, shaking violently, and checked the pulse in his throat. Nothing. She scrambled toward the buyer.