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Just until he isn’t looking. My fingers inch towards my phone, but that hope in my throat turns bitter as he pulls it back closer to him on the ground.

“Because even if you do, I don’t think I can let you go. Not right now, when you’re just going to call the police?—”

“I won’t,” I lie, but his rueful smile tells me he sees right through it.

“And I haven’t had a chance to clean up yet. I don’t want to go to jail, Saylor. Not for you, or anyone else.” When I dart for my phone with a sudden rush of speed, he curls his fingers around it and yanks it back, my hand on it only serving to pull me forward across the ground, my face once again too close to his for comfort.

He smells like blood.

There’s no way around it. He reeks of the stench of old and new blood, and it nearly chokes me as I stare up at him before moving away.

But I’m too slow. A hand curls around the back of my neck, holding me to him, and I can only make a small sound of disbelief when the hand on my phone disappears, only to return moments later to rest somewhere between us.

“I’m so, so sorry.”Fuck,but he looks like he means it. All puppy dog eyes and sad, guilty frowns. I shake my head and try to pull away, one eye still on the chainsaw. “But I can’t let you go tonight.”

“Please don’t do this.” I’m shaking now. There’s no way he isn’t holding a knife, or isn’t preparing to jerk the chainsaw close to him and do to me the same thing he did to the other man. “Please?—”

“Don’t beg me, Saylor. You’ll only break my heart.” He’sjokingwith me, the hint of a smile on his lips that makes me want to vomit. “You’ll call the police. I see it in your eyes. And I need you to understand that I can’t have you doing that before I let you go anywhere.”

“But I promise,” I whisper urgently. “I swear, okay?” Realizing I even half mean it, and I try to pull away from him, to stand, to do anything. “I won’t call anyone. You said it yourself. There’s no service here.”

“But you won’t be out here for long. We’re closer to the parking lot than you realize.” His grin is so fucking apologetic it makes my heart hurt. “Don’t be afraid of me. Please.”

“Then don’t do this.” Tears sting my eyes. I want to do something, to get out of this. But the only thing I can think of is how this is just my luck. Of course I would be the one paralyzed in a life-or-death situation with no idea of what to do.

Damn it.

When his hand comes up, my breath hitches in my throat. I brace for the pain. For the sharp-edged agony of him slitting my throat.

But I’m not expecting for him to cover my mouth and nose with one hand holding a cloth. I jerk in a breath, and that’s my immediate undoing. My vision spins as Jed sidles closer, supporting me with his arms as he fights to keep the cloth pressed to my face, even as my hands reach up to claw desperately at his wrist.

“Shhhh,shhhdon’t fight me,” he all-but purrs, eyes never leaving mine. “It’ll be over in a second, I promise, if you just…don’t…”

I don’t hear the last words with my fingers latched into his skin, but in my brain I feel them on the tide of darkness that rises to claim my consciousness.

Fight me.

Chapter

Four

Ihave no idea where I am, or what time it is.

As the black tide of sleep releases me slowly, uncurling like fingers from my chest and head, I feel…strange. Lost, in a way. Almost like I’m dissociating.

But nothing had happened that I remember. I didn’t have some self-sabotaging episode, nor had I talked to my step-mom the day before. Hell, it’s been weeks since she’s called, and weeks since I’d needed an emergency appointment with my therapist.

So why do I feel so strange?

As if I’m trying to watch a movie through static, pictures flit across the backs of my eyelids. Grass, the swamp. The click of my camera that does more to soothe me than anything else ever could. I remember begging my car to just last for the trip home. And she must’ve, right? Given that I’m definitely on a bed; though my head is on a pillow that feels not quite like one of mine.

But it has to be one of mine, because there’s no other explanation.

Right?

My brain urges me that something is wrong. Something’s off, somewhere in my world, and serves to wake me up faster than normal, though the confused and dazed feeling remains. Something isn’t right, even if it’s only in my own head. I’ve had that happen more times than I can count as well. Where I wake up anxious, panicking, and thinking that the world is ending or I’m some colossal failure.

My therapist had explained it to me once; okay, maybe more than once. That the body’s cortisol levels only create a wicked cycle in some people with anxiety or other mental health struggles. It hadn’t made me feel better to learn the science behind it, since I’ve never been good at rationalizing myself out of my fears and panic.