I run until my lungs burn, until my legs feel like they're going to give out. The expensive dress I'm still wearing from yesterday catches on a chain-link fence, tears at the hem.
I don't stop.
My father's men could be anywhere. Every parked car, every shadow, every person on the street could be one of his soldiers waiting to drag me back.
I need to get off these residential streets, somewhere public, somewhere with witnesses.
My chest heaves as I hit a main road finally, cars streaming past with their headlights cutting through the dark. I stumble to the curb, waving my arm frantically.
A taxi approaches. I step into the street, desperate.
It swerves around me without slowing.
Another one. I wave both arms this time. The driver takes one look at me—rumpled clothes, no coat, wild eyes—and accelerates past.
I'm just a girl who looks like trouble. No one wants trouble at this hour.
My phone died an hour ago, the battery giving out while I was still trapped in that guest room. No way to call for help, no way to reach anyone who might care.
Not that there's anyone left who would answer.
I'm about to give up, about to just start walking, when a clean sedan pulls over. Not a taxi, just a regular car. Toyota or Honda, something unremarkable and safe-looking.
The driver leans over, rolls down the passenger window. He's middle-aged, maybe forty-five, with a kind face and thinning hair. A wedding ring catches the streetlight.
"Woah," he says, his voice concerned. "You look like you're in a world of trouble. Need some help?"
I'm desperate enough that I don't even hesitate. I move to the passenger door, gripping the handle.
"Please, I need to get to the East Side. Near the Greyhaven estate." My voice is shaking. "I... I don't have any money on me right now, but I can pay you when we get there. I swear, I can—"
He cuts me off with a gentle, fatherly smile. "Hey, it's fine. Don't worry about it."
He gestures to the back seat. "I'm heading that way anyway to pick up my wife from her shift. Hop in."
Relief floods through me so fast I almost start crying. For a moment, it feels like the universe has finally thrown me a lifeline instead of another knife.
I climb into the back seat, pulling the door shut. The car is clean, normal. There's a coffee cup in the holder, a air freshener hanging from the mirror shaped like a pine tree.
He pulls back into traffic smoothly, checking his mirrors like any cautious driver.
"Thank you," I manage. "You have no idea what this means."
"No problem at all." He glances at me in the rearview mirror, eyes crinkling with kindness. "Can't leave a young lady stranded at this hour. Not safe."
We drive in silence for a few minutes. My heartbeat starts to slow, the panic loosening its grip on my chest.
"Boyfriend trouble?" he asks eventually, his tone light and conversational.
I nod, not trusting my voice.
"Ah, young love." He chuckles, shaking his head. "My wife and I, we've been married twenty years. Trust me, we fight all the time."
He takes a turn onto a wider street. "It's the passion, right? The caring. You don't fight with someone who doesn't matter."
His easy, domestic chatter is so normal it calms me. This is just a regular guy, heading home to his wife, helping out a stranger because that's what decent people do.
"You'll get there, you'll talk it out, and it'll all be fine by morning." He sounds so sure. "That's how it works. You gotta communicate."
He's right. I'll get to the estate, I'll find a way past security, and I'll make Cassian listen. I'll warn him about my father, about Ivy, about all of it.
We'll fix this.
I lean my head against the cool glass, letting my eyes close for just a moment.
That's when I notice the street signs.
We're not on the highway. We're not even heading toward the East Side anymore.
We're on an access road, industrial buildings looming dark on either side. The kind of area that's abandoned after business hours, where no one works night shifts.
My stomach drops.
"This isn't the way," I say, sitting up straight. "Where are we?"
"It's a shortcut," he says, but his smile is gone. His voice is different now, flatter. "The highway's a parking lot this time of night."
"No." My blood runs ice cold. "This isn't a shortcut. Let me out."
"Can't do that."
I hear the soft click of the central locks engaging. All four doors at once.
I lunge for the handle anyway, yanking hard. It doesn't move. Child safety locks, just like the car that brought me to my father's house.
"Please," I say, trying to keep my voice steady. "Just let me out here. At the corner. I'll walk the rest of the way."
He picks up a small radio from the console. When he speaks, his voice is all business. "I have her. Matches the description perfectly."
Static crackles back. "Calling for backup at the objective."
No. No, no, no.
I pound on the window, screaming. "Help! Someone help me!"
But there's no one. The streets are empty, the buildings dark.
He just accelerates, taking a sharp turn onto an even narrower road. Gravel crunches under the tires.
He reaches into the glove box, pulls out a gun. Black metal, professional. He sets it on his lap casually, like it's nothing.
"Be quiet," he says, "or I'll shoot you right here. We're almost there."
I stop screaming. Not because he told me to, but because I'm trying to think.
Cassian taught me how to fight. How to survive. But he taught me for attackers who were close, who grabbed me. Not for this.
Not for being locked in a moving car with an armed man.
We swerve onto a dirt road, and I see it ahead. A dark, skeletal warehouse, the kind that's been abandoned for years. Broken windows, graffiti on the walls, surrounded by chain-link fence.
The car stops.
He gets out, opens my door. When I try to scramble away across the seat, he grabs my ankle and drags me out.
I fight. God, I fight. Kicking at his face, scratching at his eyes, every dirty move I know.
He's ready for it.
His backhand catches me across the face, stunning me. My vision goes white, ears ringing.
Before I can recover, he's on me. One hand pins my arms, the other presses something over my mouth and nose. A cloth, damp and chemical-smelling.
I try to hold my breath but my lungs are already burning from the running, from screaming.
I gasp, and the smell floods my system. Sweet and cloying and wrong.
My limbs go heavy. The edges of my vision darken, tunnel inward.
I can hear him talking to someone—another man's voice, footsteps on gravel—but it sounds distant, underwater.
My last thought before the darkness takes me is almost peaceful.
A strange, numb calm.
So this is how it ends.
Cassian will never even know I tried to come back.