When I wake up, it’s pitch-black outside. I float on the blissful ignorance that accompanies waking up for the briefest of moments; then, reality slams into me like a sledgehammer.

Damon.

Home.

Fuck!

I scramble to my knees on Leo’s bed, knocking into him as I try to find my clothes. Jesus Christ, I can’t see a damn thing. I don’t even know where the light is in here.

Leo rouses as I feel around the bed, locating my bra and T-shirt, my scarf, throwing them all on as fast as I can.

“What’s wrong?” Leo asks, his voice thick with sleep.

“I can’t find my pants,” I mutter, sliding off the bed and feeling around on the floor. Leo sits up, flicking on a flashlight and offering it to me. I take it, for a second jolted back to the morning when he found Karen Brainard in the well.

“Thanks,” I say, finally grabbing my jeans. I can’t find my panties. I guess Leo can have them as a souvenir.

“You’re going?” Leo asks as I hand him the flashlight.

“Yeah.” He can’t hear the way my heart’s about to explode from anxiety. “What’s the time?”

He rustles around in the bed, probably looking for his phone. A moment later, he answers me. “It’s six-twenty-three.”

Fuck. “In the morning?”

“At night.”

“Oh, thank Christ.” We were only asleep for a couple hours. I was scheduled to work a double today — my shift normally wouldn’t finish until six-thirty. I’ve got seven minutes to get up to the house before Damon gets to the diner expecting to pick me up after work, and realizes I’m not there.

I grab my bag, loaded with stolen memorabilia from Lone Pine, thankful that my eyes have adjusted to the dark.

“Cassie,” Leo says, but I don’t turn around.

“I have to go,” I say quickly, locating the door and opening it. I gasp as cold air slams into me. I pull the door shut and start power-walking toward the road, and beyond, to my house. My eyesight isn’t terrible but it’s not perfect, either; I think the driveway is still empty, but in this darkness, it’s impossible to know for sure. I think of the way Damon casually lined Leo’s place up in the crosshairs of his riflescope more than once, and cringe inwardly as I imagine him shooting me as I fumble my way home.

“Cassie!” Leo’s voice rings out behind me, more insistent this time. “Wait!” I stop in my tracks, turning toward the noise. Oh my God, Leo, you’re going to get me killed.

I break into a run away from Leo. I don’t think he’ll follow me home. I don’t think he’s that stupid. My bag is falling from my shoulder, heavy with secret grave-robbed gifts, the freezing night air burning in my lungs. I make it to the road and stop, catching my breath, almost screaming as I hear footsteps behind me.

“Cassie,” Leo says, stopping beside me. “What are you doing?”

I push him, hard. “You’re going to get me into deep shit, Leo! You need to go back down there and stop fucking following me.”

Leo stumbles back when I push him, but he’s a giant, and it’s not as if I’d ever be able to push him over.

“What kind of shit?” Leo probes, tugging on my scarf, exposing the bruises at my throat. “He gonna do this again? You don’t have to go back there—”

“Oh my God,” I hiss, yanking on my scarf and putting it back over my neck. “You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about. Leave me alone. I mean it.”

“If he’s hurting you, Cassie, we can call the police—”

“Leo!” I push him again, acutely aware of how exposed we are on the shoulder of the road. “He is the police! Don’t you understand? He could send you back to prison.”

Leo’s eyes are full of anger, full of unshed tears. “I can’t let you go up there if he’s going to hurt you,” he says, his words taking on a hard edge.

Fucking fuck. Fuck! I glance over my shoulder, making sure there are no headlights driving in our direction.

“He’s not going to hurt me,” I say. “But if he sees us together, he’s going to hurt you.”

The first part is a lie; he’s definitely going to hurt me at some point.

“I can take him,” Leo says, his gaze hard as he stares up at my house.

“Can you take a bullet?” I challenge him. “Can you take being arrested? Can you take going back to prison?”

Leo’s shoulders sag.

“Go home, don’t go home,” I snap. “Whatever. But for the love of God, don’t fucking follow me across this road or it will be the last time we ever see each other. You get me?”

He gives a short nod, walking back a couple of steps. I check the road for any cars and run across the road, along my driveway, up the front steps, and onto my porch.

I left the door unlocked on purpose this morning, part of my plan. I don’t even have a key to my own goddamn house, Damon’s control over my every move is so precise. I can’t come and go as I please if I don’t have access to the place, a deliberate move on his part.

The door handle turns in my palm, I crack open the door, and I’m safe. The house is pitch-black and silent, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I step across the threshold and close the door behind me, sagging against it as the adrenalin in my veins continues to throb.

I made it.

A lamp snaps on in the living room, the noise is deafening in the silence, the light impossibly bright. I jump so violently I drop my bag, and its contents scatter across the floorboards like little traitors exposing me.

“Well,” Ray smirks, a shotgun resting across his knees as he sits at one end of the sofa. “Would you look what the fuckin’ cat dragged in.”