Chaser was dead.

The realization burned through me, tearing everything apart. My heart, my mind, my body, my soul… That was how I knew my feelings weren’t a passing fancy. I wouldn’t be able to forget him, no matter what I did. If he’d dumped me at Fortitude and fucked off into the sunset, I would’ve pined after him the rest of my life like a stupid little girl.

Chaser was a part of me now whether I wanted him or not.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” I asked, my voice sounding almost robotic to my ears. “Just end it.”

Blue Eyes snorted. “You’ll love being a sex slave, Betty. We’ve got the perfect owner for you. He loves slicing his women open and fucking them as they bleed.”

“I don’t like it,” Bailey whined like a bitch, still hung up on the fact he couldn’t touch me.

“Orders change,” Blue Eyes snapped. “We’ve caught her now, so it’s time to make her pay.”

“I’d rather make her suck right now.”

“You’re a sadistic bastard, Bailey, but no one messes with the boss’s whores, you know that. When we get back to the Strip, you’ll find another hole.”

I stared numbly out the window, my entire body feeling listless in my despair. They were going to give me to the head of their creepy as fuck organization. Sounded like he was a real party animal. All cocks, blood, and bondage.

I should’ve done something. Fought back, tried to end it, but everything was just out of reach. My fingertips scraped the edges of giving a shit about my fate, but I couldn’t grasp it.

Chaser was dead.

I shouldn’t have said those things to him. I was angry. Upset. He had a life before me. Of course, he did. So had I. I was stupid to believe I’d been his one and only. If I’d been his at all.

I guess I would never know.

“She’s giving up,” Blue Eyes mused. “Can you see it in her eyes?”

Bailey leaned over me and stared into my face. His breath stank like shit on a hot day, and I growled, kneeing him as hard as I could in the balls. He doubled over with a cry, grasping his dick as Blue Eyes laughed.

Pube Face let out a cry of rage and fisted his hand in my hair. “You’ll never escape. This is your life, slut. Piss, filth, and cum up your ass. That’s all it’ll ever be.”

“Don’t forget the slicing,” I declared.

I kicked him in the thigh as hard as I could, smirking when he howled in pain. I guess there was still some fight in me after all. That, or I just couldn’t help myself. Pube Face Bailey was such an easy target.

I cried out as Blue Eyes’s knuckles struck me across the face, and my head collided with the window.

“Try that shit again, and I’ll slit your throat myself,” he said with a snarl as my head throbbed. “Then I’ll let Bailey have his way with your corpse.”

“Best do it that way because I’d hack off his tiny cock with my own teeth the moment he stuck it in my mouth.”

“Bitch!” Bailey roared, raising his hand.

Before he could hit me, the door slid open, and I gasped as my gaze collided with Chaser.

Blue Eyes pulled a gun with a snarl, and I cried out, but Chaser was too fast. He slammed the heel of his palm against Blue Eyes’s wrist, forcing the gun to the side as it went off. The boom was deafening in the small space, and my ears rang as the two men wrestled.

Bailey lunged, desperate to join the fray, but I was on him in a flash. I kicked his knee out from under him, forcing him to buckle to the floor with an angry grunt.

I threw myself on him and fisted my hands into his hair. Slamming his face into the floor, I let out an enraged cry, enjoying the violence a little too much. Like father, like daughter…I hoped not.

We were squashed in the room like sardines in a tin, but I was hardly aware of what Chaser was doing. The gun hadn’t gone off again, but there was still movement around me as I tried to bash Bailey’s face in.

Pube Face bucked underneath me, and the force dislodged my grasp. I fell back against the seat and thrashed as his hands closed around my neck.

“Choke, bitch.” He snarled through a mouthful of blood.

I clawed at him, desperate to finish the job as I gasped for air. Not today, I thought to myself. Not like this.

A body fell to the floor beside me, and I kicked, thrashing against Bailey’s hold. Then Chaser was standing over us.

Without a single shred of hesitation, he rammed a bloodstained knife into Bailey’s ear and kicked him to the side. Instantly, the hands around my neck slackened, and I gasped, coughing as air rushed into my starving lungs.

Grabbing me underneath the arms, Chaser hauled me out of the room and into the hall, away from the blood.

It was all over in a matter of minutes, and I stared at Chaser with something close to awe. I’d seen him in action before, but this was something else. He was a whirlwind of death. Precise and brutal. A shadow…

“I thought you were dead,” I blurted, my eyes filling with tears.

“Almost,” he replied, his grip loosening. “Almost…” He stepped away from me, limping heavily.

My gaze fell to his thigh, and I realized Bailey got his revenge but was too stupid to see through the haze of his obsession. He’d made the ultimate mistake and left Chaser alive. Lucky for me.

“He stabbed you,” I exclaimed.

He didn’t reply, which was his typical response when he didn’t feel like explaining shit.

“Help me,” he said after a moment, reaching down and grasping Blue Eyes’s wrists. He dragged the body down the hall, having some difficulty managing with his leg.

“What are you doing? What if…”

“These cars are empty,” he said. “No one will see us. It was a trap from the start.”

I lowered my gaze, trying not to look at the bodies on the floor.

“Give me a hand.”

I grimaced and lifted Blue Eyes by the ankles. He was still warm.

We leaned him in the alcove by the outer door, and then went back for what was left of Bailey. My stomach rolled as I was caught in the gaze of their empty eyes.

Chaser forced the outer door open, and I grasped the handrail as wind whipped through my hair. The ground was rushing past at a terrifying speed, and it would only take one stumble in the wrong direction to fall. One little misstep and I would be dragged underneath the train and onto the tracks.

I glanced at Chaser and nodded when his gaze met mine. I was ready.

Together, we lifted what was left of Blue Eyes and Bailey and rolled them out the door. As their bodies hit the ground, the sound of their flesh being torn apart by the train made me wince.

I turned away, and the noise was cut off as Chaser heaved the door back into place.

“Why isn’t the train stopping?” I asked. “Surely there’s an emergency procedure…”

“Let’s get our stuff,” he said, ignoring my question. “The next station is only minutes away. They’ll stop there and investigate. We need to be gone before they find what we left behind.”

Picking up my bag, I followed him up the stairs, not liking the way he was limping. His leg was stiff, and I could see the pain he was doing his damnedest to ignore.

“Chaser?” I asked as we moved down the hall and back into our own car.

He grunted as he opened the door to our compartment.

“Are you sure your leg is all right?”

“It’s fucked,” he replied. “But we don’t have time.”

Scooping up my things, I shoved them into my duffel as the landscape outside filled with power lines and buildings, signaling the station was almost upon us.

When we were done, we went downstairs and waited by the outer door of our own car. My skin prickled in anticipation as the train rolled into the station.

“How do we do this?” I asked, staring fretfully at the platform.

“Put your head down and walk,” Chaser replied. “Act natural and don’t panic.”

“Sounds easy when you say it like that.”

“Follow my lead, and we’ll slip right out of here.”

I hoped he was right.

The train finally came to a stop, the brakes screeching. The moment the doors disengaged, I forced it open, and we stepped out onto the platform.

Chaser winced as he put weight on his injured leg, but he never made a sound. Whatever he’d wrapped his thigh up in was working a treat. So far, only a spot of blood had bled through his jeans. Nothing that would draw attention.

Putting my head down, I linked my arm through Chaser’s, and we walked down the platform with the other disembarking passengers. I started as a group of uniformed men from the train ran toward us, but they passed us by without even looking twice.

“Keep walking,” Chaser murmured as a commotion broke out behind us.

Swallowing hard, I resisted the urge to look back. People around us were already stopping to see what all the fuss was about, but we kept going.

We turned into the main building, passing noticeboards and waiting areas. Our footsteps were muffled by the commotion of passengers coming and going. Loved ones embraced, taxi drivers loaded luggage into the trunks of their cars, people rolled suitcases toward a bus stop, and we melted into the scenery.

Exiting the building, we walked down the street, disappearing into the wilds of the little town of Winslow, Arizona.

No one called out or chased us down.

No one tried to stop us.

No one at all.