Evie’s terror increased with each step she took through the cave-black woods. After driving his truck off the road and stuffing it into a dense web of trees and shrubs, they hiked deep into a blackened mountainous landscape, along an invisible path that only Eli could see.

After what seemed an eternity, she could stay quiet no longer. “Where are we going?”

Silence.

“Eli?”

“Keep your mouth shut.”

The impact of his palm against her shoulder forced her to stumble and go down on one knee. Again.

Mr. Talkative used shoving as his means of navigation. Unseen vines and decaying logs littered the forest floor, which gave her a 50-50 chance of staying upright versus kissing dirt.

Using her scraped, bound hands to push off the ground, she rose and continued. Minutes later, the underbrush became thicker, and brambles caught onto her thin capris and tore into her bare calves.

She bit her lip, catching the cry before it emerged. She didn’t stop. In fact, she increased her pace and plowed through, knowing the brambles meant sunlight. Sunlight meant the edge of the woods. Edge of the woods meant moonlight. Moonlight meant openness.

Like her Steele siblings, she’d spent years traipsing through the mountains and hiking miles of trails. Many people labeled her a city slicker, at first glance. She loved dresses, high heels, and dangly earrings.

However, she loved hanging with nature more.

Down she went, again. Raspberry thorns scraped her cheek and caught in her long hair. She sat back on her heels, trying to disentangle herself. Rough fingers curled into her hair and yanked her upright. Tears stung the backs of her eyes at leaving a good amount of her tresses behind.

Another push, and she bolted through the last of the brambles. The trees thinned and moonlight sprayed her face. She refused to look down at the damage to her legs and arms and hands. She had more serious things to worry about.

Eli grabbed the back of her shirt, hauling her to a stop. He came to stand beside her, his attention shifting from a dilapidated barn to their left and an old farmhouse with several more modern outbuildings farther in the distance.

The isolation pressed in on her, sucked the last breath from her lungs and killed the final dregs of her hope. No one would find her here. This place would become her tomb, her grave. A vacuum for her screams.

Poor Deke. When he found the carnage Eli left behind and discovered her missing, he’d be out of his mind with worry. He might not realize he loved her yet, but he cared about her.

If only she’d been smarter. Intelligent enough to alert Sergeant Prickett of the danger and save Rachel.

Rachel. Good God, Eli’d murdered her while she’d lain helpless and unconscious. The depravity of the act was beyond imagining.

“If you scream or try to escape, I’ll stab you a thousand times. Then I’ll hunt down your boyfriend and stab him a thousand times in front of his mama.” He grabbed her forearm. “Step where I step.”

As they neared the barn, three large dogs barreled toward them. Their vicious barks put her muscles on lockdown.

But only for a split second.

She nearly ripped her elbow out of socket trying to break free of Eli’s hold. “Let me go! They’re going to tear us to shreds.”

Eli growled a low, firm command, and the dogs stopped. They didn’t sit or stand or return from where they came. They paced. Tail tucked, ears down, head low.

Her captor continued toward the barn. His barn? Or rather, his father’s? Could this be Harwoods’ estate? Had they been walking on Harwood land since leaving his truck?

No wonder Eli knew the area so well. This was his home.

Once they reached the rear of the barn, Eli’s confident steps became more stealth-like as he rounded the side. He paused at the next corner for so long that she bent forward to see what had him so transfixed.

His arm speared out, clotheslining her throat as he flattened her against the barn wall. Her head bounced off the weathered planks. Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed for strength, courage, and the wits to outsmart this creep.

She had to find a way to escape.

To return to Deke.

Grabbing the knot between her wrists, he towed her along behind him, slithering into the barn like a feral cat sneaking in his evening meal.

The scent of decades-old dirt, fetid straw, and excrement filled her nostrils. She’d experienced the smell many times before, but something else, another more acrid, stomach-disturbing odor hovered around the edges.

He led her toward one of the half dozen horse stalls lining the wall. Moonlight didn’t penetrate this deep into the building, and the stalls reminded her of gaping mouths ready to consume their visitors.

Once she stepped into the stall, blackness overwhelmed her senses. She had no grasp of time or position. For all she knew, a dead body could be lying two feet away. A familiar hysteria began to bubble to the surface, taunting her mind, pushing her to flee.

A click, click reached her ears a moment before Eli’s phone light flicked on. He shone the beam on a wooden ladder descending beneath the floor. “Go.”

The sight blasted her back to her family’s cluttered storage shed. Spider webs, beetles, dust on everything. Locked door. Black night. Hot. Hungry. Scared. Urge to pee. Alone.

Even though the incident had happened over fifteen years ago, the cold sweat and paralyzing fear was the same. Jonah wouldn’t find her this time. No one would. Not in this creeper’s hellhole.

She shook her head.

“Get down there, or I’ll throw you down.”

Backing away, she said, “I can’t.”

He stepped toward her, and she bolted. She didn’t stop to think about the stab wounds he promised to inflict on her and Deke or of her hatred for running. In that moment, eight-year-old Evie gained control of her mind and body and had but one purpose.

Escape.

Every muscled churned, answering her demand for speed. She got as far as the opening, where a twelve-foot sliding door hung at a disturbing angle, before he tackled her to the ground. She let out one, piercing scream before he buried her face in the dirt.

“Shut up!” he demanded in her ear. “Shut up, you stupid hellcat.”

She thrashed like a madwoman, knowing instinctively this was it. The End. But the Steele blood running through her veins refused to let her die without a fight. She wouldn’t cower, cry, or beg. She’d become the hellcat he accused her of being.

Her courageous stand lasted only a few satisfying moments before his fist clocked the side of her head, throwing her world into darkness.