Ellie erupted with a garbled scream. Half furious, half panicked, she twisted and thrashed on the man’s shoulder, trying to escape. Knock him over! Run! But where? Where to run? And Asher—

Asher! She had to help Asher! He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be! Caught between fury and despair, the word erupted from her lips in a low keening sound.

“Asher!”

The sound, the pain issuing from her mouth sounded so foreign, so unusual. Never had she felt such a sense of hopelessness . . . such guilt. Her heart was in her throat, her mind scrambled with images . . . making love with Asher, that first time they’d met, him grabbing her from behind in the alley . . . him sleeping on the motel room bed, it all rushed through her mind at once, one image after another. Her heart hurt, like it twisted into knots, heavy in her chest. Her stomach roiled as terror ripped through her like a hot poker sizzling her veins as it went.

“Shut up!” The man yelled at her again. The heat instantly turned cold, her limbs icy, her fingertips tingling. White spots flickered in front of her eyes. No! Not a migraine! Not now! No, she had help Asher. She had to fight these people!

“Don’t hurt him!” she grunted, every word forced out of her belly as the man carried her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. He stepped toward the rear of the big truck.

“Oh, he’s just fine, honey, don’t you worry one little bit,” the man laughed.

Dangling helplessly, Ellie tried to lift her upper body, at least get her head up enough so that she could get a look at the Jeep. Despite the hair hanging down in front of her face and awkward positioning as the man jostled her in his arms, preparing to—she hoped—set her on her feet, she caught a glimpse of the Jeep. Ellie froze.

The entire front left panel had crumpled inward, the tire sporting a wide gash and lying flat against the asphalt. Both airbags had deployed. Nausea rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back as she caught a glimpse of Asher. He lay slumped sideways in the Jeep, away from the window, the airbag half deflated. Blood was smeared across its surface. A moan of horror escaped her throat as bile rose in her throat.

Her captor slid her down his shoulder. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Ellie’s knees crumpled. She bent forward, hating how her head leaned against the man’s chest as she wretched and then vomited, spewing the remains of her hamburger and fries down his khaki-colored pants and scuffed tan hiking boots.

“Shit!”

Instinctively, the man pushed her away, and Ellie couldn’t catch her balance. She fell backward, arms windmilling as she tried desperately to stay upright. She landed hard on the asphalt behind the truck. The back of her head banged into the pavement, sending yet another flash of pain through her skull. More white flashes. More pain. Blackness hovered on the edges of her vision, and she wanted to give up, to crawl away like a wounded animal into the darkness of the trees along the side of the forest. To sink down and disappear into the asphalt. All her fault . . . this was all her fault.

“Asher,” she breathed, barely a whisper of sound, her lips not moving. She lay unmoving, listening to the two men, one of them laughing, the other cursing. Her ears rang and her head throbbed. The asphalt felt hot and rough under her fingertips. The warmth of the evening had softened it a bit and she smelled the tar, the dirt, the rubber from tires imprinted into it. Even as her senses absorbed it all, she was numb. She felt dead already inside. Her heart was still beating an accelerated pace, her brain whirled with fear and pain, but she felt nothing. Asher. Was he even still alive?

“Hurry up and get her inside,” one of the men ordered. His voice was harsh, gravelly, and urgent.

“No way in hell am I putting her in my truck,” the other replied. “Damn it, I stink like a sewer, and she’s not going to puke inside my truck! She can puke in the back and lay in it for all I care, but I ain’t putting her in my cab.”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Gravelly Voice responded. “We can’t let her escape—”

“If you think it’s no big deal, put her in your own fuckin’ car,” the other grumbled.

“We’ve got to get moving,” Gravelly Voice said. “And I’ve got to pull this car off the road—”

“Leave it where it is.”

“No can do. I gotta park it along the side up ahead, like we were told, and then get down to mine back there on the service road at the bottom of the hill. Now let’s get going. We’re wasting time, and as you know . . .”

Vaguely, their voices drifted, close one moment, distant the next, as if they stood whispering at the end of a tunnel, Ellie wavered on the edges of consciousness. Hands reached for her arms, pulling her roughly over onto her stomach. Her hands were pulled behind her back and tied together with a plastic zip tie. Too tight, she wanted to tell them, her fingers already growing numb. She said nothing. Numb.

She should be fighting. She had to escape. She had to help Asher . . . but her limbs felt like overcooked noodles, without strength, without will. God help her, she wanted to lie there and die. If Asher was dead, it was her fault. All of it. Warmth flooded her eyes, the truth hitting her like a punch in the gut. It knocked the breath from her lungs, another pain added to those already rocketing through her. She had fallen for him. Asher. She loved him. What was that her mother used to say? Hook, line, and sinker.

Without even trying, Asher had done it. Was it possible? Could a person fall in love with someone in a matter of days? Impossible! But if not, why did she feel such pain? Guilt? Regret?

No regrets.

Asher’s soft words echoed in her memory, and Ellie swore she felt his hands caressing her shoulders, her head pressed against his chest, listening to the steady thud of his heart against her ear, the warmth of his skin, the tenderness of his touch . . . 

Half-conscious, she was only vaguely aware of the hands that pulled her upward, lifted her over the gate of the cargo area of the truck. She grunted in pain as she was rolled onto her stomach, the side of her face pressed against the cold raised ridges running down the length of the truck bed. She tried to struggle, to twist, ignoring the pain surging through her aching body as something was shoved into her mouth. A handkerchief? A rag? It smelled like oil and tasted even worse. She tried to spit it out, gagging again. Something was pulled over her. Canvas? A heavy tarp?

“If she vomits again with that shoved in her mouth, she could aspirate—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” That came from Gravelly Voice.

“What, you’re a doctor now?”

“He wants her alive, remember? People can die if they choke on their own vomit.”

“Shit. Just tie that gag over her mouth and let’s get the hell out of here before someone comes along. And don’t forget to move that traffic sign back into the woods when you get down the other side of the hill.”

Ellie barely had the strength to hang on to consciousness as a hand grasped her forehead and lifted her head. Something else tied around her mouth, holding the oily gag in place. Her head dropped and banged onto the metal with a dull thud. More pain. The guy was right. If she vomited again, she’d choke to death. No way in hell was she going to allow herself to die in such an ignominious way. She focused on breathing through her nose, resisting the urge to sneeze as dirt, dust, and God knows what else lying at the bottom of this truck bed wafted into her nose.

Think!

Traffic sign. What traffic sign? Footsteps moved from the back of the truck bed toward the driver’s side door. Rubber soles crunched on loose gravel, kicking away a piece of metal, likely from the Jeep. The door clicked open softly, and the bed of the vehicle dipped down slightly as the man stepped into the cab and slammed the door shut. A few seconds later, the truck roared to life and a cloud of diesel smoke made its way underneath the tarp or whatever the hell it was and into her nose. God, she hated the smell of diesel.

Don’t puke! Don’t puke!

The heavy, cloying odor of diesel fuel amplified the headache she already had. Think! Traffic sign. She forced herself to think, for just a second to pull her thoughts away from Asher, away from the rumble of the truck, the feel of the cold metal beneath her cheek, the awful smell of diesel fuel. That’s how they had done it. That’s how they had been trapped.

They must have put up a phony roadwork sign, maybe even created a temporary detour so that no one would be on this road as they planned the trap, neatly avoiding prying eyes or witnesses. They had known where she and Asher were the whole time. The truck would soon disappear. The car that had blocked the road, the one that Asher had struck, would also disappear. If, somehow, Asher was alive, the cops would have very little to go on. They wouldn’t have a clue what had happened.

They wouldn’t know that Asher had had a companion, nor that she had been kidnapped. Could Asher tell them? Was he even alive? All that blood . . . 

Warm tears filled her eyes and though she squeezed her eyelids shut, they oozed out and coursed down her cheeks. God, let Asher be alive. Please.

The blackness grew darker. The truck hit a pothole, once again banging her head against the metal ridges, her moan stifled by the gag. Her consciousness faded, lucid moments fewer and further between. No matter how hard she tried to stay awake, it slowly slipped from her grasp. What would happen to her? Where were they taking her? Why hadn’t they killed her already? What did they have planned for her?

Throughout every thought, every fear, her thoughts always went back to Asher. He had to be alive.

But all that blood . . .