Chaser said we needed to cross state lines.

Leaving another two bodies behind hadn’t helped our chances of reaching California without being pulled over by the cops, but getting out of this place was the first step at wiping the slate clean.

Honestly, I didn’t even know where we were anymore. Every stretch of highway, every motel room, and every sunrise was the same as the last. At this rate, I was sure our road trip would never end.

As soon as we were ready, we were back in the car, hurtling across the country. The murky dawn morphed into daylight, and we didn’t speak. The car seemed to be a dead zone for feelings, and after last night, neither of us was making an effort to define what had happened.

A cedar forest bordered the highway on our left, and on the right was a great deal of open space that held old farmhouses and empty fields with brown grass. Every so often, the forest would thicken on either side of us. There wasn’t much else to look at.

Leaning my head against the window, I stared into the side mirror, half looking at myself with my blue aviator sunglasses and half looking at the road in our wake. A truck sat a few hundred feet behind us, but I couldn’t make out anything else. The mirror was too small.

I was a great deal calmer about our situation now Chaser and I had fucked like animals. Several dead bodies had been left in our wake, I’d been attacked, shot at, threatened, and I was surprisingly mellow about the whole thing. Maybe it had something to do with growing up around a bunch of bikers with loose morals.

I was ten when the first dead body dropped into my life. Sometimes, you’ve just gotta turn off all the bits inside you that care to get through the shit storm of life. I didn’t know if that made me a survivor or a fruitcake, but it was what I did.

A billboard flashed past, and I had to do a double take. ‘Largest selection of jigsaw puzzles RIGHT HERE!’ A red arrow was pointing down a side road in the middle of nowhere, and I wrinkled my nose. It had serial killer written all over it.

Man, there was some weird shit out here.

“I didn’t mean what I said yesterday.”

I glanced at Chaser, hyperaware of the fact I ached everywhere. Mostly between my legs, but my thighs and lower back throbbed at a good clip, too.

“Which part?” I asked, my voice hoarse. Must’ve been all that moaning.

“About the night you were attacked.” His jaw tightened, but he didn’t glance away from the road.

“The going slack part?”

“Sloane.”

“I deserved that one,” I muttered, looking out the window.

The road noise was the only sound between us. Chaser wasn’t used to whispering sweet nothings or apologizing by the looks of it.

“I panicked and gave up,” I said. “But I was too cowardly to end it myself.”

“Don’t say that, Sloane.”

“I say a lot of stupid shit. Most of it I can’t back up. Does hearing it satisfy you?”

“No.”

“That would be a first.”

“You didn’t deserve it,” he said. “Never say that shit to me again.”

Turning my head, I stared at him, confused to the millionth degree.

“What?” he snapped, glaring at me out the corner of his eye.

“Keep going on like that, and I’ll start to believe you actually care for me.”

“I already said I did.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t believe you.”

“What about now?”

I laughed and shook my head. “You sound like a clingy woman.”

He grunted. “What was it like? Growing up at Fortitude?”

“You really want to know about my fucked up childhood?” I asked, raising my eyebrows.

“You wanted me to give up everything for you a couple of days ago.”

What in the world was going on here? I studied Chaser’s profile and worried my bottom lip with my teeth. So all that hostility was his shield, not his identity. Interesting.

“Was it that good?” I asked.

“Huh?” He glanced at me before turning back to the road.

I shook my head and played with my hair. He knew exactly what I was talking about, the crafty bastard.

“I didn’t know any different,” I said, deciding to answer his question. “I thought I was like every other little girl I went to school with. I just had a big family with lots of aunts and uncles. I never went without clothes, schoolbooks, toys, and always had food in my belly. Mom was great about keeping me away from the truth. A real master at hiding the crime and violence.” I snorted and picked at the hem of my T-shirt. “Dad was hardly around. He was always ‘working.’” I air quoted the last part. “It wasn’t until I was older I realized everything wasn’t as it seemed.”

Looking back, I knew I was too young to understand all the signs. The secret meetings, Dad’s absence, Mom’s broken arm, her cuts, and bruises. The comings and goings at all hours of the night, the hushed whispers, and unintelligible screaming from somewhere deep inside the compound where little legs were forbidden to go. The ‘funny plants’ in the greenhouse. The way Dad’s touch hurt my skin. The toys he gave me after Mom turned up with another injury.

“She put on a brave face,” I murmured. “And it was all for me. I was half him, but I was half her, too.”

“She protected you,” Chaser said.

“From everything. After Mom was gone, I came to realize just how much shit she took. My childish misdemeanors caused her bruises.”

“You can’t blame yourself for her decisions…or your father’s.”

“We all make our choices, Chaser. Mom made hers. She stuck around despite the beatings and the Fortitude lifestyle. It wasn’t for me. I saw through it before I’d even hit puberty and got out of there the first chance I had. Dad knows how I feel about him, right down to the last wart. My opinion will never change. He’s a piece of shit.”

“He wants to save your life now…”

“Don’t you dare defend that man,” I snapped. “Do you want to know the catalyst, Chaser? Do you want to know what happened to make me run when I did?”

“Sloane, you don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

“Obviously, I do because you still don’t get it! It was time for me to start earning my dues. Time to bend over and take it up the ass.” I shook my head, bile bubbling in the back of my throat. “He was going to lock me in a room with his new buddies—some ugly fuckers with awful face tattoos—and let them have their fun. The President’s daughter was a mighty fine prize. Keep her, Daddy said. Whip her, cut her, strangle her, rape her within an inch of her life. Where I come from, that’s called sexual slavery.”

“Geezus.”

“That’s how much he loves me.” I sat back in the passenger seat and kicked my feet up onto the dash. “He wants to save my life to save his pride, and when I’m back at Fortitude, I’ll just end up in the same position. I’m a commodity. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Chaser fell silent, and I didn’t have the heart to look at him. I was stuck between my desire to escape a terrible fate and my burgeoning love. I knew what I was asking him to do was just as bad. For him, it was a choice between repaying his mysterious debt to Fortitude or betraying my father for love, which he may or may not feel for me.

We’d had one night of sex, one night of him softening toward me, but ultimately, nothing had changed. Nothing at all.

Knowing it, tore my heart in two.

“They slit her throat, you know,” I murmured, watching the blur of cedar trees streak past outside.

The creak of leather signaled Chaser had tightened his grip on the wheel.

“Dad had laid her out on the pool table in the compound. Her eyes were open… It was like she was looking straight at me, but nothing was there. Her lips were already turning blue like that stupid tube of lipstick we bought as a joke at the Dollar Tree the day before.”

“Sloane, you don’t have to—”

“Did he tell you how she died?” I asked.

“It’s not my business.”

“She was taken by a rival Club, passed around, torn apart, had her throat slit, and dumped on Fortitude’s front stoop like trash.” I sniffed, my throat burning with the effort of keeping my tears at bay. “Just like our old buddy Pube Face was planning to do to me.”

The silence was painful this time. Restlessness threatened to overwhelm me, and I tensed in an attempt to stay still.

Don’t cry, don’t yell, don’t scream.

You don’t need anyone.

You can’t count on anyone.

Kill them before they kill you.

Run, Sloane. Run as far and as fast as you can.

Finally, I felt Chaser’s hand on my thigh. His touch warmed my skin as much as it pissed me off. Why did it have to be him? The universe was torturing me.

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.

“Yeah, right.”

My head fell against the window, the fire in my soul dampening. Which way was up? Should I listen to my heart or my head?

“Besieged on all sides,” I mused.

“You don’t talk like a woman who grew up in a biker compound.”

“That’s because I don’t belong there.”