The minutes seem to drag into hours, but it couldn’t have taken more than fifteen for Dane to arrive. He’s checked to make sure I’m still okay periodically throughout his seemingly endless journey, and then I hear the huff of his breathing as he treks through the woods to come in through the back. He didn’t want his truck to be seen outside my house, so he’s taking the long way around. He truly thought of everything.

I didn’t know it was possible to feel relief and anxiety in equal parts, but as I imagine Dane nearing my house both feelings writhe together, one unable to be distinguished from the other. I hope, for Dane’s and my sake, that the men didn’t mean it literally when they said they’d be watching. But if I’ve come to learn anything about Dane tonight, I can assume he’s prepared for anything.

Dane relays each action to me as he performs it. To reassure me, I think. He’s coming in through the back door. Up the stairs. He tells me he’s going to knock just before I hear the beats through the thin walls. I yank the bathroom door open, then do the same with the bedroom, colliding with him instantly. In a fraction of a second, he takes me into his arms, cradling my head against him. I grip him as hard as I can, as if he could slip through my fingers like oil if I didn’t.

“Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay, I’m here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

The tears come steadily now, dampening the front of his shirt. When I graze something hard near his lower back, tucked in his waistband, I don’t have to ask what it is. He holds me for what feels like several years, and then he’s separating us, but only enough to wipe away my tears.

“I need to know everything that happened, but not just now, all right? Where’s a bag? We need to get some of your things. Pack anything you might need for a week, or . . . I don’t know how long. Just the necessities, okay?” His speech is even and steady, but I see how his eyes scan the room, the windows and doors, searching. For a possible threat, maybe.

I’m hesitant to leave the security of his embrace, but it will be safer to get away from here, wherever he plans on taking me. I feel around under my bed until I locate a duffel bag. Without putting much thought into it, I grab an armful from each of my drawers until I’m sure I have underwear and socks, a few shirts and pairs of pants. Whether they match or are weather appropriate is low on my list of concerns. I focus more on my work uniforms, making sure I select enough coordinating sets of scrubs to get me through the week, though mundane things like work seem like they belong in a reality separate from this one.

“From the shower,” Dane explains when he reappears from the bathroom holding a handful of brightly-colored bottles.

I offer a nod of thanks before bypassing him to grab a towel, tossing it, and my toiletries, into the bag. I tuck my work shoes beneath my arm, meeting his eyes. He takes the bag from me and leads the way down the stairs.

In the entry hall, I stoop down to scrape my scattered belongings back into my purse. Dane scrutinizes the scene, the look in his eye and the set of his jaw making me think he’s trying to imagine what happened. It’s been replaying in my mind on repeat.

“Did they take anything other than your keys and your phone?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I haven’t had time to check.”

“We can figure that out later. You ready?” When I bite my lip and nod, worry probably written all over my face, he takes my cheeks in his hands and leans his head closer.

“My truck is just down the road. Once we make it there, we’ll get somewhere safe.”

I close my eyes tightly, trying in vain to summon some of his strength to get me through the next hour or so. His thumb brushes over my cheekbone once, and he gives me a curt nod. It’s effective; I know I can do this.

After checking through the blinds, Dane takes my hand and leads me out the back door. I don’t know when he pulled his gun out, but it gleams menacingly in the distant porch light as we jog across the yard, headed toward the woods that back up to the house. I vaguely wonder why we aren’t running full-out, but I take it as a good sign that we don’t have to.

Dane is silent and focused, scanning our surroundings once we break through the tree line and slow to a brisk walk. The path through the woods in the dark isn’t an easy one; I trip over fallen tree branches and twisted roots, my pants snagging on thorny undergrowth. Dane’s grip on my hand is the only thing that keeps me on my feet. But we persist until we reach a place he seems to recognize. He stops me with the barest pressure on my hand, stepping back behind a tree. I cower behind him, holding my breath. I’m not sure what to look out for, other than the obvious. Dane peers through the darkness, seeming to wait for something. Craning to look around his shoulder, I spot his truck parked in an overgrown gravel driveway that I know, from seeing it during the day, hasn’t been used in years.

When he decides it’s safe, we run.

My breaths rush past my teeth, and my body aches with every stride. He tucks me into the passenger seat first, then rounds the hood and climbs in behind the wheel. I half expect someone to appear just beyond the window, black-masked and sinister, but nobody does. The rest of the town is asleep. It’s not until we’re flying down the highway that I release the breath it feels like I’ve been holding the entire night.

Dane grips my hand, squeezing it as if to reel me out of my dark thoughts and remind me that we are here in the truck, safe. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”

“I’ll be okay. I’m not injured.”

His look of concern remains. “All right. The place isn’t ready, but it’ll have to do.”

I glance out the window, but there is nothing distinguishable from the infinite black of the sky. I’ve never feared the dark, but now it has power over me—the capability of hiding a multitude of evil. I swallow hard. “Where are we going?”

“There’s a house I’m restoring, just outside of town.”

I turn back to him, but his focus is trained forward, grim lines etched across his forehead. It looks like he’s aged years since that day we were flirting right under Lynn’s nose, when he gave me the secret bouquet of wildflowers and I wondered when he’d steal me away. Here we are, together, and I don’t think circumstances could be any worse. Fate can be a cruel bitch.

When the truck finally slows and Dane pulls onto a pitted gravel drive bordered by thick clumps of trees, I search the shadowy yard until my eyes land on a ghostly white house. The headlights briefly illuminate its aged façade before Dane cuts them and coasts around the back. I climb out when he does, and I can immediately understand why he would think to bring me here.

The house is decrepit. Worse than mine by a mile. The front walk is choked with weeds, and what looks to be a rusted swing-set is all that overlooks the overgrown front lawn. If he told me this place was haunted, I would believe him. Under tonight’s circumstances, I’d say it’s perfect.

We walk through a screened-in porch with more holes than screen, and Dane unlocks the back door before ushering me inside. I wait while he uses his phone to light his way to a work lamp, switching it on. We’re standing in a kitchen. Or what used to be a kitchen. I can see straight through some of the walls where they’ve been demoed, and the countertops and appliances are missing. There’s new, blond cabinetry that’s recently been installed, but dirty concrete serves as the floor, and plastic sheeting hangs around the borders of the room to keep in the dust.

“It’s a work in progress,” Dane remarks, and I hardly have the energy to shrug.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll show you upstairs.”

I’m grateful to follow behind. Exhaustion has rendered me useless at making most decisions anyway. The steps are raw wood, but they look solid and new. The flight takes us up to a square landing bordered by four doors. My feet sink into carpet, and I smell fresh paint. Dane chooses the farthest door on the left. It’s a bedroom, and luckily, there’s power. He’s already flipped on the light, and a ceiling fan whirs to life above our heads. The only thing in the room is a bed; a mattress atop a simple iron frame.

“What is this place, Dane?” I ask, shrugging out of my purse. He gave me the bare-bones explanation earlier, but it’s still unclear how this inconspicuous house just conveniently exists, or why it’s available to us now.

“This . . .” He looks around, sucking in a lungful of air and exhaling. “This is my way out. It’s in my buddy’s name, so nobody knows it’s mine. I plan on selling it when I’m finished and using the profit to settle with Trey and get out of here.”

I’m still having a difficult time wrapping my head around the idea. “How? How does no one know you’ve been out here working on this place for . . . how long?” Dane watches as I walk the perimeter of the room, peeking out the blinds of an east-facing window.

“A year, so far. I’ve worked my ass off for Max, and when he bought the property and told me what kind of potential it had, I asked him to set aside a good chunk of my wages to put directly into this place so I could buy it from him and flip it for profit. Max knows more about my situation than most everyone, except you. All Trey knows is I work for his construction company. In that line of work, the worksite changes so much it would be a waste of time for him to try to keep track of me. There’s no way he could connect us to this place.”

I hope with everything I have that he’s right. There was a time when I thought Heronwood was placid. Safe. It seems like every impression I had of this town has been turned on its head.

Once my fears have quieted, I feel drained, like they were the only things left propping me up after the adrenaline subsided. My face hurts, my head is pounding, and my back aches from where that asshole’s arm pinned me against the wall. My shoulders are screaming in pain, and I swear I can hear each of my joints groan when I move. There’s only one thing I can think to do. I head toward what I hope is the bathroom, feeling around for the light.

The woman staring back at me from the mirror is a stranger. Already, much of the left side of my face is starting to swell, courtesy of the up-close-and-personal meeting I had with the pantry door, and a bruise is blossoming on my cheekbone. I don’t know what the rest of my body will look like over the next few days, but I’m strangely unconcerned about it. All I want right now is to sit in the shower and allow the water to beat away all traces of tonight’s ordeal. The floor is a dizzying array of octagonal tiles that probably look elegant and trendy on a good day, but at the present send my mind into a tailspin. I grab for the cultured marble countertop to stabilize myself.

Dane is at my side in an instant, his large hands spanning my ribs to steady me. Once he’s sure I’ll remain stable on my own two feet, he rotates me so I can rest against the counter. Taking my chin gently in his hand, he tilts my face toward the light, examining my cheek. “That one’ll hurt. I’ll go get some ice.”

I close my eyes when he leaves, up until the silhouettes of shadowed men flash before my eyes. When I snap them open, there’s nothing there but the dazzling white of the newly-restored bathroom. It’s all in your head, I tell myself. But no matter how many practical thoughts I run through, my over-stimulated brain is still stuck in panic mode.

A sigh of relief is on the edge of my lips when Dane returns, but I don’t want him to know how afraid I am. How memories of those men will probably lurk in the corners of my mind forever.

“Mini fridge turned out to be pretty damn convenient,” he says, holding up a grocery bag of ice. He wraps it in a white work towel and holds it up to my face. I flinch at the cold, but I grit my teeth through the first few moments of frigid pain. Numbness will be better than what I’ve got going on now.

“You said you weren’t hurt,” he murmurs.

“I said I wasn’t injured. They just roughed me up a little.” When his eyes flash with something like rage, I shake my head at him. “They didn’t do . . . that. I think they just wanted to scare me.”

“Did they say anything to you?” I nod. “What did they say?” He’s determined, but his tone is also laced with dread.

I close my eyes for a moment to recall the short conversation spoken so close to my ear I could smell sour breath and feel every word against my skin. “They said to stop fucking around. That you’ll have to pay your dues with something other than money, or something like that.”

His nostrils flare as he takes a breath, and something much more sinister than anger takes over his expression. But just briefly. He’s a master at controlling his feelings, but I can see he’s struggling to keep it together.

“What could they be talking about?” I finally ask.

“They must be referring to my deal with Trey.”

“Trey did this?”

“I don’t know for sure if he gave the order. It could’ve been him, or someone closely associated with him.”

“But who else is so concerned with your life that they would do something like this?”

When our eyes meet again, he looks regretful. Maybe he didn’t mean for me to see the predatory way his features changed. “That’s not for you to worry about. What I wonder is how they know about us.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t told anyone. Not Lynn, or even my family.”

“I know. I trust you. Something must have changed recently, but we can worry about it more in the morning.”

The morning seems so far off, yet it must only be hours away.

Dane’s voice is gentler when he says, “Can you think of anything else?”

I’ve been trying to avoid thinking about the two men—I’m sure I’ll be seeing them plenty in my nightmares—but I know Dane’s just trying to work this out. He needs to know as many details as I can recount. I look down at the tile, and I let the men intrude my thoughts like they intruded my home.

“I couldn’t see much beyond the masks—ski masks.” My pulse quickens and my breathing shortens. I remember . . . what was it? Something about fingernails. Scales? “A tattoo,” I say quickly. The man holding me had a tattoo. I saw only part of it, about here,” I point to a place on my forearm and wrist. “Scales of some sort, I think. I only got a glimpse. His fingernails had black dirt underneath them.”

Dane’s eyes are unfocused, looking toward the counter. “I’ll check around. See what I can find out.”

I sigh and let my eyelids fall. My head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.

“What’s hurting?”

“Everything. Mostly my head.”

“I should get you some ibuprofen.” He goes to turn away, but I reach out and stop him. The sudden, desperate movement makes us both look down to the place where I’m gripping his forearm.

“No,” I say, sounding more strained than I mean to. “Please stay. Don’t . . . I just need you to be here for a minute.”

His eyes soften, filling with concern. “I’ll stay for as long as you need me to.”

Need. It’s my dirty word. The one I’ve had an aversion to for as long as I can remember. It’s something Jenson probably wishes I had felt more often and what my sister blamed the dissolution of my marriage on. I pride myself on not relying on anyone, no matter how many times my mom told me how men appreciate being needed, and here I’ve just told Dane I need him without blinking an eye. I’m too tired to care.

I nod my head over toward the clawfoot tub occupying the majority of the wall to my left. “I need to soak in that tub for about ten years. But I don’t want you to leave.”

“Okay,” he says carefully, as if I’m already submerged and he doesn’t want to disturb the water.

Dane fetches my bag from the other room and sets it within reach on the bathroom counter. A quick survey of the items he procured from my shower reveals that he brought just about everything. Even the bottle of frilly, aromatic bubble bath I use only on special occasions. Bless him. Dane pushes up his shirt sleeves and kneels to turn on the bathtub faucet, adjusting the water temperature while I grab the necessities and, on second thought, the bubble bath. If there was ever an excuse to use it, I think this situation qualifies. My clothing options are less numerous. I guess, in my haste, I didn’t bother packing pajamas, but there’s an oversized t-shirt and a cheeky pair of underwear that will suffice.

“Got everything you need?” he asks.

I nod again, my blood pressure rising by the second when I consider the consequences of asking him to stay. The lights are bright—almost blindingly so—and up until now, we’ve only undressed in the dark. “Will you turn around?”

He doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t hesitate, just turns and braces a hand against the wall opposite the mirror. It seems like such a silly thing, wanting to hide from his eyes what his hands have already touched, but undressing in front of a man beneath harsh bathroom lighting seems like too much of a shock for my fragile confidence. I feel like I’m wearing all my past years—the stress, the anguish, and even the happiness—and each of those feelings is displayed as white lines, or dimples, or curves on my body. I know it could be worse, it could always be worse, but his strong, sure capability makes me overly aware of all the ways my own body is lacking.

With one last inhale, I summon the courage to peel off my panties and scrubs in one quick motion, then whip my top over my head, unsnapping my bra and shrugging out of it. I lay everything neatly on the countertop before stepping into the churning bathwater. It stings my skin. And it’s heaven.

I lower myself fully before squeezing some lavender soap beneath the spray. The smell does little to calm my frazzled nerves, but the temperature seeps into my muscles immediately. I settle back into the belly of the tub with a sigh, clearing my throat to signal to Dane that it’s safe to turn around.

I may be hidden from view in the frothy water, but his eyes darken to sapphire for a moment before he draws closer and drops down onto the closed toilet seat beside the bathtub. He deserves a good soak as much as I do, but I’m too much of a coward to ask him to join. It makes for a nice visual in my head, though, and I have to focus on something else, anything else, to ignore the snapshots of dewy skin, wet hair, and slick muscles that seem to flash right before my eyes. He’s so close that I could reach out and touch him if I wanted to. I grab a bar of soap instead.

When I begin to run the lather over my arms, the touch of his hand against my neck makes me stop in place. Giving in to the pressure, I angle my head away from him. His fingers graze over a spot on my skin, just above my collarbone, and no matter how gentle he is, I can feel my trapezius muscle pulsate angrily in response. The bite mark. I had forgotten about it.

“God damn,” he says through gritted teeth.

“It’s not as bad as—”

“You don’t have to make excuses anymore. You can tell me you’re hurting,” he interjects. “What else is there?” He’s cold toward the situation, but his concern for me is unmistakable.

I don’t want to complain, but his insistence brings my attention back to my mental list of aches and pains. “My shoulders, mostly. I think from when they held my hands behind my back.” I cross my wrists to demonstrate, and Dane’s jaw flexes. He gently takes my hands in his, turning them over to inspect my joints. Spots of purple are already forming. If I look hard enough, I can make out the shape of fingers.

“What I could do to them,” he growls.

“What can we do?”

Rubbing his hands over his face, he sits back. “Nothing, yet. They said it straight: we can’t go to the cops—half the time you can’t trust the police in these towns anyways. And if I act against them, well, it seems they already know what they can use to hit me the hardest.” I don’t have to ask what. Because of me, he now has a weakness. An Achilles heel. Dane sighs again. “We’re like sitting fucking ducks.”

Tears well in my eyes again. This being helpless thing is really getting old. “How can we hide forever?”

“We can’t. In fact, it’s probably more important to get back to your usual routines in the morning. They already know about you, so chances are they’ve watched you enough to know if you do anything out of the ordinary. Get your door fixed, your keys replaced, and go get a new phone. Go to work, run whatever errands you usually run, go to Lynn’s if you want, go home.

“Home?” The thought sends a shudder of fear through me. I don’t even know where home is anymore.

“Yes.” The word is hard for even him to say. “We can’t afford to give them another excuse to do something stupid. Especially when we’re not sure what all they know. I’ll do what I can to check around on my end.”

“Your end?”

“I still know some people.”

“People like Trey?” I ask, biting my lip.

“Yes. Only, some of them are still on my side.”

I shift in the water, bringing my knees to my chest to rest my cheek against them. This situation has never felt more real than it does now, with the evidence of its consequences staining my skin and Dane making plans involving the world he’s tried for years to avoid. “Whatever you do, please be careful.” There’s so much I could say, but there’s so much more that prevents the words from coming out. My last shreds of self-preservation. Knowing how thin the blade we’re treading is.

“You don’t need to worry about me.”

I furrow my brows at him, and he chuckles. It’s a strange sound amid the ordeal we’ve found ourselves in, but it’s sweet. It brings me relief. Dane takes my hand and turns it so that it’s palm-up, pressing both of his thumbs down in the center, applying pressure and dragging them in circles.

“Is this okay?”

I close my eyes and nod. It feels so good I could cry. Once he’s finished with my palm, he skates over my wrist and starts on my forearm. I sink farther down and lean my head back, cracking an eye open to watch him. His forehead is creased in concentration, the corners of his mouth slightly downturned. An ache forms in the center of my chest, but he doesn’t sense anything is amiss. His eyes stay trained on his task.

Dane’s fingers move skillfully over the striations of my muscles, pushing out lactic acid, almost causing me to groan in appreciation. He dips into the water, slickening his hands, and continues to my shoulders. When I wince, he proceeds more gently. They’re going to hurt more tomorrow. I can already feel it. I’m pushed to my limit when he reaches my neck, releasing a long, sighing groan as he pushes and prods at the manifestation of most of my tension.

“Good? Or hurting?” he murmurs.

“Good. Definitely good.” My eyelids are growing heavier by the second, but I can’t pass out and miss out on this. When I glance at him, I see that he’s watching me now. Our eyes meet, snag on one another. It’s impossible to look away. Unthinkable. But there are so many questions that need answering.

“How could they have found out about us? How could they know I’m more than just some fling?”

“If you were a fling, they wouldn’t have seen you with me more than once. I haven’t spent more than one night with the same girl in I don’t know how long.”

I’m not going to lie, that stings a little. Lines of girls marching through his bedroom dance in my head. “Someone at the party, maybe. And then the carnival. They must have been tipped off somehow. I didn’t tell anyone, Dane. I promise you.”

“I know. And you wouldn’t have to. It’s easy to slip after being out of the game for so long. There are a lot of hungry people out there, begging for bones. I forget how many are watching, just waiting for any information they can pass down the chain to get into someone’s good graces.” His hands dip below the surface of the water, sliding down my back on either side of my spine. I lean forward so he has better access, holding my breath as they travel lower and lower. He stops right at the two depressions in my lower back, circling and making his way back up. I breathe.

“I’ve been alone a long time. Not always physically, I’ll be honest, but the isolation wears on you just the same. I guess that’s why I was so reckless with you.”

My mind returns to the lines of girls. “You never wanted to pursue anyone else?”

His fingers run through the knots around my shoulder blades. “Maybe a little, but nothing like this. I didn’t want anyone mixed up in what was going on with my family. With you . . . I was stupid. Careless. I put your life in danger.”

It doesn’t feel good to be viewed as a stupid decision. “I’m a grown woman, Dane,” I remind him a little forcefully. “I made a few of the decisions that led us here.”

He leans forward so he can look me in the eye. “It was my responsibility to keep my situation contained. I should’ve sent you home the second you showed up at my house that night. I shouldn’t have had you over at the treehouse. There were so many opportunities to end it, and I didn’t.”

“Why?” I challenge.

“Isn’t it obvious? We’ve hardly gotten to spend any time together and I’m already helpless when it comes to you. I’ve made stupid decisions since you got here, but I’ve felt more alive than I have in years. It sounds crazy, even to me, but you came in here like a hurricane and destroyed everything I thought was real. I haven’t been motivated to change my life so much in years. Not like this at least. And I didn’t have many reasons to. Until now.” At some point during that knee-weakening statement, his hand has paused at the nape of my neck, so large his fingers stretch almost all the way around it. He’s looking at me with such burning intensity that I can feel every word he says and know that it’s true.

Before I can say anything, he continues. “I look at you and I can’t understand why you’re here when there are so many other places you could be.”

“I don’t belong anywhere else,” I say.

His shoulders seem to slump as he lets out a breath. “Well, as bad as it sounds, I’m a little glad you don’t.”

One look at the bathwater tells me the bubbles have dissipated, and I don’t know how long my bare body has been in clear view. With my muscles sated and warm, and weariness settling over me like a heavy blanket, I don’t care enough to cover myself.

“I should get out and change before I pass out and you’re forced to resuscitate me.”

“Wouldn’t mind that,” he says, but he rises from the toilet and stretches languidly, his shirt rising to reveal a slice of toned lower stomach. “I’ll just be right out here.” He hands me the towel from my bag and leaves the room.

I finish bathing as quickly as I can in my drowsy state before pulling the stopper. As water gurgles down the drain, I dry off and step out, toweling off my hair. Dane didn’t shut the door, so I have a view of him reclined on the bed in the other room, one arm slung over his eyes and the other outstretched beside him. If I took just a glance, he would look like a man without troubles. But I can hardly take my eyes off him, and I know better. I pull on my shirt and underwear, brushing my teeth before flipping off the light.

Dane’s breathing is deep and steady, but he stirs when I lie down beside him. He extends his arm, scooping my head onto his shoulder, and I just lay there, as still as I can, absorbing his warmth. Oddly enough, it’s the first time we’ve been able to be together like this without worrying about the consequences. What’s done is done, what will be is already in motion. But I’m here and so is he, and I bask in him while my eyes droop.

“Everything will be all right, won’t it?”

“Yes. Everything good,” he says.

I think he meant “everything is good,” but I’m too tired to care, and I fall asleep to the sound of his sure words and the feeling of his fingers in my hair.