Jeep groaned as the wheels shuddered off the rumble strip.
Rebecca made a sound that was somewhere between a sob and a whimper. She scanned the horizon. Nothing but scrubland and the long flat ribbon of road and the vast black sky. No cars they could signal for help.
There was no way out.
Rebecca had known it as soon as the headlights appeared, though in the dark it was impossible to see its shape. Still, she’d known. It was the same pickup truck that had run them off the road a hundred miles back. And it had come back to claim her.
She’d thought she had more time than this. She hadn’t thought the wheels would click into motion so soon. But looking back at the headlights bearing down on them, she couldn’t deny it any longer: her time was up.
In that moment, she wished she could pray. She wished she could believe in something, anything, that would deliver them to safety.
But she couldn’t. That’s why she was out here on this road. Because she knew there was no miracle waiting for her, no matter how hard she prayed.
She imagined herself back in church, the smells of incense and wood polish, her mother kneeling next to her, her hands tightly clasped. Her mother had believed in miracles all the way through her illness, had bought into any quack theory she came across, filled the house with candles and crystals and tea that stank of sulfur and made her retch when she drank it. “I can feel it working!” she’d declare after each new cure, her eyes feverish and too big in her skull, but she didn’t feel better, not really, and even if she did, she didn’t get better. After she died, Rebecca’s father gathered all of it up and threw it in the garbage without a word.
The truck nudged the bumper again. The crunch of glass as a taillight was punched out. The truck was toying with them. Taking its time. It was enjoying itself.
She peered through the windshield, trying to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face. There was nothing but darkness beyond the glass.
Two Months Earlier
The message from her editor was short and to the point: “We have a problem. Call me.”
Cait dialed the number she’d left, already sick with dread. The editor picked up on the first ring.
“I’ve got some bad news.”
Over the previous twenty-four hours, Patrick McRae’s speech had gone viral. It now had over three million views and counting. People were describing it as a “star-making turn” and heralding him as a hero. “Patrick McRae’s Powerful Response to the Me Too Era” was the headline in The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News pundits declared him a savior. “Finally,” they sang, “somebody is willing to stand up and talk some common sense.” Op-eds sprang up like dandelions: “Majority of Women Agree with McRae, Polls Show.” They didn’t need to add that the majority of men did, too. That was a given.
Cait had watched the explosion with something akin to awe. All this over something she’d written in twenty minutes for a website that mainly published articles about ten-step skincare routines? It was a national news story, the launch pad for a man’s entire political career, and she was still pouring dollar drafts during happy hour. There was a part of her that thought it was funny. The whole thing was absurd, really. Like something out of a farce.
She knew from the tone of her editor’s voice, though, that she was about to lose her sense of humor.
“We’ve been hacked.”
“What do you mean?” She already knew what it meant.
“They know your name, Cait. I’m so sorry.”
And just like that, Cait’s world as she knew it came to an end.
She shut down her Twitter and Instagram accounts immediately, but not soon enough that they weren’t already flooded with messages. Her Twitter feed was full of trolls telling her to drop dead, but somehow the Instagram comments cut her more deeply. Strangers posted comments on old vacation photos, calling her fat and ugly. “I can’t believe Jake Forsythe had sex with THIS,” one of them said. “He must have been blind drunk.” “No wonder she made up all of those LIES. How else would a dog like her get any attention?”
She felt the same familiar emotions flood through her. Shame. Anger. Shame. Despair.
There was already a 4chan subthread dedicated to her. 4chan/Caitlyn_Monaghan. She scrolled down to the comments, trying to conjure up some of the anger she’d felt the last