smell filling her lungs. She tried to focus her eyes, but all she could see was the vast expanse of painted sky staring down at her, beautiful and heartless.
The scrape of her heels dragging across the dirt.
A door opening. Leather seat slippery-soft underneath. Another door slamming shut. The click of a key in the ignition. An engine growling to life.
Outskirts of Moriarty, New Mexico—54 Miles to Albuquerque
He hadn’t said a word since he’d pulled her into his car, but she could smell him: oranges undercut with cologne, spicy and sweet. Her head felt like a balloon filled with glue.
Time was skittering; she couldn’t manage to grab hold of it. She closed one eye and let the other settle on the dashboard. Eventually, the green numbers came into focus: 6:46. Numbers circled in her mind. Her mind tugged something up to the surface. “Rebecca.” She fought off the rising tide of panic. “Rebecca. Where’s Rebecca?”
She’d seen his face most days for the past two years, but here, in this light, he looked different. Younger, maybe. The moonlight caught the faint scarring on his cheek, a souvenir from teenage acne.
“How did you find us?”
He scratched at the back of his neck. She could hear his nails scraping at the flesh, too hard. “You need to be quiet.”
Silence, thicker now.
She looked over at him. His profile was eerie-white in the darkness, and she could see the outline of the soft flesh underneath his chin. He looked sweet, innocent.
Now, though. Now she had to relearn him. He was a man who had followed her for hundreds of miles. He was a man who had intentionally driven them off the road, had nearly killed them in the process. He was a man who had pulled Rebecca out of the Jeep and beaten her, maybe to death.
Her stomach lurched.
Rebecca. Where is Rebecca?
And now he was a man who was driving her God only knew where, and who held her life in his hands.
The shaking returned with a vengeance, and she pulled her good arm tightly to her chest. How long had he been following her? Was it just tonight? Or had he been following her for months?
Those times when she’d gotten home after a late shift and crossed the yard, certain that someone was watching her. She’d clutched her keys between her fingers, tensed to fight, until she’d locked the front door behind her and laughed at herself for being so hysterical. The long nights spent staring into the darkness, waiting for the sound of footsteps outside her window. The knowledge that she wasn’t safe, even in her own home.
And him standing at his front door, waving at her, smiling, telling her to have a nice day. Being all fucking neighborly.
A shudder ran through her. It had been him all along.
Adam
How long had he spent out in the cold? Long years when he had been nothing more than a worm wriggling through the dirt, disgusting and despised. They had hated him at school, even from the first day when he’d spilled milk on his shirt during snack and one of the other boys had mocked him for smelling like sour milk. He knew now that it wasn’t possible for the milk to have soured that quickly. The boy had smelled something else on him, something rotten at his very core, ingrained in his skin and bones and soul.
When he was eight, his mother insisted that he have a birthday party and invite everyone from his class. They booked space at Roller Kingdom, and his mom took him to Party City and let him choose whatever decorations and favors he wanted. He passed out the invitations himself—red and blue, Superman-themed—and watched as the kids shoved them in backpacks and cubbies without a word. When the day arrived, nobody came. Not a single person. He could still remember feeding quarters into the claw machine while his mom stood behind him, pretending not to cry.
After that, he kept to himself as much as he could, creeping around the perimeters of playgrounds and lunchrooms, slinking up the stairs to his bedroom after school each afternoon.
They always found him, though. No matter how hard he tried to be invisible, they always sought him out. It wasn’t enough for them to hate him. They wanted to hurt him, too.
Puberty was particularly cruel. Days spent seeing revulsion reflected in the eyes of every popular girl in school, and most of the unpopular girls, too. Meathead jocks laughing at him, shoving him into lockers,