weren’t good enough, tall enough, rich enough, handsome enough. They had been rejected over and over by a society that favored the female every single time.
No more. Now they were rising up, and he was leading the charge.
He remembered the words one of his brothers had posted: “Resist. Stand tall. Live for you. Go your own way.”
Never give up, he thought, gunning the engine. Never surrender.
Make them pay.
Outskirts of Young Place, New Mexico—82 Miles to Albuquerque
The pickup took a right onto a single-track road marked by a Dead End sign, and Rebecca followed suit, heading deeper into the desert. The Jeep kicked up a cloud of dust and she struggled to see the road through the cracked windshield, but she could just make out the Texas plate on the rear bumper. It was definitely him.
She didn’t like leaving the main road behind. Out here, on this thinly paved road, there were no cars to be seen, or billboards, or any sign of life except the occasional flash of movement she caught out of the corner of her eye of a jackrabbit or a lizard skittering across the desert floor.
This was wild country.
Where was he going? What did he have planned?
She needed a plan.
The land stayed flat, but now she could see a ridge of blue-tinged mesas in the distance.
She couldn’t track him forever. Sooner or later, he was going to clock that he was being followed, if he hadn’t already. Out here, there was nowhere for her to hide.
She had to make the first move.
The paved road ended, replaced by a dirt track that cut up into the mountains. The land changed quickly, the flat sand replaced by packed, craggy earth, the scrub turning a deeper green and then to forest. She watched carefully, committing each terrain change to memory. She would need it when it was time for them to run. She would need it if they had to hide.
The mesas loomed above, blunt and brutal.
The engine was whining continuously now, a high-pitched buzz that set off her tinnitus and suggested that something was deeply wrong and would only get worse. There was no time to lose. She had to act.
She waited until the pickup followed a bend in the track up ahead that momentarily took her out of its sight line, and she floored the gas. The Jeep lurched forward, gears grinding in complaint. When she caught sight of the truck again, it was only a few lengths ahead of her. She peered through the broken windshield. All she could see was the top of his head peeking over the driver’s seat. An invitation.
Her plan was simple: do to him what he’d done to them, and hope the Jeep was up to one final challenge.
First she needed to make sure Cait was inside that truck.
C’mon, Cait.
She hit the engine with a little more gas. The wheels skidded on the gravel.
They were climbing now, the slope gentle at first, trees leaning toward them from the brush, the roadway blurring and re-forming every few feet.
The speedometer climbed past seventy. The Jeep skidded into a turn. A tree skimmed past her window, its branches scraping at the door.
The truck kept climbing. His eyes were in the rearview mirror now, fixed on hers, dark and wild. Their gazes stayed locked together as they climbed up the mesa.
And then, for just a split second, his eyes flicked to his right. Someone was in the truck with him.
The engine was stuttering. She couldn’t keep this pace much longer.
She didn’t want to hurt Cait in the process. She wanted her to be prepared.
She leaned hard on the horn. A flock of flycatchers rose from the trees and took off through the sky.
A hand appeared above the passenger-side headrest of the truck. Slim fingers curled together. A thumbs-up.
Rebecca floored the gas pedal. She pulled the Jeep’s nose level with the rear end of the truck and wrenched the steering wheel, hard.
Cait watched Rebecca’s face in the wing mirror. All traces of softness had been erased. She was a bullet aimed squarely for the truck.
When the horn blared, Cait checked the clasp on her seat belt and raised her hand above the seat. She wanted Rebecca to know that she should do whatever it took to stop him. She wanted her to know that if Cait died because of this, it wouldn’t be her fault. She wanted Rebecca to know that she was grateful for her coming when she could have saved herself. She wanted her to