***So if you couldn't tell, before I got into YA romance, I was into romantic suspense. I got bored of it after a while - most of the plots were unoriginal, at best. The girl is being tracked by some serial killer, a hot guy is assigned to protect her, she gets kidnapped because he's horrible at his job, and she ends up being saved by him just before the killer follows through with his plans.

I mean, SERIOUSLY?! If I were kidnapped, I seriously hope I wouldn't bank on my boyfriend to save me. I would be banking on Jesus, the police, and myself. Like, am I the only one who thinks of ways to protect myself with car keys when I'm in a parking lot alone at night? Apparently, female protagonists in romantic suspense novels don't.

Okay, rant over. YA romance is MUCH better than most romantic suspense these days, just saying.***

***(Nya's POV)***

"Get out." Cool air wafts into my face.

Yep. I guess the chief here must not have knocked me unconscious. I've been awake for the duration of the car ride here – not that it took more than a few minutes to get to this place. I did feel a wave of nausea at one point, though, so I'm diagnosing myself with a mild concussion.

He presses his gun right up against my ribs, and I squirm. Back when he threatened to shoot Jay, I pretty much was forced to listen to whatever Sanders said. Now? I guess if he's going to frame me for Cole's murder anyway, I'd better make sure he doesn't get away with it easily.

He jabs me in the ribs with the gun's barrel, his cold eyes ruthless in the light of the moon. "Get out."

"No," I swallow. "Shoot me now." I know he can't risk getting my blood all over the passenger side of this vehicle. He'd have to create some elaborate story to convince the world that I wasn't kidnapped by him and murdered in my own vehicle.

He grunts, jerking on my arm and tugging me out of the vehicle. I grab onto the dash, but he drags me out of the vehicle, taking advantage of my weakened strength due to his earlier blows.

He manages to pull me out of the vehicle, and I notice now that he's dressed in a CSI jumpsuit and hairnet to avoid leaving traces of his DNA on me. Pressing the gun into my spine and pressing an arm around my shoulders, he guides me toward...

His cabin.

I wrestle against his grip, about to scream into the night air. When he hears my inhale before I shriek, he curses and slaps a sweaty hand over my mouth.

"Don't make a sound," he growls. "I don't intend to kill you."

I open my mouth and bite down on one of his clammy fingers, causing him to yelp in pain. He tears his hand away from my mouth before shoving me toward the door of the cabin. I trip on the steps – purposefully, but also because I'm a little unsteady on my feet – and fall onto the wooden stoop. The police chief lands on top of me. All the air leaves my lungs at once.

He swears. "Stop struggling!"

I spit all over the doorstep, trying to get my saliva there to indicate DNA signs of a struggle. However, given that it's currently a struggle to draw breath, I'm doing well to get much spit on my shirt collar.

I'm also doing well not to barf. The nausea, combined with this struggle to survive, has my senses on overload.

Sanders hoists me upward, dragging me toward the door. I force out a weak cry for help.

It's barely the volume of a conversational tone.

The chief pulls out a keyring with one hand and fiddles with it. Meanwhile, I pull up my coat sleeve, tear off one of the bandages Jay administered to me earlier, and pick at a scab until it bleeds. Gross, but useful.

While the chief unlocks the door, I press on my arm until my fingers have a little blood on them. Then, I wipe it on the door.

The chief curses, shoving the door open and pushing me inside. I land in a heap on the ground due to the force of his push, but I use the situation to my advantage and wipe my bloody arm across the floor. I mean, it's not like it's bleeding that much, but anything more for the chief to cover up is a plus.

He grabs my coat collar and grunts, tugging me upward. My hands immediately go to my throat, where my coat tugs roughly against my windpipe.

"Goshdang it," he growls. "I guess it'll be Brookstone killing you. There's too much evidence for you to kill him."

He finishes pulling me off the floor, and I'm finally able to breathe again. I draw in heavy breaths as he thrusts me toward an open room. I can see a sofa inside.

When I stumble into the room, however, I'm faced with none other than my ex-boyfriend.

"Cole?" I ask incredulously. I mean, I knew he would be here, but seeing him in person is...different.

Also, seeing him tied up in a chair, being held at gunpoint by his friend who helped us with the bank robbery, is different.

"Hey, Nya," Cole laughs nervously. "How...have the past two years been for you?"

I don't even bother answering him, thrashing against the chief while he's probably still distracted. However, he anticipates my move and shoves me to the floor, putting me in a headlock.

The chief aims his gun at Cole. "You'll be killing Nya tonight."

His face morphs to an expression of disgust. "No way! I'm not killing anybody!"

I scoff, spraying more spit across the wood floors. "Says the guy who agreed to testify that I was the leader of a bank robbery in which an innocent man was murdered! I could be given the death penalty for that!"

"I was wrong!" Cole practically shouts. "I messed up, okay? I was actually planning on confessing the truth to the police, but when my father-in-law asked for my help in subduing you today and I refused, I ended up in the same boat as you."

I laugh humorlessly. "When, exactly, were you planning on confessing the truth, Cole Brookstone? You've had two years to think about your actions."

"It's been about six months that I've been thinking of this now, okay?" He sighs. "Let her go, Sanders. She can go back into hiding or whatever. Now that I've served my purpose for you, you can send me to prison."

"What purpose?" I demand.

"Doesn't matter," the police chief grunts. He grabs my ponytail holder, extracting it from my hair and roughing up my dark locks.

"What are you doing?" I snap, wrestling away from him. I topple backward onto the floor.

"Creating more signs of your struggle against death," Sanders replies nonchalantly. "I thought you liked that."

"Not if you're going to frame Cole for it!" I growl. "Look, I may despise him, but it would bring me insurmountable pleasure to see the real villain behind bars – you."

"I'm afraid that's not going to happen." The chief kicks me in the ribs, and I yelp. The sick feeling overcomes me, and I try hard not to double over and retch all over the floor.

Suddenly, there's a crash from beside us. As Cole's chair topples backward, his captor behind him cries out.

And Sanders turns his attention away from me.

Seeing that the chief is distracted, I swallow past the ill feeling in my stomach and wiggle away from him. I make a run for the window, unlocking it with surprisingly fast fingers and throwing open –

Hands grip my shoulders, and I'm jerked backward into a hard chest. The police chief thrusts my body toward the ground so he can close the window.

Using the spare moment, I scramble up off the ground, fighting another bout of nausea. I get a full view of Cole's distraction. His captor is still crushed under his fallen chair. He's currently wrestling out of his ropes while his skinny guard struggles to get out from under the weight of the chair.

Seeing my opportunity, I snatch Cole's former friend's gun, cocking it and aiming at the police chief. "Don't move!" I order.

He slowly raises his hands in the air, turning to face me ever-so-slightly.

I aim it directly at him. "Don't move, or I'll shoot." My hold on the weapon is surprisingly stable for the fear and adrenaline coursing through me.

He studies me for a moment. His eyes flick to the floor beside me almost imperceptibly before coming back to meet my gaze.

I step to the right, just in case he was silently communicating with his crony. My mind processes how it will look if we were to call the police right now.

Cole would be tied in a chair, or at least there'd be evidence that he was tied in a chair. Both the police chief and Cole's former friend would be in CSI jumpsuits, indicating that they didn't want to leave any traces of their presence. And I would be standing here holding a gun, sporting multiple scrapes, bruises, and abrasions.

Unfortunately, it's not like we can call the Ignacian PD. Sanders has control of too many people there.

My next thought is to call Jay, since he probably has connections to multiple police departments in the area. However, I don't have Jay's number. We only just met today, and half the time I was with him, I thought he was a nutjob.

Maybe I could call Kai? If he has the same phone number as he did two years ago...

A wave of nausea suddenly hits me, and I stumble to keep my balance. A hand – Cole's captor's hand – reaches out and grabs my ankle, further upsetting my stance and causing me to topple back to the ground. A bullet fires as I fall.

Cole rolls over toward me, kicking his captor in the face. He pulls the gun from my grasp and aims it at the police chief.

The man bites out a curse. "You shot me!" he growls.

I sit up slowly, trying to stave off the nausea.

From the corner of my eye, I see Sanders's accomplice hold something up. Just as I start to warn Cole, the chair he sat in just a moment ago is suddenly hurled against his back. He crumples.

"Cole!" I cry, reaching for the gun in his grasp.

Oh my gosh. My only ally in this situation is subdued!

The police chief pulls his own gun on me before I can get hold of Cole's. "Stop, or I'll shoot!" he commands.

My hand freezes just as I reach for the weapon, and I slowly look up to see Sanders's clear-gray, wrathful eyes trained on me.

"I might as well shoot you anyway," he grunts, cocking the weapon. "You're too much – "

A knock raps at the door, and the police chief swears again.

"I forgot to lock the door," he huffs. "I forgot! And I'm sure that old man is here once again, asking after the whereabouts of his dog or something."

"Where did she shoot you, chief?" Cole's friend asks, grabbing me from behind and dragging me toward one of the sofas.

"Left arm," the police chief mumbles. "I'll be fine. I'll have to answer the door, though, or the old man will come in of his own volition. No need to make things even messier. I'll hide my injury behind the door." He hisses in pain, heading out of the room and for the door.

I swallow hard and address Cole's former friend. "You don't have to do this – you don't have to go along with whatever he says."

The man behind me chuckles in a low tone. "If you don't forget, I murdered someone during that bank robbery two years ago. The charges are much better for you and Cole than they would be for me if I went to court. At least you two can only be charged with facilitating the robbery. You didn't have your finger on a trigger, ready to murder an innocent man." His voice is cold.

"I didn't facilitate anything," I huff.

"I don't care." He swears as he runs a hand over his ribs where Cole fell on him.

There's a crash from the back of the house, and he pivots, cursing again. "Someone's inside!"

Hope fills me, and I rise quickly. The sudden move has me dizzy, and I end up toppling into the guy, causing him to fall to the ground with me on top of him. He accidentally fires a shot into the wall.

Voices rise from the doorway, and I know this is my chance to escape. I grab my guard's gun while he's still disoriented and make a run through the back of the house. I happen to know there's a side door not connected to the main entrance.

I was here once before.

Memories assault me as I run – memories of feeling weird at a party, then receiving a ride home from a stranger. The thing is, that 'stranger' must've been Sanders's son. That's what the police chief told me, and the resemblance between their eyes is uncanny.

And he wasn't taking me home. He was driving me here – someplace remote, where no neighbors would suspect a thing.

When I finally managed to make it out of the cabin hours later, it was through the side door. I ran as fast as I could to the next house, and I didn't say a word about what I'd just endured. The old man who lived in the house I ran to was known in town as an unfriendly sort of guy, but his wife made me some hot chocolate and lent me one of her sweaters to help me warm up. They gave me a ride back into town, and Cole is the only one who ever figured out what had happened.

This time, I'll run to the next nearest cabin, as well. However, I'm not letting the bad guys get away with their deeds this time. I'm calling someone for emergency help – my brother, most likely. I don't trust the police here.

Another wave of nausea hits, and I fight against the sick feeling churning in my stomach. As I race through the winding hallway of the police chief's cabin, I'm assaulted with memories – unlike some people's experience, I remained conscious while on liquid ecstasy. I didn't realize all that was going on until a few hours after I arrived at the cabin, but when my mind drifted back to reality, my limbs were paralyzed. It was awful.

When I finally reach the back door of the cabin, I stumble through it in a dizzy haze.

This is probably the worst time to have a concussion, too.

I hear someone shout behind me, and I force my legs into motion, stumbling to the side a bit. I will not be caught again. The police chief will pay for his wrongdoings. And I...

I will take a large dose of aspirin once I get out of here.