Brock drags me outside by the ankles, my face down. On the way to the parking area, he seems to pass over every protruding rock on the mountainside.

Night is upon us already and it caught me by surprise. I lost a few hours somewhere. It was midday by my guess. 

After a grunt telling me to stand, he proceeds to slam me, face first, into the unopened trunk of the Integra. I'm down and almost out, and this is for no other reason than to curb his appetite for violence. I have no doubt they picked the smallest car on the property for a reason as well. It's yet another way to make me suffer.

While I'm shaking off the static in my vision, he wrangles my hands behind me, and binds my wrists together with duct tape. My knees buckle when he jabs an elbow between my shoulder blades.

He wraps tape around my ankles as well and folds me into the trunk. Before he closes the hatch, he adds a few more pieces to my mouth and tosses the roll into the trunk for future use. Because of the blood running from my nose, the tape over my mouth will likely need replacing first.

Doesn't really matter anyway. I have nothing left to say and few who'd care to hear it.

I was given one chance. I wasn't supposed to fail, and I did. There's no contingency plan in place. What I'd have to ask for, would be too much for anyone to give. My former accomplices have their own relationships and survival to concern themselves with. 

At this point, I should just close my eyes and accept what's true. I may never see the light of another day. Death would be the easy way out, knowing what's inevitably in store for me. 

What did I do to Narcia that was so terrible? It's a long story with details I missed or couldn't piece together that have now faded with time. I was the son of a single grocery-store clerk, not the son of a general, a spy or an assassin, or a U.S. Senator. I just wasn't trained or prepared for that level of scheming and backstabbing.

It was a long, drawn-out process, but I finally told the truth about her father, the source of most of the pack's conflict, exposing him for the fraud that he was. And I was blamed for his murder, considered spineless and underhanded, done in his sleep with no witnesses. It could have been anybody, but it wasn't me. It's not my style. If I'd fought him head on, odds are, I would have won. And Pavel, her first-cousin lover, lost an eye in the confrontation about it. His own doing, really, but according to Narcia, I was supposed to die. All along, most likely. It was probably the plan the minute my strict but straightforward grandfather brought me onto the scene. If he hadn't been the one to find me first, my execution may have happened prior.   

It's one of those cases where, even if you win, you lose big. I have no doubt that Ishmael has been my shield, something he and Narcia may have agreed upon, or perhaps it was some unspoken rule. Regardless, it's been pulled. She won't even have to trouble herself, hunting me down. She can—and will—invest her time and energy wisely. It'll be as base and demeaning as possible for as long as life is sustainable. We don't die easily, and it's a trait she'd know how to exploit better than anyone. 

Ishmael has, and always will be, the lesser of two evils. That's sad, and scary as hell, especially for Sam. Like me, her bridges are all burned. She'll have no one else to turn to, and will gradually submit to his darkening, deepening demands until she breaks, like I did, and does something stupid or reckless. And dies for it. No one, in all of Ishmael's acquaintance, is truly safe, unless you are the last Fowler on this earth.

Chatter erupts outside of the car that I can't hear above my own pulse. It's loud, anywhere I've been hit. Pretty much everywhere that would be considered life-threatening. Unfortunately, I'm still here and may as well be deaf, at that.

Two doors close. The car starts moving. The dirt road through the property comes to an end, and the driver makes a left, which is expected. I can follow the journey from there. I'll lose track eventually—because I really don't care anymore—but so far, the stops are familiar to me. We're heading north through Front Royal.

We come to a stop, at what must be a light. We don't pull over, and yet the driver puts the car in park.

The car doors open and close, just shy of simultaneously. The trunk opens. My eyes hit Shilo first, holding a knife. Faolan appears beside her, holding one as well.

She pulls the tape off my mouth first. "Help us find the tracker. Don't lose it."

I roll over and give her my wrists, shocked that this is even happening. "Is he really not on to you?"

"We've been careful." Once the last strand of my wrist tape snaps, she helps Faolan with my ankles. "Much to my own surprise, Faolan has kept his mouth shut about our involvement." There is no love shared between them right now, but at least they're here, and letting me out, all without Rollin, which seems too good to be true. Ever since my downfall, he's been the new favorite, and this is a mission he'd volunteer for without pay.

"I've been doing the best I can. All right?" Faolan frees me from a stubborn lingering thread with an angry tug. "At some point, I had to give them something or they would start getting suspicious."

"Whatever," Shilo replies coldly, gripping my arm and helping me land on the pavement with a tiny bit of grace.

She's parked at a stoplight, which is now green. There's no one behind her, but that's about to change.

The streets are dead. It must be late, but still, darkness is a calling for a lot of people, and someone makes a fast turn onto our road. They don't hesitate to beep at us from half a block away, well before they'd have to slow down.

Being seen, there's always a risk that something will get back to Ishmael, sooner than we can manage, and this guy doesn't allay any of those fears. Pulling over poses its own risk, though. We are being watched and tracked, closely, no doubt. By their phones. By my tracker. Probably by the car itself. And if that's the extent of it, we're extremely fortunate. There could technically be bugs or cameras. This is usually Prue's car, and she barely uses it, so—fingers crossed—it isn't.

Shilo gives the guy an annoyed, exaggerated gesture to go around us while Faolan and I collect the shredded tape and scan the pavement and the inside of the trunk for the tracking device. The driver gives us the finger, swerving around us, and Shilo gives it right back to him.

After about ten more seconds of scrutiny, time we can't really spare, Shilo finally discovers the tracker at my back, taped to the inside hem of my shirt.

I take the whole shirt off, throwing it into the trunk after I use it to wipe some of the blood off my face.

We close the trunk. They quickly retake their seats. I climb into the backseat and move to the middle so I can see what they see. Shilo slams on the gas when the light changes back to green.

The delay wasn't more than a minute or two longer than a normal red-light would have been. Even so, Shilo gets an immediate phone call, which she has to answer. "Nothing. Some asshole blocking the intersection..."

It isn't so far from the truth. It's plausible at this time of night, and Ishmael apparently takes her word for it. She ends the call, and we keep forging ahead at a speed Ishmael wouldn't feel the need to complain about.

"I'm sorry, Jay." Shilo meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. "This is all so sudden and unexpected. We have no plan."

"Rollin was supposed to drive," Faolan adds. "I'm not even supposed to be here."

"What happened?" I wonder.

"Caught," Shilo informs me, lifting an eyebrow. "Just as we were about to leave. Bottoms up. Him and Ivy. The best part is, he wasn't on top."

It's the first time I've laughed since I was removed from Sam's company. "All right. Well?" I say, once we've settled down. "How much time do we have to figure something out?"

"Between here and Elkins, West Virginia," she lets me know, fiddling with the car's GPS.

That's a logical halfway point between here and the national forest where this mess all started. Elkins is about two and a half hours west of here. Unfortunately, that'll put us about six hours from Norfolk, where Sam most likely is by now.

Would it make sense to turn around and rush there instead? It's a farmhouse, just outside of town.

Goddamnit, I should know more! But plans changed at her request and then it all came to a screeching halt.

What do I know that might help us? Her stepfather has a different last name. Hartwell vs. Ward. Reverend Amos Ward. I know the name of her church—Grace Fellowship.

Sam also mentioned a street name. Something to do with trees. Elmswood, or something like that. It just slipped my mind once we decided, once and for all, to head west. And, beaten to a pulp as many times as I've been, I certainly didn't retain anything extra.  

Ishmael, of course, has technology and resources that we don't and would probably beat us to her house, even if we have a head start. It would be one quick trip to campus or a hack into Winchester U's system and he'd have everything down to her social security number. He may have it on hand already.

"This is it, Jay," Shilo needlessly lets me know. "If we get caught, this is well and truly over. He will kill us all."

"I know. I understand."

"We all want out." She gives Faolan a sideways look, and I don't miss the level of contempt. "We all need a way out once the truth comes to light, but the timing sucks. I can't even contact Blaise and let her know what's going on. She's probably sleeping anyway."

"I have money I can't get to and people I can't warn," Faolan reminds her, like they're picking up an old argument. "I was seeing someone. She's no Sam..." He gives me a caustic glance this time. "But that doesn't mean I want her gone or dead."

"News to me," Shilo comments, either pissed she wasn't informed earlier or suggesting this girl is just another one of his flings, and not worth mentioning at this juncture.

"Sorry," I mutter in response to his huff. It comes across as weak and half-hearted, and it probably is.

The last time I was in a car with him, I wasn't quite as demoralized. I made sure his head hit the dashboard when I thought he was being too self-absorbed, something I'm sure he hasn't forgiven or forgotten.

Faolan shifts toward the window, and even though he could see us in the glass, he makes a point to look through it.

I get it now, just as well as they do. Better than ever, the sacrifices this last-ditch effort will entail. We can't take any detours, call or text anyone outside of the task, look anything up, or clear any bank accounts. It's all being monitored.

Anything that's telling or conclusive will have to wait until the absolute last minute. Even then, there's the very real possibility that it'll get shut down before we're ready. More than likely, we'll have to sever all ties and leave with just the money in our pockets and clothes on our backs.

I was willing to do this weeks ago, but I realize it's a lot to ask of anyone else.

Still, I figured they'd be more prepared than they are...

"Are you all right?" In the rearview mirror, Shilo returns her attention to me. "Seriously, the way things were sounding, Fay and I thought we were being called in to bury a body or deliver a body part."

"A body part?" I quip faintly. "You must have heard about Ivy and the lopping shears."

Even Faolan reacts to that. His slight snicker ends with a squirm in his seat.

"I'm fine. Close call, but I'm still relatively intact." I reassure Shilo, whose eyes are as wide as I've ever seen them. Then I roll some of my muscles over my bones with a wince and a sharp hiss when it doesn't go that well. "I'm hoping the scars will just be mental in an hour or so. That's assuming my other ex-nightmare doesn't have her way with me."

"I don't want to rush anyone." Faolan's eyes dart to the dashboard time display. We're already more than forty-five minutes into our two-hour journey. "But how do we intend to avoid that?"

"Right. The plan," I reply and then give myself a few minutes to come up with something.

In terms of plotting, we'll have to compete with Ishmael and Narcia. If those two are working together, we're at a grave disadvantage.

Thanks to my run-in with Ivy, I get my first idea, though. It isn't great, but it's something we can hopefully build upon.

Before the lopping shears came out, I attempted to "play dead." I failed miserably at it, but this time I intend to be more convincing...