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ick, bless his annoying little brother heart, gave us space, even after our very comprehensive tour of the house wrapped up an hour later.

Of course, maybe Dad had intercepted him. Either way, the blessed breathing space allowed the guys to talk freely about my safety.

“No, I can’t take her to the station tomorrow,” Hunter said. “My boss asked me to work overtime to get caught up on the schedule, so it’ll be a late day for me.”

Ralph shrugged, shaking the bunk bed. He’d climbed to the top of mine, the spare for company, though this was the first time it’d fulfilled its purpose. Mostly, Nick and I used our bunk beds because they afforded us a sliver of privacy, being able to draw curtains around us at night. Ralph rolled to his side, propping his head up on his hand. “I could take her.”

Ben wrapped his arm around me. Since Kolton had resumed his sprawl on my bed, and Hunter had reclaimed the desk chair, Ben and I sat on Nick’s bed. “You work ninety-hour weeks on your dad’s farm.”

“Yeah, but we make our own schedule if we have shit to do. No big deal.”

Ben glanced at me because I was already shaking my head no before my conscious self even realized it. “You guys don’t need to bother. What’s the point? I’ll borrow Dad’s truck.”

Ben’s arm tightened around me, but Hunter pinned me with a steel look. “The same reason why I plan to drag my feet on fixing your Jeep.”

“They can’t sabotage it.” I swung my arm in the general direction of the garage downstairs. “What is anyone going to do when it’s locked up?”

“Yeah?” Hunter sat forward. “And what about when you’re at the station? Your stalker could get to it then.”

My brain tripped up on the label of stalker. Because my life hadn’t changed enough with a four hundred percent increase in both friends and a boyfriend, now I, Willa Walker, had a stalker.

A dangerous one.

In a lot of ways, that fact hadn’t sunk in yet.

I cleared the lump forming in my throat. “Would he try something in the police parking lot?”

“Is that a risk you’re willing to take?” Ralph countered, his voice a shade gentler than Hunter’s blunt manner.

I chewed my lip in thought before Ben caught my chin and pulled the abused flesh free with his thumb.

His warm brown eyes held genuine fear. “You have pride a mile wide, and I know you think you’re inconveniencing us, so do it for me.”

God, I was a messy mix of emotions, because a thrill skated through me over the fact that one of the most popular guys in school cared this much. They all cared. The thought sent my heart dancing and warmth blooming through my veins, fighting off the chill.

On the other hand, well… the obvious thunderclouds to that microscopic silver lining—my attempted murder.

Before I could answer, a ringtone sounded.

Several of them glanced my way, and I even felt around for my phone as terror caused my fingers to tremble. The only people with my number were here in this house, apart from my mom, and she rarely called me this late.

My screen remained blessedly black. “It’s not mine,” I whispered, sagging into Ben’s side.

He nudged me away a little so he could fish his own phone from his pocket before pulling me right back in as he answered. “Dad?”

I was close enough to hear the, “I’m sorry, son,” his dad started off with before Ben stood and left the room in favor of the privacy the hallway afforded.

Kolton studied the closed door, his baby blues serious beneath the chaos of his shaggy blond fringe. The weight of the other two’s stares fell on me.

Ralph rolled over the edge of the upper bunk and dropped to his feet like it was nothing, probably something he did often when hopping fences at the farm. He leaned against the bedpost. “So what was that about?”

My thoughts raced. “His dad. Ben asked him to call him back if he got any information.”

They didn’t need further explanation.

“And?” Hunter prompted.

My solemn gaze shifted. “It didn’t sound good.”

“Why—”

The door opened, cutting off Ralph’s follow-up question, and we all looked at Ben.

He glanced into the hallway and shut the door behind him before he spoke. That he also crossed over to retake both his seat and my hand didn’t bode well.

“So the police reviewed the footage, which was about all they could do given their hands were tied. They might have found a car with a driver matching the suspect, but the cameras weren’t the greatest, so they had a hard time seeing past the sun’s glare on the windshield. It didn’t have plates, so they assume that was the guy, but it’s also a dead end.”

Oh.

“We do have the make and model—some dark colored Chevy Malibu sedan. Older model.” Ben sighed as he shared the still shot his dad had sent him, in grayscale, to the group chat. “We can keep an eye out for it at least. Depending on how far gone this guy is, though, he could have stolen it. Anyone recognize it? Hunter?”

Hunter shrugged. “It’s a common car. No one I know at the high school drives it.”

“So it isn’t a sick fuck from school?” Kolton asked, tilting his phone this way and that as if hoping for a better angle.

“Could still be,” Ralph hedged. “Could have hitched a joyride in his parents’ car to throw off the trail.”

“Well, fuck.” Kolton popped up off the bed, deftly ducking until he’d cleared the upper bunk in a show of athleticism I envied. Put me on a four-wheeler, and it became an extension of my body. Take that away, and I tripped over thin air.

“We’ve got nothing,” Hunter summarized.

Kolton ran his hand through his hair as he paced. “That’s fucked.”

A heavy silence spread throughout the room for a long beat.

Ralph shrugged. “Well, we’ll just have to escort her. Give her the overprotective boyfriend treatment.”

Ben’s arm encased my shoulders in a defensive move. “Hey.”

Kolton laughed, a new energy in his movements. “Chill the fuck out, bro. He’s talking in general, like we stalk her every step or some shit. Willa, give me your phone.”

I frowned at him. “Why?”

He huffed. “So much suspicion.”

“I think it’s warranted.”

“And will you cut it out?” he added as if he hadn’t heard my comment at all.

“Cut what out?”

“Hugging your phone to your chest like I’m going to fucking swipe it from you.”

“I don’t know you. You might.”

Kolton gave me such a baleful look that I shifted in my seat. “In case it slipped your mind, you’re sitting tucked up against the best defensive linemen our fucking high school has seen in a decade. Do you really think I’d get anywhere near you if he thought that wasn’t what you wanted?”

Awareness pinged along my spine. I’d grown so accustomed to Ben’s size because he was nothing but a gentlemanly marshmallow—this afternoon’s fist fight excluded—that I didn’t see him as anything other than my boyfriend, the teddy bear.

My cheeks heated at the reminder of why they’d hung his face up on banners around the school. Maybe because I kept separating the beast on the field from the boy who could like and want to date little old Willahelm Walker was why I struggled so much with the idea of returning to school and assimilating our new status.

“Exactly,” Kolton stated, since he’d made his point. “Now, gimme.”

“Why?” I questioned once more, even as my hands jumped halfway towards him to do his bidding, the bossy thing. A glance at Ben offered no guidance. He gave a very neutral, one-shouldered shrug, leaving the choice to me. “Err…”

Kolton, catching onto the fact that Ben wasn’t opposed, zipped forward and snatched the phone away. “Thanks, wordsmith.”

“Hey!”

Ben’s arm tightened around me when I went to move, and he gave another ambiguous shrug. Everything about him projected, “Let’s see how this plays out.”

My brow arched, hopefully projecting my thoughts, which were, “Okay, but if this goes belly-up, he’s your friend and responsibility.”

Kolton thumbed through screens faster than he could possibly be reading them, and my curiosity outgrew the indignance in me demanding that I reclaim my phone. “Ah, there it is. Track App.”

My head tilted. “Track App?”

Ben hummed. “Oh. Actually, that’s not a bad idea.” At my pointed look, he explained, “If something ever happens to you, and you have your phone on you, we’d be able to track your location.”

“No, I actually know what it is. I’m pretty sure Mom wouldn’t have agreed to me getting a phone without it.”

Kolton blinked. “Wait, you have it? Why didn’t you fucking say so?”

Ralph snorted. “She tried to ask. You wouldn’t answer her questions.”

“Still, we can fucking pair our devices to each other so we can see,” Kolton grumbled, swiping.

“It’s on the third page of the apps,” I offered.

He smirked. “What’s wrong? Don’t want me snooping around too long?”

I huffed, rolling my eyes.

“So what were you confused about earlier then?” Hunter demanded, his deep voice speaking up from the computer chair for the first time in a while. He was a man of few words.

“Hmm?”

“You knew what the app was, already had it installed, so what was your question earlier?”

“Oh, right. Well, uh…” I faltered. “Ah, never mind.” That earned me several unimpressed stares. “Fine. It’s just, the guy cut my brake lines.”

“Hard to forget that part,” Ben murmured, his arm tightening around me.

Oh, I was walking a tightrope here. Tread carefully, Willa. “Okay, um… Hunter said that was the deadliest thing to go out on a car. Since he targeted that… I don’t know.”

Ben shifted away just enough so he could get a better view of my face as he carefully worded his question. “What are you trying to say?”

Yep, definitely a land mine here. “Well… it just seems like the person doesn’t plan to kidnap me,” I replied as delicately as I could. “So what good is a tracking app?”

Ben’s grip clenched with near bruising force.

“Damn,” Kolton blurted at length, breaking the pin-drop silence. “That’s morbid as fuck, wordsmith.”

The others kept shooting glances Ben’s way, but when I tried to ease off again and get the room to maneuver my head up to see what they saw, he kept me fast at his side.

“We,” he started, his voice carrying an odd tone that I hadn’t heard before. At first glance, the cadence could be perceived as neutral, but to the more discerning person, something about it had alarm bells ringing. “We will do it just in case. Criminals change their MO all the time, usually escalating with each offense. The app’s already installed on your phone, and it can’t hurt to have a few pairs of extra eyes looking out for you besides your overworked, exhausted mother. Kole? Make sure to add all of us.”

“Escalating?” I frowned. “What’s an escalation from death? That’s about as extreme as it gets.” My assuredness dwindled at the collective looks they gave me. “Right?”

“Sure,” Ralph agreed easily, waving off my mounting alarm. “But hey, like Ben said, it’s already on your phone. What could it hurt?”

They were placating me, treating me like a “sweet, innocent summer child” as my grandma used to say when she thought I was being gullible.

A chill of foreboding raced down my spine at the daunting, horrifying idea of wondering what could be worse than death. I decided, then and there that I could happily live in ignorant bliss. “Okay, sure. Whatever you guys think is best.”

Ralph laughed. “Oh, you don’t want to give us that much free rein, little lamb.”

“Hey,” Ben groused, “that’s my girlfriend.”

Ralph flipped him off, Kolton got offended on behalf of his “bro,” and they devolved into a wrestling match that eventually had Dad barging in and shuffling them off downstairs where he’d made up the couch with blankets and pillows.

Trapped.

I couldn’t move.

Searing pain burst in all directions.

Nerves overloaded.

Couldn’t think.

Could barely feel.

Learned somewhere that the human body could only endure so much before it shut down.

Where had I learned that?

Did it matter?

The pain…

What was I thinking about again?

I couldn’t remember.

Remember what?

My mind jumped from topic to topic. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t feel, though I’d been in unbearable pain before.

The worst pain I’d experienced in my life.

Now, blessed numbness seeped in. Things began disconnecting.

Was that what it was like?

Dying?

I blinked, able to breathe past the pain that’d vanished, only to feel as if a pressure squeezed my brain from all directions.

Breathe, Willa, I coached myself.

The pressure increased, and my knees crumpled, even in this weightless, echoing void. Through the haze of red, a dark silhouette beat fists against some hazy bubble of some kind.

They were screaming something, but I couldn’t make out what, then something warm, something living grabbed my wrist and yanked me to the surface.

I gasped awake, terrified and confused but instinctively latching onto the lifeline that had yet to let me go. It was an unnecessary move since the tentative grasp around my wrist strengthened as another hand caught my free arm.

Confusion swam through me as I stared up into a pair of very concerned chocolate eyes. “Jesus, lamb, you’re freezing.”

My mind pinged on the nickname, awareness settling in further as if part of my soul hadn’t been all the way inside my body yet. “Ralph? Wha…”

“Are you with me now?” he asked, almost shaking my forearms in his urgency. He kept ducking down to catch my gaze any time I tried to look around. “Hey, hey, stay with me. Willa?”

His question pulled my brows down. “Yes? I’m with you. Where else would I be?” He didn’t answer, and the intensity of his stare burning into mine had me looking down.

At my bare feet.

On dirt.

What?

My heart began racing. Alarm skyrocketed my pitch as I asked, “Ralph? When did we get outside?” He eased off, and I got my first look at our surroundings. Another level of fear shot my voice even higher. “Where are we?”

I’d never seen such a place in my life, let alone this close up. Iron beams rose from the ground—jagged knives that burst through the bare surface of the earth. Piles of junk and gravel closed in on us, giving a maze-like appearance. Nearby, the traffic of an interstate raced by in a steady enough rhythm to pound against our ears, making Ralph’s question sound like an old tuner radio going in and out of static.

“You don’t know?”

My lungs raced faster, but I couldn’t catch my breath. “Why would I know?”

Before he could answer, lights blinded us, stealing our night vision until the world was nothing but glaring starbursts of white.

“Hey, you kids! Police! Don’t move!” a voice bellowed with the authority of someone used to being obeyed. “Hands up!”

Through the breaks in speeding traffic, approaching footsteps closed in on our location.

“Well, fuck,” Ralph grumbled, immediately releasing me. In a louder voice, he called, “Yes, sir.”

“Down on your knees! Down on your knees, now!”

My mind was too distracted to obey the order at first, but Ralph’s urgent whisper got me moving. “Come on, lamb. Do what they say.”

I dropped to the cold earth, somewhat comforted when my legs impacted the solid surface, unlike the weird, nonphysical void of my dream.

A force on my back shoved me face down in the dirt.

“Hey, we’re cooperating, sir. Go easy on her,” Ralph protested, even as he, too, was forced prone and handcuffed.

The feel of the chilled steel bit into my wrists, ratcheting shut with a series of clicks. That was when I noticed my missing watch.

That seemed to be the catalyst realization. Something was seriously wrong, because I never left home without it. Then, as if I weighed nothing, the person yanked me to my feet with ease.

“You two are going down to the station for trespassing. We’ll see how happy your parents are about getting their sleep disturbed at three in the morning.”

To the soundtrack of them reading our Miranda rights, we were guided into the back of a police cruiser as my mind tried to piece together the biggest “what the hell” moment of my life to date.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney…”