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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Josie

No one is coming to save me.

K en left before I woke up. A first.

I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I stretch out across the sheets, tangled in warmth, inhaling the faint trace of him on my pillow, and remind myself that this —whatever this was—didn’t come with rules. Maybe he’s in the other room making me breakfast.

But he isn’t.

No text. No note.

He hasn’t completed training me on the new software for my classroom, but he doesn’t show up at the school. I tell myself there could be a thousand reasons for that. The most obvious being that he didn’t work for my school, but for the software company. They might have called him in for a meeting.

Or an emergency IT issue at another school.

It would have been nice to have been given a heads-up, but I remind myself of all the ways he’s shown me he cares about me. No one gets that right all the time. Some things couples need to work out over time.

School ends without a call or text from him so I head home. The longer I go without hearing from him, the harder it gets to pretend it doesn’t bother me. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to expect him to be right there at my side. Not just in the big moments, but in the tiny, stupid ones. A text here. A smirk there. A cup of coffee placed next to mine like he’d read my mind.

I tell myself I could give him space if he needs some. That I’m not one of those girls. That I’m not staring at my phone like some lovesick idiot.

But I am.

I spent most of the morning convincing myself not to text him. By noon, I’d stopped looking at my phone every five minutes. By three, I’d sworn off caring entirely. By five, I am rage cleaning my apartment.

I’m fine.

This is fine.

Ai-Den’s words still echo in my head. Tell me you won’t forget me.

I hate that he might be somewhere out there feeling the same way I do, desperate to mean something to someone.

I shut my eyes briefly and take a slow breath. I am not spiraling. I won’t become Ai-Den—looping, doubting, unraveling. I am Josie Rhodes. I believe in goodness. In second chances. In trusting my instincts.

Ken is a good man. Someone who has been as kind to me as he has been won’t just ghost me. People can’t consistently have phenomenal sex without having feelings for each other, right?

I don’t know and that scares me.

The door of my apartment opens and I freeze. And just like that all my fears melt away. He’s back. Of course he’s back and he has a bag in his hand. I don’t care where he was all day, all I care is that this is happening. We’re happening.

I rush toward him, imagining myself in a romcom scene where I projectile throw myself into his arms. He’s built sturdy, but as I’m about to pounce, I give him a look that I hope prepares him for my intention.

When he doesn’t smile, I come to a sliding halt in front of him. Something is wrong. The way he stands there, solid and unmoving, should make me feel safe, should make me feel chosen. But it doesn’t. Not this time.

Something in his posture is off. Too rigid. Too controlled. Like a man forcing himself to stay put when every muscle in his body is telling him to walk away. His jaw is tight, his fingers twitch slightly at his sides, his expression unreadable except for the weight in his eyes.

A sadness. A heaviness. Something dark and final. A slow, creeping sense of unease curls around my spine, warning me to step back, to shut the door, to do anything but let this moment play out the way it’s about to. This is where he tells me it’s over.

I know it. I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.

Because even now—even with cold and unfamiliar disappointment pressing against my ribs—I want to believe in him.

“Don’t say it,” I whisper. That’s all my brain can manage. One single, whispered rejection of the possibility of there not being an us.

My mouth opens, a nervous, breathy laugh already forming—because maybe if I can break the tension, if I can just get him to smile, maybe he’ll change his mind.

“Ken? You okay?”

His nostrils flare. His throat works around a swallow then he closes the door behind him with the kind of finality that makes my stomach plummet.

He walks slowly, every step he takes toward me snapping another piece of my confidence away.

He stops right in front of me, close enough that my body begins to warm in anticipation of his touch. If he’s breaking up with me but wants one more night together, I don’t know that I’ll deny him.

“I’m sorry.” The words slam into me with the force of a car crash.

I almost say, “Me too,” but I don’t know what he is choosing over me. Does he want a life he can’t see me fitting into? A woman he can conveniently put out of his thoughts when work takes him away from her? I hate all the possibilities and I’m not sure I even want to hear them.

My only consolation is that he looks as miserable as I feel.

He stands there. Too close. Too quiet. Too still.

The air in the room is thick, suffocating, pressing in from all sides as my heart hammers against my ribs, each beat growing faster, louder, more frantic. Whatever it is, he needs to just say it. “Ken—?”

He moves fast.

Faster than I thought possible.

A cloth. Over my mouth.

The scent hits me instantly—sharp, chemical, wrong.

I thrash.

Kick.

Try to scream.

Ken’s arms lock around me like iron, unyielding, his grip as steady as it was when he carried me into bed last night, only now it’s not tender, it’s not protective—it’s something else.

The world tilts violently, my limbs turning sluggish as my vision smears at the edges, my body already losing the fight before I’ve figured out what I’m fighting against.

No.

This isn’t real.

This can’t be real. I claw at his arm, but he’s too strong, doesn’t even flinch.

Ken—

Darkness crashes over me.

And then—nothing.

When I come to, I’m disoriented. The world is muffled, my body heavy, my head thick with something I can’t shake. I blink, but there’s nothing. No light, no shape—just pitch black stretching in every direction.

For a split second, I think I’m still in bed. That Ken is next to me, his arm slung over my waist, his warmth anchoring me to the real world.

But then—why can’t I move?

I try to shift, but my limbs don’t respond the way they should. My arms— why can’t I move my arms? —are pinned behind my back, tight, unyielding. My ankles won’t separate. My body is wedged into a space too small, too confined—

Realization comes with a shiver. The grinding of tires beneath me. The soft, rhythmic hum of an engine. The scent of oil, metal, exhaust— gasoline.

A car. I’m in a car.

No. No, no, no—a trunk.

Panic slams into me, a gut-punch of realization so sharp I can barely breathe.

I thrash , kicking out wildly, trying to shift my weight, trying to move, trying to break free —but the space is too tight, the bindings too strong. My foot slams into something solid. The wall of the trunk. The sound is dull, pathetic, swallowed by the hum of the engine.

I try to scream, but my throat is raw, my voice useless against the thick, suffocating dark.

I was drugged.

Ken drugged me.

Ken—

The weight of betrayal crushes me all over again. A fresh, choking wave of panic threatens to unravel me completely, but I can’t lose it. Not now.

Think. Think. HOW. DO. I. GET. OUT. OF. THIS?

I start wriggling, testing the limits of my restraints. My wrists burn against the rope or zip ties— something biting into my skin. My ankles are bound too, but there’s some movement. Not much, but enough to shift, enough to search.

The car keeps moving, steady, unhurried, like this isn’t an emergency. Like this isn’t a goddamn kidnapping.

My breathing is sharp and fast, too shallow, too erratic. I force myself to exhale, to find a rhythm— inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for four. I have to keep my head. If I spiral, I’m done.

I push my body against the walls of the trunk, trying to gauge its size. Small. Not enough room to flip over, barely enough to stretch my legs. Where’s the emergency latch? I fumble, feeling blindly, my fingers brushing over cold metal, the ridges of the interior.

Nothing.

God, I can’t breathe.

No one knows where I am. No one is coming to save me.

The thought slams into me with brutal finality.

And then— Mrs. Connelly.

Did she know Ken came to see me?

She heard the door close.

But—she’s blind. Could she even describe him to the police?

She won’t know what happened.

She won’t know I’m gone.

A fresh bolt of terror rips through me.

No one is coming. No one knows I need saving.

I push against the panic, against the overwhelming crush of fear trying to take hold.

I can’t die like this.

I won’t die like this.

I take another slow, shaky breath, forcing down the scream clawing its way up my throat.

Focus. Find something. Find a way out.

But the car keeps moving. The road keeps stretching. And the darkness presses in, suffocating, endless.

This isn’t a mistake. This isn’t a nightmare. Grammy always said, “Don’t have sex with men before you’ve met their friends.”

I understand that now.

“Oh my God. He’s going to kill me.”