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I hadn’t exactly thought this through. To be fair, I wasn’t given much time. And now, I was stuck in a near ten-hour drive with a stranger—one who had possibly just saved my life for a reward of fifty thousand dollars.

“So… are you, like, an Uber driver or something?”

I figured I might as well make conversation. Besides, if he turned out to be some kind of serial killer, I’d at least die knowing how that happened.

“You can say that.” He said, his voice rough and disinterested. His accent was thick—Indian, maybe—but there was more to it.

“What’s your name?” I asked, looking for a clue.

“Listen miss, I’m not telling you my name. If you really need one, just call me Raj.”

“Raj? Really?” I scoffed. “You don’t look like an Indian dude.”

“Yes, but I sound like one, don’t I?”

He was as white as my dad—and as white as any white Americans that I’d ever met. “Not really. Were you born here?”

A deep, drawn-out sigh escaped him. “Alright, since we’ve got a long drive ahead of us, I’ll tell you. But you’ll have to tell me why you’re running.”

“Deal.”

Up until now, he hadn’t asked me how I planned to pay him. He must’ve noticed I didn’t have anything on me. Still, I couldn’t help but appreciate his trust—or maybe he wasn’t planning to take me to Myrtle Beach at all. I shook the thought away and focused on our conversation.

“I was adopted,” he said, as if that explained everything. “My parents were illegal immigrants from, uh, Asia. The poor couple couldn’t have kids. Prayed for a child night and day. Then, viola , one evening, they found me in a dumpster behind their house.”

“Wow. Really?” My voice dripped with skepticism.

“Sounds ridiculous, huh? It’s true.”

“Why didn’t they turn you into the authorities?” I asked, struggling to believe a story like this could still exist in this day and age.

Raj let out a short laugh.

“Wow, really?” he said, mockingly. “Now who’s the white dude, here? My parents are great. They raised me up like their own. And trust me—going through the system wouldn’t have given me a better life.”

He shifted his grip on the steering wheel and cast me a sideway glance. “Now your turn. Why are you running? Who were those people at the airport?”

I stared out the window, trying to organize my thoughts. Where did I even begin—and how much should I tell Raj?

“My abusive husband?—”

“Cut the crap.” Raj snapped. “And what’s your name, by the way? I told you mine.”

“June.” I said, deciding against making one up. I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Alright, June—just tell me the truth.”

So, I did.

I told Raj about Mack—a member of a Hong Kong triad—how he tried to hurt me but was arrested, only to be released soon after for no apparent reason. How he was later kidnapped by my rich friend’s security team, but he somehow escaped. And now, he was after me.

“That’s why I’m running. My friend’s security team was helping me at the airport, but we got attacked. I got away and somehow ended up in your car.”

I knew that we were in a Toyota, but I couldn’t tell the model. Probably one of those hybrids everybody seemed to love.

“Interesting. You know they’re not airport security, right?”

“What?”

“The people chasing you—they’re not airport sec–”

“I heard you,” I interrupted. “I mean, how do you know?”

He shrugged. “I just know. Their uniforms look wrong.”

He went on and explained—something about the color being off, the stitching, the badges in the wrong places. I nodded along, but my mind drifted. If that woman at airport wasn’t actually airport security… then who the hell was she? And was she after me or Dave?

“You okay?” His voice softened, and for the first time, he actually sounded concerned.

“I’m fine, thanks. Where are we, anyway?”

We’d been on the road for two hours, but nothing outside looked familiar.

“Took a detour. We’ll stop in ten. I know a place.” His tone was casual. A little too casual. The unfamiliar roads outside the windows sent bad thoughts through my mind and a chill down my spine. Maybe I’d listened to too many true-crime podcasts, but something about this felt… off.

Ten minutes later, we pulled into a diner in the middle of nowhere. Wendy’s Home Cooking. I made a mental note. Easy enough to remember—since I had a friend called Wendy.

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry? Do you need something to eat?” he asked as he killed the engine.

“I don’t have any money on me.” I admitted, “but I swear—you’ll get paid when we get to Myrtle Beach. My brother will cover it, I promise.”

“Relax. I know the owner of this place. Order whatever you want—I’ll be there in a sec.”

He got out of the car, and I followed. He popped open the trunk and pulled out a screwdriver.

“What are you doing?”

“Changing the plates. We’re on the run, right? Can’t have anyone tracking us halfway to Myrtle Beach.”

I stood there, watching him swap the plates like it was the most normal thing in the world.

“Do you do this all the time?” I asked. “How many other plates do you have back there? Who are you really?”

He chuckled under his breath. “Calm down, princess.”

Princess.

My stomach dropped. Was it just a fluke? Or did he know who I really was?

I bent down, snatching a crowbar from the trunk, and swung it behind my head.

“Who the fuck are you?”

He raised his hands, palms out. “Easy. Let’s go inside—I’ll explain, okay?”

“No. You’re going to explain right now, and don’t think I’m afraid of a little blood.”

That was a lie. I hated blood—hated the sight, the smell, everything about it. But I wasn’t about to let him know that. And I’d discovered it too late to back out of medical school.

His face softened. “I’m a friend. Okay? That really rich friend of yours—she hired me to follow you.”

“Kai? You know where he is?”

“Huh? No, it’s a woman—Rocks, I think.”

Roxie . That was Chloe’s stripper name. She’d gone back to being Chloe, but I guess she still used the old name when it suited her.

“Prove it.” It didn’t hurt to be a little careful at this point. “Prove to me that you know her.”

“We need to go in the diner. Come on. Her real name is Chloe. She’s married to Lincoln. ”

“I’m not convinced.” I raised the crowbar higher.

“Wait, wait!” He raised his hands higher in response to my movement, panic flashing across his face. “She said if you didn’t believe me, to say something about that show you used to watch. Uh… Dirty Little Liar !”

Pretty Little Liars.

“Close enough,” I muttered.

I dropped the crowbar, relieved that he wasn’t a serial killer, though a little disappointed that he had no connection to Kai.

Inside Wendy’s, the cashier took our orders. When she returned, she handed me a brown paper bag. Inside I saw some cash, a change of clothes, and an old-fashioned flip phone.

“Please, close your mouth, people will stare,” Raj commented, smirking. “You can trust us, here. We’ll eat something now, grab a few things for the road, and you should change before we head out.”

The remaining journey to Myrtle Beach was surprisingly pleasant.

I learned that Raj was my friend Wendy’s cousin, and when he wasn’t following runaway women, he helped his parents run a laundromat in New York.

He’d been tailing me ever since Chloe found out about Mack from Wendy—because, apparently, Wendy couldn’t keep a secret from Chloe.

Knowing I’d been followed by both Kai’s and Chloe’s people over the last few days was weird. My privacy had been violated from every angle. But without them, I’d probably be knee-deep in a thousand different kinds of trouble.