I don’t finish, because what can I tell her? I’m leaving. I’d rather run through that field and bang on the door of a perfect stranger than get back in this car. I’d rather be anywhere else in the world than here with all of you. The panicky flutter in my chest provides no words to make sense of the things I’m considering.

Headlights cut down the road and hope fills my chest like a balloon. Someone’s coming. Please let it be the police. Or someone—anyone—who can set my mind at ease and get us help. Please let it be someone I can leave with. Someone who will take me home.

I cup my hand over my eyes to shield myself from the glare of those headlights. I can’t see anything else, but whoever it is, they’re slowing down.

They’re slowing down!

I bounce up on the balls of my feet as the vehicle turns into the park’s entrance. I’m ready to run to them when I realize it isn’t a police officer. Or a car.

It’s a truck. Dread pours through my veins before I even see. My body knows before I recognize the red paint and broken left mirror. But then my mind joins the race.

This is the gas station owner’s truck.

Adrenaline fires liquid heat from the center of my chest to the tips of my fingers. My stomach rolls as the truck pulls closer, my feet stumbling backward. I should have gone when I had the chance. My gut was telling me something was wrong, that something bad was coming.

And now it’s too late to run.

Chapter Sixteen

The truck pulls into the space next to ours, and I hold my breath. I think of the tobacco, dark and wet in the pocket of the father’s cheek. The gruff apathy of his voice telling me they’d be closing soon. Here and now, the deep idle of the truck’s exhaust sends the hair on my arms upright.

My gut whispers a new truth, and I trust it: Corey’s father did not stop his truck for a chat. He has not stopped looking for us. He’s not here for money anymore, maybe hasn’t been after money since Brecken pulled out of the parking lot.

This man is here for revenge.

The engine cuts off and the quiet is awful. The breath I’d been holding comes out in a rush, and then I can’t stop breathing—shaky, off-rhythm pants that steam in the air and leave me dizzy. The cabin of the truck is completely dark. I can’t make out who’s driving, but it doesn’t matter. I know who’s inside.

“Get in the car,” Brecken says roughly.