“No,” Ilse said, simply. “No!” she repeated, louder into the dark.

Headlights suddenly flashed over the top of the hill, moving down past the concrete barrier. Ilse’s heart skipped a beat. She waited, breathing heavily, watching as the car slid past. For a moment, it almost seemed to stall, the engine grumbling loudly in the night, echoing and reverberating off the concrete barrier. But then the headlights shifted, and the vehicle picked up the pace again, growling and speeding away.

Ilse breathed a bit easier, watching the taillights blink back toward her like the red eyes of some sentinel demon.

Where had the other bodies come from?

She stopped moving for a second, standing on the old dusty trail, frowning to herself. The FBI was tracking down the identities of the other victims they’d found in that basement.

Ilse shivered.

Where had they come from? This road too? More hitchhikers? More unsuspecting victims?

Ilse gritted her teeth and shook her head, marching forward again. Take captive every thought… She mouthed the phrase, picking up her pace until she was jogging now, kicking up dust and darting under the splayed branches and shivering shadows across the dusty road.

Another car’s lights flashed behind her, this one coming from the opposite direction. Again, the vehicle seemed to slow…

Ilse paused, looking back. Her heart skipped a beat, watching as the car moved through the gap between the opposite highways. It paused beneath a clearly marked No-U-turn sign.

A cop?

Not a cop. No, a truck. An old, flatbed truck. It came across three empty lanes, pulling from the sheer opposite side of the highway and coming to a crunching halt next to the barrier.

The headlights illuminated her, shining bright, and Ilse could feel the oppressive cloud of fear now turn into a cold trickle rattling down her spine. For a moment, breathing heavily, she came to another halt, facing the bright lights, squinting against the glare, listening to the steady rumble of the truck’s engine.

A second later, the lights clicked off, and a hand waved out of the front driver’s side.

“H—hello?” Ilse said, hesitantly, staring toward the waving, fluttering hand.

“Need a ride?” a voice called from inside the truck. A faint, gravelly voice, like a smoker’s. Hard to make out, though.

Ilse could feel her feet rooted to the spot, could feel the familiar chill rising up her spine. Her mind flashed with images of basements and postcards and dead pigeons. Her teeth set and she stared at the greasy windshield.

The fear was slowly met by a rising sense of sheer fury. Righteous indignation that went as deep as her bones.

The man’s outline was hard to determine through the windshield. Though it looked like he might have been wearing a baseball cap. For a moment, Ilse thought of Agent Tom Sawyer. For another moment, she felt a shiver of surprise at how much she missed the lanky, silver-haired BAU agent. Missed him, and especially his gun.