“Took you long enough!” Ilse yelled at the top of her lungs, bending over and putting her hands on her knees while gasping at the ground.

A long, lanky form pulled from the front driver’s side. Ilse heard the man in the truck curse. She watched him scramble back across the seat, desperately trying to put the truck in gear again.

Sawyer sprinted around the side of the truck. He didn’t speak, didn’t shout. Just ran, yanked at the door handle, pulling it open. The trucker tried to kick out, yelling and cursing, but Sawyer caught his leg and pulled hard, heaving the driver from the front seat and sending him sprawling to the asphalt.

Sawyer looked over now, his silhouette outlined in the darkness by the whir of blue and red from his sedan.

“Hurt?” he asked her.

She shook her head, trembling. “No… No I’m fine. He has a knife in the back seat.”

The trucker groaned, trying to speak and rise to his feet, but Sawyer planted a boot in his chest and sent him sprawling again.

The agent glanced back at Ilse again, expressionless, tongue in his cheek. “Stupid,” he said simply.

Ilse gasped. “I… I know,” she said in a trembling voice. “At least you got my text. Didn’t think it would take you so long to get here.”

“Mhmm.” Sawyer turned his attention back to the trucker, who was reaching into his pocket as if to pull something. “Don’t,” the FBI agent cautioned, raising a boot again.

Reluctantly, the trucker’s hand retreated from his pocket. The man cursed and spluttered, spittle trailing from his lip to the ground. Sawyer reached down, ripped the baseball cap from the man’s head, and tossed it off into the woods. He gripped the man’s jaw hard, looking him in the eyes. Then in a quiet, cold voice, Sawyer said, simply, “I know what you look like now.”

Ilse shivered at the ice in those words. She wasn’t quite sure what he meant by it, but the trucker looked frightened enough.

“She wanted a ride!” the man protested, desperately. “She begged for it! I wasn’t doing anything!”

“Mhmm. Get up.”

“No—what—she attacked me! Look at my face. Look!”

Sawyer glanced at the cuts from the keys along the side of the man’s eye. He looked at Ilse carefully. “He touch you?” he said.

“He tried to grab me, so I hit him,” Ilse said quickly. “Self-defense.”

Sawyer glanced back at the trucker. “You touch her?” Still calm, still in control, still a looming, lanky shadow stretched across the ground like some scarecrow. Ilse realized a thing about scarecrows: they were designed to frighten, to warn and to guard.

The trucker was frightened enough. He shook his head. “Never laid a finger on her. Not one. That stinky whore? Why would—”

Sawyer kicked him hard in the ribs. The man gasped, wheezing, and then was yanked to his feet, his hands jerked roughly behind his back.

“Under arrest,” Sawyer muttered quietly. And that was it. He cuffed the man, then shoved him roughly toward the sedan parked perpendicular to the truck. As he passed Ilse again, he murmured, once more, “Stupid idea.”