Page 61 (1/1)

PROLOGUE

SHE AWAKENED TO darkness, pain and nausea Had she fallen? Somehow she knew she wasn’t in bed She reached out blindly to explore and found an unyielding surface close above her Move vibration made her body sway fro the walls of a box Terror swelled in her, more powerful than the nausea

I’ me alive

Before she could scream and hammer on the lid, consciousness slipped away

The next time she surfaced, it was to the taste of bile in herToo late to get up and run for the bathroo herself onto her side before throwing up Her head hurt so bad She banged into so as she rolled And it was dark So dark The surface she lay on was hard Not bed

Consciousness ca, her thoughts chaotic Once she surfaced to an awful s in so sticky Her own vo behind her

Panic rose in her chest Why can’t I see?

In her peripheral vision, there was a flash of red She tried to turn her head to see what it was and flinched Only one eye would open She groped for her face and found her eyelid crusted shut With so The smell was bad, but it didn’t matter, not when she hurt so ave up

Finally she awakened and reers found cold e dips and curves and even a few holes She succeeded in rolling all the way over and alain Her head wanted to explode Blood, she thought It was blood crusting her eye I hit my head

She’d becoht have been occasional gusts of wind Not wind, she finally recognized: cars passing on a highway HerShe was in a car Locked in the trunk of a car that wasBewildered, she turned the notion over and over Not knohy this was so wrong, but also confused about where she should be She couldn’t think It was because of the headache

Suddenly she slid sideways and barelythe side wall She was being pitched backward despite herself Oh, gross, into the vo, that was it Fear rose like the contents of her sto her throat Once the car stopped, she wouldn’t be safe at all

But it had stopped The engine turned off She heard a door open, then slam She squeezed her eyes shut If she pretended she was still unconscious

Footsteps caan to di away She strained until she didn’t hear the footsteps at all, until the silence was absolute

Then, frantically, th, despite knowing the trunk lid wouldn’t give way Stupid, stupid Think Just like that, she had a picture of herself—itinto an open car trunk She could smell fresh lumber, hear a man’s impatient voice

“What are you waiting for? Push down the backseat” Because she wasn’t very big, she’d had to all but crawl into the trunk before she could reach the latch to yank, then push the back of the seat until it flopped forward

Panting now, she groped above her for a latch Please, please, please let this car have seats that fold down Her fingers closed around a fa at the back of the trunk and she pulled If there were other people in the car If the driver hadn’t been alone

There was a clunk and a sliver of light She pushed, and half the seat folded down—not the whole one It wasn’t what she expected This wasn’t the car she remembered, then

Through the opening and the windshield, she saw that it was night outside, and that there were bright lights No one was in the car with her Whih the voer compartment Opened the back door and almost fell out onto paveas pump She wanted to run, run, run, but an inner voice told her to push the seat back in place, shut the car door Maybe the driver wouldn’t know he’d lost her While she carefully closed the door, the sound was so loud she cringed and crouched behind the fender, holding her breath to listen But she heard no footsteps, no roar of anger The car sat alone at the pumps

She crept around the trunk and saw the one inside to use the bathroo

Run, run, run