Chapter 1: Nowhere Safe, Nowhere to Run

When I was kidnapped by traffickers and hauled deep into the Appalachians, everything felt like it shattered inside me. My mind went numb, heart pounding, panic flooding every inch. Before I could even process what was happening, my phone buzzed—a text from my husband:

[Honey, we promised never to be apart. I’m coming for you now.]

The trafficker leaned over and warned me, “Our town doesn’t even show up on GPS, so don’t even bother.”

Perfect, just perfect. I let out a silent, sarcastic sigh. Of course.

My husband? He’s violent. Always has been. I’ve spent three years running, hiding from him, but he always finds a way to track me down.

You better not be lying. You have no idea what’s chasing me.

This time, please—don’t let that bastard find me. Not again.

A bitter laugh caught in my throat. Go figure. The law never kept me safe, but maybe a bunch of backwoods traffickers could. I pressed my forehead to the cool window, wishing the mountains would just swallow me whole.

I never thought I’d get kidnapped while eating breakfast. I mean, who gets grabbed off a barstool with a mouthful of eggs?

When I came to, I was crammed in a van, wrists and ankles tied so tight I couldn’t even wiggle.

My wrists ached. Two men up front. One driving, one staring at the road. I tried to move, but my hands and feet were tied tight.

I shook my head, trying to clear it. My mouth was dry. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The passenger twisted around. His face was cratered with old acne scars.

I recognized him. My stomach dropped.

That morning at the roadside diner, I’d been scarfing down a breakfast sandwich. I was just about to pay when, out of nowhere, my head started spinning.

The owner reached out to steady me. That was the last thing I saw before everything went black.

He was the one who’d handed me my food—pockmarked, shifty-eyed.

There had to be something in that sandwich. Of course there was.

He sneered. “Good, you’re awake. Don’t fight it. Our little brother needs a wife. You’ll do just fine. That’s why you’re here.”

The driver flashed a greasy grin. In the rearview, I caught a glimpse of his mouth—full of yellow teeth.

My stomach lurched. I shoved my head out the window and threw up.

The metallic tang of bile burned my throat. The van rattled as it took a sharp curve, making my stomach twist even more. For a second, I wondered if the fresh mountain air would clear my head or just make it clear no one was coming.

Outside, mountains pressed in on all sides. The road ran right along a sheer drop.

Not a soul in sight. Just the echo of distant coyotes drifting through the woods.

Just my luck. Backwoods country.

A notification chimed.

It was my phone—another text.

Pockmarked Face already had it. He opened the message and read it out loud:

[Honey, we promised never to be apart. I’m coming for you now.]

He smashed my phone, stomped it flat, and tossed it out the window.

The phone tumbled into the ravine below.

He spat at me. “Ha! So what if you’re married? It won’t help you. From here, it’s another seven or eight hours’ drive to our Maple Hollow. The route’s so twisted even GPS can’t find it. Nobody from outside ever makes it here.”

The van jerked to a stop, and I crashed forward, pain shooting through my wrists.

The two men burst out laughing.

Yellow Teeth threw a look back. “Don’t even think about running. There’s nowhere to go.”

Why would I want to escape? If only they knew.

I let out a shaky breath, eyes flicking from the locked doors to the endless woods. If only they knew who the real hunter was.

The one who sent me that text—my husband, Mason Hale.

He doesn’t know what love is. He’s a two-faced abuser.

Sweet before the wedding. Monster after.

On our wedding night, I was too tired to please Mason. He snarled, “You’re breaking our family’s rules.”

One slap. Two teeth gone.

Three months pregnant—he got drunk, said I didn’t look like I was carrying a boy.

“If you give birth, you’ll ruin my family’s bloodline.”

One punch. I lost the baby.

In three years of marriage to Mason Hale, he beat me more times than I can count. Even when I survived, I felt half-dead.

I tried to escape, but couldn’t.

I hid at my parents’ house. He showed up, made a scene, spread filthy rumors, and made my parents a laughingstock.

I hid at my best friend’s place. He threatened to kill her too. All my friends suffered because of me.

In the end, I hid out alone in a city where no one knew me.

But he seemed to have eyes everywhere and always found me—sometimes after months, sometimes in just days.

I suspected he’d put a tracker on my phone, so I changed phones and got a new number.

But Mason found out my new number, too.

Every time, the same message. Like a curse:

[Honey, we promised never to be apart. I’m coming for you now.]

Then he’d show up out of nowhere.

At my new apartment door, on a street corner, or just when I happened to look back…

He’d haul me back, and then a new, even more brutal round of abuse would begin.

A month ago, while Mason was drunk, I escaped again and hid in a remote Appalachian town.

At first, I thought Yellow Teeth and Pockmarked Face were his goons, here to haul me back.

But it turns out they’re just traffickers.

That’s a relief. Sort of.

If, like the trafficker said, their town’s in the middle of nowhere, maybe this time Mason won’t be able to find me.

I almost smiled, just a flicker. Absurd, right? But in this twisted world, it was all I had.

We drove for more than seven hours.

After seven hours, we finally pulled into Maple Hollow.

Looking out the window, I saw the place was nearly deserted. Only a few people were on the road. All men. Not a single woman in sight.

The van stopped in front of a sagging old house.

There was a well in front, and an old man stood beside it.

“Dad, we brought her back.”

He was their father.

He looked delighted, his narrow eyes sizing me up.

Yellow Teeth untied my feet and shoved me inside.

Inside, another man was squatting on the floor, grinning foolishly, drooling everywhere.

“Little brother, I found you a wife. See if you like her.”

The little brother—he was clearly disabled, his grin vacant.

He jumped up and reached out to touch me.

I flinched, and a slap cracked across my face.

The old man jabbed a finger at me and snapped, “Stupid girl, why are you dodging? This is your husband.”

He turned to comfort the fool, “Don’t rush, son. The day after tomorrow, you’ll get married. Then you can touch her all you want.”

All four men burst out in crude laughter.

“If you ask me, beat her first. Then she’ll behave,” Pockmarked Face suggested.

The old man kicked the back of my knee. Caught off guard, I fell to my knees.

As I fell, I caught a glimpse of a shadow at the doorway—someone shrinking back out of sight.

I closed my eyes, curled up, and covered my head—the position I’d learned from too many beatings.

Slaps and punches rained down on my body and head.

I almost wanted to laugh.

His blows were nothing compared to Mason’s.

When Mason hit me, a fracture or concussion was the least of it.

The worst time, he beat my left kidney until it failed. Now only my right kidney works.

He’d pause sometimes, and when he got really vicious, he’d even hit himself. Then he’d start in on me again.

“I’ll tell the cops you hit me. Then we’ll both get charged.”

Mason Hale was a devil.

The violence ended only when he got bored.

If I resisted, he found it entertaining and hit me even harder.

I always wondered—what was tougher, Mason’s fists or my own life?

Which time would finally be the last?

A chain was locked around my ankle.

The trafficker and his sons dragged me to a side room.

“Behave yourself, understand?”

I nodded silently.

No food. Just exhaustion. I fell asleep.

The mattress was so thin, I felt every splinter in the floor. Cold crept through the blanket. My body ached, but my mind drifted—anywhere but here.