He grits his teeth and doesn’t answer me, so I answer myself. No one. Not a single person will fight for me when I’m gone. When my dead body—or bodyparts—are discovered in some desolate area twenty years from now, no one will even know who I am.

The silence answers another question as well. He still plans to kill me. If he didn’t, he would have said he’d changed his mind. I thought maybe we’d turned some kind of weird corner when he’d stood up to my mother and defended me, but it seems this was just another level in his fucked-up little game.

“Try to get some rest,” he says. “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”

My body aches from all the running, and exhaustion weighs me down, but it’s pretty hard to close my eyes and drift off to dreamland when my death looms just over the next hill.

My stomach growls, and the silence in the Jeep only amplifies it. I wrap my arms around my stomach to muffle it, but it still draws his attention. He only looks. He doesn’t ask if I’m hungry or offer to stop. I guess we’re back to Asshole Ambrose. It’s probably better this way. It’s easier to remember how much I should hate him when he’s being a jerk.

He yanks the wheel toward the offramp and sends me into the door. The tires squeal and the rear end fishtails, but he manages to straighten out before we spin into the guardrail.

“What the fuck?” I scream. “Are you trying to killbothof us now?”

He sets his jaw and doesn’t answer.

I look behind us, expecting to see blue lights or hear the wail of sirens, but it’s all darkness and headlights and tires on pavement. What was the big fucking hurry to pull off the interstate?

A few minutes later, he brings the Jeep to a stop in a parking lot, and my anger evaporates. We’re at the diner.

“Don’t even think about ordering that fucking drink again,” he says as he gets out of the car.

We go inside and sit at the same booth we chose last time. The waitress is different, and so is the mood. On our way up to the cabin, I was blissfully unaware of all the surprises fate had in store for me. I thought I was running toward safety when I was really running into the arms of my stalker. Now my brain has been ripped in two directions, with one side wondering how he’ll kill me and the other hoping he’ll fuck me again before he does it.

Sitting in a diner full of people could be my way out of everything. I only need to call out for help. Ambrose doesn’t have a gun, but I have a feeling the long-haul trucker seated at the bar might. That bulge on his hip sure as shit isn’t his dick.

But I don’t. I keep quiet. The thought of someone hurting the man across from me should fill me with joy, but it only makes me feel sick. I’ve seen too much of the good in Ambrose to want him taken out, even after falling prey to the dark parts of his soul.

We order our food, and it arrives at our table a few minutes later. As we eat in silence, my mind keeps circling something he said earlier about revenge. It bugs me that I have to be the sacrificial lamb to pay for someone else’s sins. I consider asking why he can’t just take one of the other girls and let me go, but that isn’t fair either. Some of them have kids. Some have families that care about them, even when they don’t agree with what they do for a living.

I have nothing.

Maybe he chose correctly after all.

His jaw slows as he studies me, then he stops chewing altogether. “What’s bugging you now?” he asks.

I shake my head and slide another fry into my mouth. There’s no point in circling the same mountain or asking the same questions.

He slides his plate to the side of the table and leans forward. “You can either tell me what’s on your mind or I can take you to the bathroom and force it out of you. Your choice.”

God, I hate the way his threat makes my stomach clench with excitement instead of fear. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s knowing I’ll be dead this time tomorrow. Tends to put a damper on things.”

He looks around to be sure no one heard what I said, then pulls a twenty from his wallet, slaps it on the table, and slides out of the booth. He stops beside me, leans near my ear, and whispers, “Let’s talk about this outside.”

I lower the last bite of my burger and leave the booth. As I follow him to the car, I feel like a naughty child being escorted out of a store for screaming in the toy aisle. It was his fault. He pressed me to answer him.

We near the Jeep, but he doesn’t go to the driver’s side. He turns and pins me between the car door and his body instead. His hands go to either side of my head as he looks into my eyes and leans closer, daring me to move away from him or fight him off.

“Let me try to help you understand.” His breath rolls over my lips. “Do you know what it means to be obsessed, tragedy?”

I shake my head. I know the definition of the word, but I don’t know how he defines it.

“It means I can’t let you go. It means that even if I don’t want to kill you, I don’t have a choice because the thought of another man touching you sends me into a blind rage. Even if you run to a convent and become a fucking nun, it won’t be good enough because I don’t even want somegodto see your naked body if I can’t. It means that the only way I can ensure you stay mine until your last breath is to be inside you when you take it.”

Words tangle around my tongue. I have so many thoughts, but they fly too fast to catch hold of any of them. Pinned beneath his body and his gaze, I can only listen.

“This started as a way to get revenge on my mother,” he continues, “but it has become something bigger than I can control. You are my ultimate obsession. I don’t want to kill you, but I don’t see another way this can end.”

He presses his lips to mine in a rough kiss, and his hand moves to my throat and squeezes. Instead of pushing him away or biting him again, I relent and let him explore my mouth. I give in to the tightening hold around my neck, trusting he’ll let me breathe again. Even now, when he’s confirmed my definitive end, I want him.