Chapter 1

Hannah

Tearing down the highway, the aerodynamic little car slicing effortlessly through the wind, I feel free. 

My hair is whipping back behind me. I know I’m going too fast, but I can’t help it. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have to look over my shoulder, that I wasn’t braced for violence. It’s making me reckless. I’m racing into my future, away from pain and terror, and for the first time in a long time, I feel happy.

Hopeful.

Two hours ago, I started the ignition on this car with my heart hammering in my chest, terrified the sound would wake up Dane, that he would stop me somehow.

Terrified that if he stood in front of the car, I wouldn’t have the balls to run him over.

When he didn’t appear, when I pulled out of the driveway without so much as a light turning on in the house, I couldn’t believe my luck. I couldn't believe this was actually happening.

I’d watched the sun rise over the city as I tore out of town, maneuvering the little Porsche easily across the quiet, early morning streets. Dane had never let me drive any of his sports cars, and I had no idea it was so fun.

Although, I can’t help but think as I race past a rest stop, would it have killed him to have one normal car? Something that won’t stand out everywhere like a red Porsche convertible?

I’m hungry, but I don’t dare stop, even though I’ve put two hours between myself and home. I can’t be sure he’s not following me somehow. Just leaving the car anywhere in plain sight seems risky. The car attracts a lot of attention. Other drivers on the road keep turning their heads to look at me.

I toss my head to feel the wind through my hair again. It’s loud with the wind beating against my ears, but I don’t care. I’ll never tire of driving with the top down. I’ll never tire of feeling free.

I don’t know where I’m going, because I have no place to go, but anywhere is better than where I’m coming from.

I spent my childhood free-falling from one home to the next. If there’s one thing I know I can do, it’s survive, and it’s this thought I’m holding on to as I drive due west into the unknown. I chose the direction randomly—it’s the direction Dorothy went in after she landed in Oz, which seemed as good a reason as any—and I’ll keep going in this direction until… well, until I get a sign I should stop, I guess.

As the highway veers, I take an exit onto a quiet road, checking the car’s navigation panel to make sure I’m still heading in the right direction.

Away from the highway, the road winds and snakes until I’m in deep country—nothing but wide, empty acres of land on either side of me. I’m glad for the peace. For the wide open sky above me. The sense of freedom.

Wherever I end up, whatever happens to me, it doesn’t matter, as long as I never feel trapped as I did with Dane again. I will always put my freedom first.

I make a vow to myself then and there. I don’t know what’s coming next, or even where I’ll be in a week from now, or a month, or a year, but I promise myself: I’ll do it my way from now on.

Everything on my terms.

The wind picks up, blowing my hair back, and I take a deep, cleansing breath. Country air. I suck in as much of it as I can, filling my lungs, and then… my heart stops.

What the…?

A deep shudder shakes the frame of the car and it starts to slow down on its own, the car’s halting inertia so jarring after the momentum I had a moment ago. A loud knocking sound starts up from under the hood. I press on the accelerator, but it’s unresponsive, so I start steering the car onto the side of the road—just in time. The car suddenly stops dead.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

I get out of the car, stunned, and look around.

There’s a road sign right in front of me. Welcome to Haven, it says. Pop. 300.

Well, at least I know where I am.

I’m in a town of three hundred people without so much as a building in sight, and smoke is pouring out of the hood of the car in thick plumes. I’m fucking stranded in the middle of nowhere, with my whole life packed into a bag in the trunk of this shit-hot car, with no phone and no way to get anywhere.

“Fuck!” I cry, kicking one of the car’s tires with my pointy boot. It only hurts my toe, and I open the car door again and sit down on the driver’s seat, half in and half out of the car, and bury my face in my hands.

I will not cry, I tell myself. I’m done with tears. In the two years I was with Dane I cried more than any woman should ever cry in her life, and now I won’t do it anymore.

There’s no one I can call, anyway. My friendships and my relationships with what was left of my family all became strained and distant over the past two years. Dane drove himself like a wedge between me and anybody who cared for me, telling them lies, telling me lies, doing everything he could to leave me feeling isolated and alone, completely dependent on him. And he succeeded.

Until today, I remind myself.

I lift my chin again. I may not have anybody on my side right now, but I’m still in a better place than I was this morning. It’s too early to give up or feel defeated.

I get up again and look at the car in bewilderment and wonder. How on earth have I managed to drive this thing into the ground? Dane is obsessed with taking care of his cars, yet in just over two hours I’ve got the Porsche smoking and immobile on the side of the road.

If he were here, this would be a big told-you-so moment for him.

I could leave the car, just take my bag and walk away from it forever, but I worry about it getting found and Dane being contacted and alerted to my general whereabouts. So even though I’m definitely not dressed for any kind of work, I do the only thing I can think of and put the car in neutral and start pushing.

“C’mon, Hannah,” I mutter encouragingly to myself, leaning my weight into the car. It’s like a metaphor for my life at the moment, but without anyone controlling the steering wheel, trying to push it forward is just making the car head straight for the ditch. I have to keep stopping to readjust the steering wheel, so I can push for a few more feet before stopping again.

The party dress I wore last night is sticking to my body, my high-heeled boots digging into the gravel on the side of the road as I throw my weight into the dead car. It probably takes me an hour to get the car the distance of a city block down the road, and the whole time not one other car passes me.