Prologue
He tried to calm his breath. He knew the sound of his ragged breathing would give him away if they got close enough to his hiding place. Honestly? He considered it a miracle he’d escaped them at all. Crouched in the brush at the edge of the Gas’n Go parking lot, he scanned the area to see if he could see the black van that he’d crawled out of a few minutes ago. It wasn’t anywhere in his line of sight, but that didn’t mean they weren’t nearby. He’d run through the abandoned construction site and then the brush and trees until he came out at this parking lot. They would figure that out pretty fast, so he had to make a move.
Blood trickled down the side of his face and more down the back of his shirt from where they’d hit him. The beating had gone on for a while before they left him alone in the back of the van. The pain was pounding and made it hard to see clearly, but he could tell that the van was still not nearby. A woman pulled up in an older Honda Fit and went into the store. He stayed low and stumbled over to the car. It was luck that he found the hatch unlocked, so he opened it enough to crawl inside and under a blanket that covered a bunch of dry-cleaned clothes. Everything hurt from the beating they’d given him, but he’d held on to the thumb drive. If they had found it, everything he’d gone through over the past few months would have been for nothing. The fear over the past year had been overwhelming at times, and losing Juliette had been brutal, but he’d stayed strong. He pulled the drive out of the hidden slot in his belt, then slid it into the pocket of one of the jackets in the bags. It’d be safe there.
He was so tired, and his chest felt like he was being stabbed. He laid his head down and closed his eyes. Maybe he could rest here for a little while before he had to run again.
Antoine never felt the car start up and drive away from the gas station.
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