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Nausea bubbled in my stomach, and I couldn’t tell if it was from fear or from the child that was growing inside me.

Both, I supposed. Both prominent and profound. Both subject to whatever disturbance Penny had fallen under.

My footsteps were featherlight. Silent as I crept across the store, then down the hall.

Softer and slower as I made the left through the doorway and into the storeroom.

Panic clogged my senses when she shoved the tip of the gun into the small of my back. Sweat drenched my flesh, pouring with the terror that bled out of me, and I heaved a shattered breath.

“Keep moving,” she ordered so low that I could barely hear.

Her own secret, or maybe she couldn’t stand to listen to herself say it.

She inched me toward the back and through the darkened maze of shelves stacked with boxes and bins.

All the while, I prayed. Prayed that Regan would be leaning against the rear wall having a cigarette.

Or that maybe Trevan had forgotten something and would return.

Just simply prayed that we would be alright.

Hand shaking, I fumbled with the back lock. I glanced up at the keypad that sat beside the door on the right. At the red panic button on the bottom left.

“Don’t even think about it.” She dug the barrel of the gun deeper.

Terror ripped and curled, and my heart pummeled at my ribs.

“Open it slowly and step out,” she instructed, her voice thready and hoarse.

Throat nearly closed off, I did as she instructed. Metal grated as the locks were disengaged, and the hinges creaked as the heavy door was pushed open.

Heavy gray clouds took the sky hostage. The atmosphere almost filmy with the threat of rain.

There wasn’t much to the backside of the building.

Just the narrow dirt road where a truck could back up to be unloaded here on the elevated platform and the thick, impenetrable forest beyond it.

The only sounds were the rare vehicle passing on the road on the other side of the building and the disjointed commotion from the diner across the expansive lot. Close enough that someone would hear if I shouted. Not close enough for them to make it to me before Penny did something reprehensible if I did.

That and the swoosh of the river that rushed through about a quarter of a mile into the woods.

Frantically, Penny looked in every direction, like she had no idea what she had planned for me, unsure of my fate herself.

Or maybe her mind had long been made, and she was just working herself up to the tragedy.

Because I couldn’t believe it.

Couldn’t believe that this woman who I’d grown so fond of, cared about, could do something like this. I couldn’t understand her motives or her direction.

“Walk,” she wheezed, nudging me forward, and I fumbled into motion. Shaking as I climbed down the three aluminum steps. She guided me across the road and urged me into the riddle of trees.

Both of us staggered through the damp earth and underbrush.

Winding and weaving.

I covertly peeked all around.

Calculating but unable to come up with a solution in the middle of something that I didn’t have the components to.