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just tried to kidnap her. When I reached the car, I opened the door and lowered her into the passenger seat before walking around and getting behind the wheel. Another positively fantastic thing about the Tesla was the vehicle’s superlative—and absolutely silent—acceleration as I sped out of the parking lot. When I looked over at the girl, she was staring, wide-eyed, at me like I had just perpetrated her kidnapping. I wrenched the hood from my head.
    “Are you hurt?” I demanded.
    “Y-you have a gun,” she sputtered.
    “And a concealed weapons permit. I know how to use the gun, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
    “Actually, that is what I’m worried about. Why the hell do you have a gun and know how to use it?”
    “That, lovely, is a story best left for another time.”

Chapter 3: Cass
     
     
    I’ d had bad nights at the club before. Tonight, though, was a record low. All I’d wanted was fifteen fucking minutes away from that smell. The mix of sweat, desperation, cheap cologne, and cheaper alcohol. Fifteen minutes with nobody yelling, away from the grating music, just some time to unwind and eat a fucking granola bar on the curb.
    I knew better than to hang out alone outside, but usually I could make it to my car and back unmolested. Just the thought of that guy’s hands around my throat and over my mouth made my stomach heave.
    “Pull over,” I said, gulping for air. “ Do it! ” I screamed when he looked over at me.
    He pulled over, and the second the car stopped, I wrenched open the door and threw myself out of the passenger seat. I made it a couple of steps before doubling over with my hands on my thighs for support. I retched until there was nothing left in my stomach, and then I continued to dry-heave.
    Finally, I raised my head and saw James McDevitt holding out a towel and a bottle of water. I took both, wiped my mouth, and then took a swig of water before turning and spitting it out.
    “Thank you.”
    I quickly looked around. We were sitting on an empty strip of I-80 between the club and the university.
    “You’re welcome. Now do you think you can make it the rest of the way?”
    I nodded and followed him back to the car, taking his hand and letting him help me into the passenger seat. A few seconds later, he was behind the wheel and pulling back into traffic.
    “What were you doing back there alone? Smoke break?” he asked in a tone more highhanded than I liked.
    “I don’t smoke—and who are you? My mother?”
    He glared over at me, the oncoming headlights illuminating the dark look in his coal-black eyes.
    “Apparently your mother doesn’t care what you do if you’re working in a strip club.”
    My eyes stung as I looked down.
    “I’m almost twenty-four,” I muttered. “Which means I’m an ahhh -dult. I make my own choices.”
    He made a sound between disgust and disbelief.
    “What do you know about my life?” I snapped.
    “Enough to know a girl like you shouldn’t be working in a club off I-80. That’s what I call terminal parental failure.”
    “A girl like me?” I repeated in disbelief.
    “Yes—a girl like you.”
    We rode the rest of the way in silence. When he took the exit toward school, I felt a wave of relief that Jessica wasn’t home. At one point in time, I would have been wishing the opposite, because she would have sat on the floor with me all night eating ice cream and commiserating.
    Now I dreaded the moments she was home. We had been friends since freshman year. I had met her parents a few times, and they had always seemed like pretty decent people. Her mom was some kind of county administrator, and she always sent Jess jars of homemade jam. Her dad was a sales exec for a pharmaceutical company—and Jess hated him with a vengeance. I had never figured out why, other than Jess had always been kind of angry in general.
    During what should have been my senior year of college, Jess’s parents had paid for her to take the year off—because she