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when the damsels didn’t want rescuing.
    He had a mission. The longer he delayed, the more people died. And the longer vengeance went unserved.

F IVE
    D arby made it through another day at work without any more encounters with the stranger. She wondered if he’d already left. No one stayed here long after all. You were either born and bred in this town or just passing through. Like her, he wouldn’t be sticking around.
    She didn’t know what to make of him. She guessed he wasn’t the murdering rapist variety or he would have finished her off last night. Even though he’d done nothing more than caution her about jogging alone at night—something a nice guy would do—she was convinced he wasn’t a
nice
guy. Nice guys didn’t look the way he did. They didn’t have eyes like his that
glowed
. Eyes that made her decidedly uncomfortable.
    She finished her cereal bar and took a swig of juice. Reclining on her couch, she watched the television blindly, her mind drifting, returning to last night and
him
.
    She supposed it was natural. She couldn’tremember the last time she’d talked to a hot guy. She felt like a schoolgirl with her first crush. She replayed their conversations over and over in her head, thinking about what he said, what she said … what she could have said
better
.
    She groaned and shook her head side to side. She didn’t know why she was so bothered with any of it. None of it mattered.
    She refocused her gaze on the television. Usually true crime shows riveted her. Her feet were propped up on the old chest that served as her coffee table. She wiggled her tired, numb toes. After a long day on her feet, it would be easy to blow off her planned run and veg out. But she could veg later. More important, she never slept quite as well as she did after a run. She slept like the dead—a deep, dreamless sleep. The kind of sleep no demon could invade. And wasn’t that the point? The point of everything? Her whole life.
    Running from demons.
    With a deep breath, she pushed up from the couch and turned off the TV. Glancing out the blinds, she saw that daylight was fading. She frowned, telling herself she could push it hard for thirty minutes and beat full dark.
    And why should that matter?
a small voice demanded. An
unwanted
voice because it wasn’t hers. It was
his
. His advice had stuck with her, andshe couldn’t deny he was right. She shouldn’t be out alone at night. Especially with people getting killed around town.
    Ignoring the voice, she laced up her shoes and left her apartment at a hard run. Her feet beat the pavement quick and fierce. As she passed the B&B, she couldn’t stop herself from looking. The Hummer was gone and a sinking sensation filled her. Had he left town for good?
    She pushed harder, sprinting now, air fogging from her lips and nose as she turned left off Main, following the sidewalk through a neighborhood of brick houses with smoking chimneys.
    She spotted Corey’s house ahead. Or rather, Corey’s mom’s house. Corey and her little boy lived there with her. As her shoes pounded the snow-covered sidewalk, a truck roared past and pulled into Corey’s driveway. Even with the window rolled up, heavy rock blared from the inside. The driver laid on the horn once. In moments, Corey was coming out her door and skipping down the front steps of her porch. Darby guessed this was the “date.”
    Darby ran past their house to the end of the street and turned around. The truck’s taillights glowed in the night. Bad manners or not, she felt herself envying Corey her date.
    She picked up the pace, her legs working harder,the air sawing from her mouth faster. She turned back onto Main, intent on exorcising those feelings. Determined to rid herself of every emotion, every feeling except the ache in her muscles and the reliable burn in her lungs.
    Her legs stretched long as she passed the various storefronts of downtown, her pumping arms cutting through the dry, cold air. It helped. This