“I don’t care!” I nearly shrieked. “You can help me this time, I have to try to get back to him!”

Turning us, Trent pressed me against the wall and covered my mouth with his large hand. After a dark look, he dropped his head, and turned it slightly as he listened for anything coming from the hall. When minutes passed, and nothing happened, he removed his hand and leaned in to whisper softly in my ear, “You can’t yell things like that. If one of them heard you, they’re going to be waiting for us. There are men waiting upstairs, there’s no way for both of us to get past them without them trying to take me down . . . and take you.”

“I need Kash to know I’m alive,” I said hoarsely. “I’ll do anything, I’ll risk it, I don’t care.” I hadn’t tried to escape since those first couple days here . . . but at the time, I’d known Kash would try to find me. Knowing he’d given up had changed everything for me. “If he isn’t coming for me, then I’ll die trying to get back to him.”

A brief, choking noise left Trent, and the arm still curled around me tightened. “I can’t let you do that, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I let something happen to you now. I— Fuck. If I . . . Rachel, if I try to get in contact with him, will you please make an effort to keep yourself alive while you’re here?”

My head flew back, and my gaze rested on his pained expression.

“But know that even if I do get in touch with him without one of the others finding out, it might not end well for him. This place is full of armed men; he might not get in here, and get you out, alive. I can’t be the person responsible for that. You would hate me.”

“Trent, please! Please, anything, I’ll do anything! Just let him know where I am and that I’m okay. I know they’ll come for me.”

His dark eyes took on more hurt as he nodded his head. “I’ll try. I can’t promise anything, there’s no cell service down here, so I’d have to go up toward the top. Getting close to the outside right now with everyone against me might not be easy. They might already know if Romero wants me out, and if they think I’m trying to leave, they’ll kill me in a heartbeat. It would leave you unprotected, and without him knowing. I just . . . I don’t know. I can’t put you in that position.”

“It’ll be okay.” I tried desperately to reassure him, and just watched as the pain on his face turned to sorrow. “Everything will be okay, but we need to try!”

He watched me for a few seconds before nodding and releasing me. “I’ll do it, if that’s what you want.”

Yes, that’s what I want. I want my fiancé back. I want my life! I want to get out of here and never leave Kash’s side again.

I launched myself back into Trent’s arms and hugged his neck hard. “Thank you. I can’t say that enough, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, let’s see if this works first.” He pushed me back and turned to move the exercise machine away from the door leading to the hall. It then hit me what he was doing for me.

“When they come for me, I’ll let them know what you’ve done for me. I’ll do everything to make sure you don’t go to jail for this, Trent.”

He dropped his head, stopped pushing the heavy equipment, slowly straightened and faced me. “For what I’ve done, I deserve to go to jail at the very least. That’s not what’s hard about doing this for you, Rachel.”

“Trent,” I whispered and reached for him, but he moved my arm away.

“Let’s go get something for us to eat, and then get back in here. All right?”

I nodded hesitantly and grabbed onto his shirt when he opened the door.

Trent hadn’t felt comfortable leaving me in his room while he’d gone to get our food during the power outage, so I’d been going with him and sticking closer than usual as we did.

We stepped into the hall and quietly made our way to the kitchen. I watched as he quickly went through the pantry and pulled enough food down to last us for a while, I guess in case the power stayed off throughout tomorrow so we wouldn’t have to come back out.

That same feeling I’d had all morning was back, and I knew we needed to hurry. Something wasn’t right, and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Trent, we really need to go,” I whispered and turned to look around us in the dark kitchen.

“Okay, come on. Hold on to me.”

“Something bad is coming.”

“I told you, Rach, it’s the weather. It’s hurricane season, but we’re underground, we’re okay if anything happens.”

“No, I—” My scream was muffled by the hand that went around my mouth, and I immediately began thrashing against whoever was holding me.

I heard all the food drop to the ground and watched as Trent spun around to look at us.

“Carson, let her go.”

“Fuck you, Trent. They’ve completely stopped trying to get everyone out. We need her to get them out.”

“Carson, let. Her. Go.”

The hand around my mouth tightened and my eyes widened when I saw what was in Trent’s hand. “What are you going to do? Shoot at me in the dark when she’s in my arms? We need her to get them out, and when we’re done, you can have your whore back. What’s left of her anyway.”

“If you do anything to her, know that your death will be painful,” Trent said, and the sincerity in those words chilled me.