He moved so fast I was in a headlock before I realized he was moving.  I slammed my elbow back into him hard, again and again, rage giving me strength, and an inability to feel any of the damage being inflicted on me.

He squeezed my neck tighter and tighter, until I felt my vision getting fuzzy, my limbs going slack.

“You think this will help her?” he growled into my ear.  “You think fighting me will get you even one step closer to finding out what happened to her?”

I shook my head, and began a fresh bout of struggling out of his hold.  Finally, an elbow to his groin had him releasing me with a curse.

“You said help her?” I gasped, staggering back.

I’d latched onto that part fast.  “Is she okay?  Is she . . . alive?”

He shook his head, and it took everything in me to keep from charging at him again.  “I can’t tell you anything.  I have to show you.  If you really care about her, you’ll come with me, no questions asked.”

I didn’t hesitate.  “Fine.  Let’s go.”

“Leave your phone behind.  I’m driving.”

I took my phone out of my pocket, tossing it on the sofa.  “Where’s your car?”

“Just outside of the security gate.  You’ll sit in the back.  I can’t have you seeing where we’re going.  And I need to pat you down first.”

I let him, holding my arms out, thinking of taking his thick neck in my hands the entire time.

He straightened in front of me when he was done, and grinned, though his pale eyes stayed cold.  Bastard was enjoying my antipathy.  He was young, mid-twenties, if I had to guess, but something in his eyes told me he’d seen and done things I’d only ever written about.

The f**ker was tall, maybe an inch taller than I was.  And bigger than I’d realized, muscular  and broad shouldered.  Probably outweighed me by fifteen pounds.

I really hated that.

It was a bit of a walk, and as I followed him, watching his back with gimlet eyes, I couldn’t help but poke at him.  “You know she loves me, right?  I don’t know what you have over her, but it’s me she wants.  Me she belongs to.  I’ve staked my claim on every last inch of her.”

He didn’t say a word, just turned on his heel and punched me square in the jaw.

I staggered back, but recovered with a mean left hook aimed right for his teeth.

He ducked, and I caught him in the right temple.

“Shut the f**k up!” he roared, blond hair falling into his crazed eyes, fists clenched, looking like he wanted to come at me again.  “You talk about her like that again, and I will f**king end you, you understand?  And I sure as f**k won’t give you any answers.”

I didn’t speak, just nodded at him to keep walking.

I didn’t have one single, civilized word to say to him, so it was best to stay silent.

I had more than a few reservations about getting into the back of a van with no windows, driven by a man that hated me, but I barely paused before climbing in.

I knew it was possibly the stupidest thing I’d ever done, but what choice did I have?

If there was even a chance I could find out what had happened to her, I had to take it.

There wasn’t even a seat in back, and the compartment was completely blocked off from the driver’s cabin.

I had essentially walked into a moving cage.

He started driving just as I sat.  He was a maniac of a driver, turning corners hard enough to send me sliding across the floor, accelerating so fast that I slammed into the back door.

And it wasn’t a short drive.

I didn’t have any way to keep track of time, but it must have been hours before he started to slow, then turn sharply, then stop.

I had plenty of time to wish I hadn’t worn a suit to travel from my parents’ home.  It was a habit, though, with them.  No jeans for the Masters, no.  And whenever I went home, I had to pretend to be one of them, though in reality, I spent most of my time in sweats in front of a laptop.

I loosened, and finally removed my tie, undoing the top three buttons of my white dress shirt, and taking off my dark gray jacket.

“How long have we been driving?” I asked when he opened the back doors to glare at me.

“I’m not going tell you that, and don’t bother trying to figure it out.  The less you know the better.  We aren’t there yet, anyway.  Just a pit stop.”

He tossed me a bottle of water.  “Drink up.”

I caught the water.  He shut the door again.

It had been roughly three in the afternoon when we’d left, and the sun was beginning to set now.  Roughly four hours of driving so far, I guessed.

More time passed.  Lots of time.

All the while, my mind raced.

I slept propped against the side of the van for a bit, my jacked held against my temple as the most useless pillow in history.

Even sleeping, I dreamt of Iris.

Where were we going?  There was no way of telling, but when I’d been counting turns at the beginning, with some notion of where we were, I thought we’d headed east out of town.

In my mind, we were somewhere deep in Utah by now, but again, that was the vaguest of guesses.

The van careening to a stop again woke me, and when the back doors opened, it was to darkness.

He tossed me another bottle of water and a protein bar, told me to shut up before I spoke, and shut the doors again.