Chapter 1

Julius Leech sat half-frozen to death in the transport vehicle, manacled at the wrists and ankles. It was snowing outside, which he might have appreciated had his toothache not been excruciating and his extremities numb from cold.

Not only did his orange jumpsuit assault his eyes and sense of style, but it was also thin polyester that did nothing to keep him warm. His shoes were worn, grubby, old-fashioned tennis shoes that reminded him of his boarding school days. Socks that had once been white were now dishwater gray and full of holes. The strong smell of body odor that emanated from him and his fellow prisoners made him want to gag, but no one wanted to take too much time in the shower—especially if you happened to be a convicted child killer.

At least the constant death threats and beatings meant he had his own cell. His duplicitous, rat bastard of a lawyer had, at least, seen to that.

Rage seethed inside him at the unfairness of it all.

Who said he was a fucking psychopath who didn't have feelings?

Well, that bitch of a Forensic Psychologist for one. He laughed inside. The fantasies he'd had about getting her alone for a few hours…

He had plenty of feelings. Plenty of emotions. Just no way to express them in a manner anyone else would appreciate.

The freezing temperatures made him shiver violently, but he refused to be the first one to voice weakness. Weakness was exploited. Weakness could get him killed.

It was difficult enough to concentrate on staying alive when he was in constant agony. The searing pain from his tooth was incessant. Throbbing along every nerve, so bad he'd tried to extract it himself, but it wouldn't budge.

It was all that bitch's fault. Hope fucking Harper. If he hadn't been in prison, he'd have all the dental care he needed. He'd offered to bring in his personal dentist from Boston, but the warden refused. Instead, Julius had to rely on the Bureau of Prisons to provide someone and, for some reason, being a dentist to maximum security inmates wasn't high on most graduates' list.

He wondered if the guy he'd seen last week was even qualified. The moron had performed one root canal but had run out of time to conduct the second one. And the procedure had hurt. If Julius hadn't been shackled to the dentist's chair, he would have shoved that shiny stainless-steel drill right up the guy's nose—which was presumably why he, and the other prisoners, were all restrained.

It was a harmless fantasy, that's all. A way to get through the tedium of endless monotony. Every day the same. Every day as dull and gray as mud, stretching ad infinitum into the future. It was enough to drive even a sane person over the brink, let alone the rest of them.

Scaring the bungling dentist was at least entertaining.

Observing people's fear gave him a buzz. Fear was power. Power was a drug.

He fantasized about seeing fear in Hope's eyes.

He fantasized about killing Hope every night before he closed his eyes and went to sleep. But even in his dreams, she plagued him.

Last time he'd seen her, she'd been staring at him across a courtroom, her strong jaw clenched. Her eyes cold with accusation and loathing.

The things she'd said…

Rage, his constant companion, burned inside his chest, even as his flesh felt as if snowflakes danced upon his skin. A shiver wracked him, and his teeth began to chatter.

Purgatory was real.

He was living it.

Sometimes he wished he was dead…but he wasn't ready yet.

"It's fucking cold back here," Perry Roberts complained.

Hallelujah.

"Turn up the heat. You ain't supposed to torture us this way," Michael Herbert yelled.

"Too right," mumbled Reggie Somack, sitting behind and across from him.

"Quit your whining." The guard at the front of the van was wearing a heavy jacket and decent boots. He fumbled with the heat settings, thank Christ.

"Blast it before we freeze to death!" Somack yelled.

It was early afternoon but looked almost dark out. Overcast, gloomy, the snow growing so thick Julius could barely make out anything outside the window. They were driving on a back road in rural Massachusetts, heading toward Worcester and the nearest medical clinic.

"That's the radio not the heater." The driver, Protection Officer Byron, took his eyes off the road for a fraction of a second to adjust the heat levels, and Julius watched everything unfold in slow motion. The minibus drifted across the divide on a corner, and the driver overcorrected. The minibus started to skid onto the other side of the road and there, out of the snowy darkness, came the faint glow of headlights. Byron jerked the wheel the other way and only succeeded in making the skid worse.

Everyone braced by holding onto the bottom of their seats. The irony of dying in something as mundane as a car accident made Julius laugh despite the situation.

Byron fought to control the vehicle as the other guard, Pedrós, was flung violently against the passenger door. An awful grinding impact seared the air as they hit the guardrail and went straight fucking through it, like a sharp blade through flesh. Roberts and Somack both screamed. Julius opened his mouth in horror, but no sound came out.

It felt as if they were flying through the snowy night—Santa's nightmare sleigh. Tree branches rushed past the windows, scraped the sides of the vehicle like giant, bony fingernails. Then the minibus smashed into the side of a hill with a jarring impact. The windshield shattered as they shuddered to a halt. The side of Julius's face bashed against the seat in front of him even as chains held him in place. His wrists and ankles burned from yanking on the restraints.

After the shock of the accident, the sudden frigid, silent darkness was strangely alien and overwhelming.

"Everyone okay?" asked the driver shakily.

Julius started to laugh.

"You are one messed-up motherfucker, Leech," Somack huffed out.

Metal groaned. Branches cracked. Someone cried out in pain.

The idiot driver, Byron, turned on the light from his cell phone and swung it over the prisoners. The other guard, Pedrós, was nowhere to be seen.Byron stared dazedly around as if looking for the missing man. Julius flinched when Byron shone the light in his eyes.

"E-everyone stay calm, and I'll call for help."

Herbert rasped out, "Got a problem here."

The cell phone's light swung back to the man, and Julius winced as he saw a tree branch had speared the guy through the chest.

Wow.

That had to hurt.

"I think my arm's broken." Reggie Somack cradled his right arm awkwardly as the remaining guard swung the light toward him while still trying to make a call.

Julius had no idea if Somack was telling the truth, but it was a miracle they weren't all dead.

"Goddammit," Byron bit out. "I don't have signal."

The vehicle gave a sudden, terrifying lurch, and they all screamed. The driver scanned his beam over to the right, and Julius realized the ground dropped precipitously away and into the icy river below. The minibus was propped against a group of large saplings that strained under the heavy load.

The minibus jolted again, metal grinding against wood.

"Get us out of here!" Reggie yelled.

Byron was sheet white with blood dripping from his forehead as he looked through the wire screen that separated off prisoners. He belatedly came to a decision and quickly unlocked the divider. "I'm going to come back there and release you all. Those that can will climb back up to the road with me, and I'll call for help. Get the emergency response team out for Herbert and Somack if they can't make it up the hill. Search and rescue team will have to come out here to look for Officer Pedrós."

Julius was pretty sure Pedrós was dead at the bottom of the ravine.

Byron unlocked the chain that looped through Perry Roberts's cuffs and undid the shackles so he could move. Byron stood back with his hand on the butt of his weapon. "Go on now. No funny business. People are hurting."

Roberts uncurled his large frame and staggered forward.

Byron unlocked Herbert next, though the guy wasn't going anywhere with the branch skewering his chest. Byron rested a hand on the injured man's shoulder. "Hang on, Michael. Help's coming."

"Hurry it the fuck up."

Byron unlocked Julius next. Julius scooted forward. A sense of hope pierced the shock of the accident and bloomed inside him with the same euphoria as a line of the finest coke.

Perry Roberts had his feet pressed against the buckled door, attempting to kick it open. "It's stuck."

Julius peered over the man's massive shoulder. "There's a tree in the way. Let me get out through the front window and pull from the other side."

Roberts shoved him aside with his handcuffed hands. "I'm going first."

Julius reined in his seething resentment.

Roberts cursed when the broken safety glass cut into him as he crawled over the steering wheel. Julius went to follow, but Reggie Somack knocked him aside and awkwardly maneuvered like a big orange caterpillar over the dash and across the hood. Nothing wrong with his arm now.

The minibus lurched and Julius launched himself out after Somack.

The wind stole his breath. It was so damned cold.

His numb fingers clung to frozen metal as he pulled himself urgently over the slippery hood and tumbled to the ground. He rose to his feet, then stumbled over the broken roots in the darkness and clung onto the sinewy trunk of a young sapling that threatened to snap under his weight.

Julius could make out the faint orange-clad figures of his fellow convicts through the falling snow. As Officer Byron began to climb out of the window, Roberts and Somack began to rock the bus.

"Stop that! Stop! Herbert's in there." Byron lost his gun as he used both hands to hold on.

Roberts and Somack didn't stop. The guard tried to pull himself through the window frame, but his equipment belt snagged just as the back end of the vehicle began to slide. A few seconds later, the sound of the minibus crashing into the water reached them, it had taken poor, pathetic Officer Byron with it.

The two convicts turned toward him, and Julius tried not to shrink away. Was he next?

"That never happened. Got it?" Roberts pointed his finger at him.

"I didn't see a thing," Julius agreed quickly.

"Don't follow us, you little freak," Somack warned.

They set off east, and Julius stood there frozen for a few seconds until he realized he was free. He was free, and this was his big chance. The fact he was more likely to freeze to death as snow immediately soaked through his pathetic shoes and the tangerine jumpsuit was more irony in play, but he wasn't about to sit here and die. He slipped and staggered up the rugged bank, heading toward the road. Terrain was steep, and he was breathing heavily. He took another step and tripped and landed on something bulky and warm.

His numb fingers reached out and found cloth beneath a thin layer of snow.

Shit.

It was a body.

Pedrós?

Was he dead?

Julius searched through pockets until he found the guard's cell phone. He turned on the flashlight and saw the man's head was bent at an unnatural angle, eyes staring. Those eyes made Julius pause for a second, but he didn't have time to contemplate death's mystique. He found the guard's keys next and unlocked the cuffs, rubbing his wrists as he removed the hated metal bracelets.

He leaned back for a moment as violent shivers overtook him. Then he decided fate had placed Pedrós in his path for a reason. Julius wrestled off the guy's coat, jacket, and shirt. He did the same with the man's boots, socks, pants. He skipped the underwear because he had standards. He stripped off his own hated orange jumpsuit, dancing in the cold, before he quickly slipped into the guard's warm clothes. They were too big, but that was okay.

Julius finished dressing, patted the gun he now wore on his belt and the cuffs resting in his pocket. It felt odd to be dressed like the men and women who'd controlled his every move for so many years. Odd, but good. He straightened his spine and rolled his shoulders. He gathered his jumpsuit under one arm because leaving it behind would be a giant orange flag.

Nothing he could do about the body, but the authorities wouldn't know who'd taken the guard's clothes. They wouldn't even know if Julius had survived the crash. It might give him a head start.

He kept the cell phone. He'd get rid of it as soon as he got his bearings.

Freedom.

He could taste it. It was as precious and desired as a baby to a barren couple, as food to a starving man.

He clambered to the top of the hill, breathing hard, cautious in case Roberts or Somack were also there, or in case the authorities had already missed them. When he got to the edge of the road, he peered through the trees.

Nothing.

No one.

He tried to check the map on Pedrós's cell, but it was passcode protected and useless to him. Frustrated, he flung it toward the river.

A car approached, and Julius took a risk. He stuffed the jumpsuit under his jacket, stood at the edge of the road and flagged down the driver. He had to get away from here as fast as possible—that was the only way he'd escape for good. The car skidded to a halt, and Julius strode confidently to the passenger window and bent down.

It was a young man, mid-twenties.

Julius slipped the gun into his pocket.

"There's been an accident. I need a ride to the nearest town."

"Sure, man. Get in."

Julius got in. He knew suddenly that this was all meant to be. This was fate. He finally registered something else too. He touched his jaw. His tooth didn't hurt anymore. He'd knocked it out during the crash.

The day got better and better.

He pictured Hope's face when she heard the news. She couldn't ignore him now, could she? Bitch.

She'd know he was coming for her. And she'd know why.