A wave of nausea woke Lily. She groaned and rolled over but found no relief. She was lying on something hard. She opened her eyes to the smell of gasoline and darkness. Wherever she was, she was moving. Calm down, she told herself. Calm down and focus. She listened and heard the sounds of the highway. She was in the trunk of a car. They weren't going fast, probably under the speed limit.

Her head was killing her. She closed her eyes and tried to remember what happened. She'd been running, running away from Nikoli and the girl he'd been with, and smacked into someone. She'd mumbled an apology and tried to go around him, but he'd caught her arm and pulled her around. He'd told her to be quiet and come with him or he'd cut her. Her upper arm started to sting as soon as she remembered him saying that. She'd tried to get away, and he had cut her. That hadn't quieted her down. Adam's dad taught her to scream and fight like hell if she ever got in this kind of situation, and that was exactly what she'd done. The last thing she remembered was the guy's fist barreling down at her, and then it had been lights out.

If she panicked now, she'd end up dead and missing instead of just missing. She ignored the pain in her arm and started feeling around the dark space. The first thing she looked for was a trunk latch. All new cars had them in case someone got locked in. There wasn't one, which said this was an older car.

Next, she examined the taillights, and this was her first bout of good luck. She turned and kicked the taillight several times as hard as she could, and it knocked the light out. Wiggling around, she managed to turn so her head was now looking out of the broken taillight. They were surrounded by cars. How to get their attention?

She searched the interior of the trunk as best she could but found nothing. It was completely empty. Think, Lily, think! Her bra! It was white. She rolled so she could unsnap it and worked until she got it off. She wrapped one strap around her wrist so the wind couldn't rip it out of her hands. Then she thrust it out the taillight's now-empty hole and started waving.

She prayed to God someone would see it and call the police.

***

Nikoli called Luther and explained what was going on and asked him to call 911. The campus police were not the ones to handle this. His thoughts kept running to the one place he didn't want them to. The serial killer. He'd been getting closer and closer to the Boston Campus for months now. He knew how worried Lily was about it. What if the guy had found her, taken her while she was too upset to even think about fighting back?

Dear God, he'd never forgive himself if anything happened to his Lily Bells, his Milaya.

Kade. He'd call his brother.

"What?" Kade barked into the phone when he answered.

"It's Lily." Nikoli's voice cracked, but he didn't care. "She's gone, Kade. Someone took her."

"Tell me."

"I came outside to find her, and all I can find is her phone..."

"She might have accidentally dropped it," Kade soothed.

"No, you don't understand. There's blood leading from her phone to the street. Someone forcefully took her, Kade."

"How long ago?"

"Maybe five minutes."

"Stay where you are. I'm coming. Text me the address."

Nikoli did as he was told, but he knew enough about these kinds of situations to know every second counted. He looked up when he heard running steps. Luther, Mike, Adam, and several other guys were barreling toward him.

"Stop!" he shouted. "We can't track the area up in case there's a clue."

"What happened?" Adam growled, getting right up in his face. "You piece of shit..."

"Look, now is not the time for this." Nikoli cut him off. "We can bitch slap each other later. Right now, we need to find Lily."

Adam nodded, but his eyes promised Nikoli a world of pain.

"How many people do we have sober enough to drive?" he asked.

"Not enough," Mike said grimly, "but we can get more here."

"We need to spread out and start looking. I know it's probably not going to do anything, but at least if we're out there looking and she's trying to get away, we might see something, anything that can help us find her."

"I'm on it." Mike took off toward the house, Adam hot on his heels. Less than a minute went by before people started to stream out of the fraternity, some climbing into cars, others on foot, to look for Lily.

Kade arrived about the same time the police did. Campus security showed up bursting with indignation the police had been called first. Nikoli repeated his story to countless people before he finally got fed up and stalked over to his brother.

"They have my statement, and they can question me all they want after we find Lily. I'm going to go look for her."

"Nik, just slow down. You don't even know where she is..."

They both hushed when news of a bra waving out of the broken taillight of an old sedan on the highway came over Kade's police scanner.

"With me," Kade said, and they climbed into his FBI-issued SUV. Nikoli gave him directions, and before long, they were on the highway, breaking every speed limit they came across, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

It took them twenty minutes, but they caught up with the unmarked car following the sedan. Nikoli spotted Mike and Adam closing in as well. He'd forgotten Mike's dad had installed a police scanner in his truck. They would have heard the call too.

The sedan sped up, weaving through traffic, having seen the police lights. Nikoli cursed when the car started to cut dangerously in and out of traffic. The guy was going to crash. Kade came to the same realization and barked an order for ambulances to start heading their way.

Mike's truck was even with the SUV, and Nikoli rolled down his window. "They're gonna crash!"

"We know!" Mike yelled back.

Kade sped up, twisting the SUV in between cars in a way the poor thing had never been meant to. He sideswiped two vehicles to keep the sedan in sight. The old, gold-colored Saturn made a sharp turn to the right trying to get off at the exit, but the momentum was too much. It couldn't stop the force that plowed it into the car in front of it, and then went rolling, landing on the other side of the median where a tractor trailer hit it head on.

They all stared in horror as the car came to a stop against the guardrail, mangled into a mess of metal and plastic.

Kade came to his senses first and drove over the median to get to the other side. Nikoli had the door open and was running before he'd even come to a stop. This reminded him of the day Lily had run to him in Miami, but this was so much worse. His wreck had been minor. This was...she could be dead. God, please don't let her die.

He skidded to a halt, looking for the trunk. He saw a tiny piece of white material and said a prayer of thanks. His hands roamed until he found the seam of the trunk and pulled. Nothing. It wouldn't budge. Adam, Mike, and Kade joined him, and together they forced the lid up.

"Nononononono," Nikoli whispered, looking at Lily's lifeless body lying as twisted and mangled as the car. He reached for her, and Mike and Adam grabbed him.

"Don't," Mike said. "We need to wait for the paramedics. We could hurt her more if we move her."

"I need to know if she's alive." Tears streamed down his face, and he didn't care. All he saw was Lily, bleeding and so still.

Kade leaned in and put two fingers to the pulse point on her neck. "She's got a pulse. It's weak, but it's there."

They could see more lights in the distance. Nikoli tuned it all out. All he saw was Lily. He knelt in front of the trunk and prayed. He hadn't prayed to God since he was a small boy, but he prayed now. He promised God that if he let Lily live, he'd spend every minute of the rest of their lives making it up to her. He promised so many things if only God would let his Milaya live. He was barely aware of the tears running down his cheeks or the sobs torn from of him. All he saw was his Lily Bells.

Kade gently pulled him away so the paramedics could go to work.

"What the hell?" Mike muttered. Nikoli's head whipped around to see Mike staring at the driver. He went over to see what had Mike so startled.

Brian Greggory.

Brian Greggory from the football team.

A slow rage built in Nikoli, and he ripped the door from the hinges. Kade tackled him before he could grab him.

"Let me go!"

"You can't beat the guy up, Nikoli. You'll get charged with assault and battery!"

"After what he did to Lily?" Nikoli shouted, enraged. "They can arrest me!"

"Lily needs you right now," Kade reasoned. "What is she going to do when she wakes up and you're in jail? Think, Nik. Just think for two seconds. What's more important? Lily, or beating an unconscious guy who won't even realize the beating he's getting?"

Nikoli stalked back over to where the paramedics were loading her into the ambulance. Adam climbed in behind them, and the paramedic said they could only take one passenger. He didn't argue the point, just headed for Mike's truck. Mike was waiting for him.

Mike pulled out behind the ambulance, and they both sat in grim silence as they followed the flashing lights.