Or running.
On Hell Road, those are usually the same thing.
That makes the laugh die in my throat.
I cut the engine.
The sudden silence is thick enough to hear the ticking heat of Widowmaker, the distant pulse of frogs down in the ditch, and one small, muffled sound from inside the truck.
A kid.
Hell.
Nothing ruins a good strange night like a kid.
I tuck the panties in one fist and walk toward the mess, boots crunching over gravel. My other hand stays loose near the knife at my belt because I ain’t stupid. A broken-down truck on a backroad can be a woman in trouble, or it can be bait. Around Hell, Kentucky, sometimes it’s both.
Especially on Hell Road.
“Anybody bleeding?” I call out.
The driver’s door opens fast, then stops like whoever’s inside thinks better of showing herself. For one heartbeat, all I see is a hand gripping the door frame. Short polished nails. One chipped. No ring, but the pale mark is there, a naked little ghost around her finger.
Then a woman steps down.
One hand grips the door.
The other presses to her stomach like she’s trying to hold herself together.
My headlight catches her piece by piece.
Messy dark hair pulled back in a knot that used to be neat before the night got hold of her. Pale face. Wide eyes that have cried too much and slept too little. A T-shirt stretched over abody that has no damn business being wrapped in panic. Jeans snug enough to make a better man look away and a worse man step closer. She has the kind of face that tells me she knows the difference between good lighting and bad intentions. Even scared half to death, she holds her chin like dignity’s the last thing she owns and she’ll scratch somebody bloody before she lets it go.
Pretty, but not soft.
Scared, but not weak.
Polished under the damage, like a woman who ironed her pride before the world set fire to the closet.
The difference matters.
“These yours?” I ask, holding up the panties.
For half a second, she just stares at me.
Then her face changes.
Not soft. Not grateful.
Mortified.
If Hell Road opened under her boots and swallowed her whole, I believe she’d dive in headfirst and thank the devil for the courtesy.
“Oh my God,” she whispers.
“I’m guessing yes.”
She snatches them from me so fast that I nearly lose a finger. “You could’ve just said you found them.”