The Cadillac slows, the high whine of asphalt replaced by the crunch of roadside gravel, and then there's nothing. Apart from some residual ticking, even the engine is silent. Danny stops his teeth from chattering long enough to hear a few muffled words of conversation from up front. He doesn't get all of it - he's too cold and he has a pounding headache and he's nauseous and he desperately needs to pee again - but he catches the gist of what they're saying. They're afraid they've lost Stephanie - or rather, they're afraid Stephanie has lost them.
Jeremiah suggests they loop around, to see if they can pick her up again, but Gant is against the idea. He doesn't want to make it obvious that they're luring her in. They talk about this for a few minutes, with Jeremiah coming up with suggestions like an eager employee trying to impress his boss. Gant, for his part, grows increasingly irate, and Jeremiah eventually gets the message and stops suggesting stupid things.
There's movement, and then a door opens - only one - and someone gets out. Gant. His footsteps move along the side of the car, and stop somewhere close to Danny's head.
"I need to pee," Danny calls.
There's a sharp bang of a fist on the trunk. "Shut up," says Gant, and a moment later Danny hears an approaching car. He catches a brief sweep of headlights through the cracks of the trunk, and then the car slows. It isn't Stephanie. Stephanie wouldn't pull up to where Gant was standing. He hears a voice, a man's voice, saying something, possibly offering to help in some way, and then he jumps as three gunshots ring out.
Gant's movements are unhurried as he gets back in the Cadillac. The engine fires up and they pull out on to the road and continue on.
Danny doesn't need to hear the conversation to know that that was a sign for Stephanie to follow.
A half-hour later, he can't hold it any longer. He unzips and pees into the carpet under the latch, the sense of relief momentarily overwhelming the bizarre sense of shame that threatens to engulf him. When he's finished, he zips up and shuffles back as far as he can, his jacket held up over his nose and mouth. He tests the air every ew minutes until he can't smell anything rank, and begins to breathe normally again.
They haven't bothered tying him up after the gas station. They know he's beaten. He knows he's beaten. The acceptance is sudden and unexpected, but no less valid than the thought that follows after. He's beaten now, at this particular moment in time. But once they let him out of this trunk? Once he's got his strength back? Then he has a chance again.
The Cadillac slows again and he wakes. It's morning now. A thin line of warm sunlight falls across his face. He hears Gant say, "Excuse me," very clearly, like he's leaning out of an open window. Running footsteps approach. A woman's voice. An early morning jogger.
A thought surfaces in the murk of Danny's mind. The man in the car. The gunshots. A trail of carnage for Stephanie to follow.
"Run!" Danny screams. "Run! He's going to kill you!"
He hears the woman's voice. Not the words, but the tone - confused, suddenly wary - and Gant, trying to be soothing, trying to coax her closer. Then there's a scrape of rubber soles on the road, and the woman is running and Gant is cursing. Car doors open. A gun fires twice. More cursing.
"Go!" Gant shouts, and Danny hears Jeremiah take off in pursuit.
Gant gets back in the car and they leap forward, tyres spinning. The Cadillac swerves violently and Danny hits his head and jars his shoulder. The world rattles and bumps around him. They're off the road now, on some kind of dirt tack. Branches scrape against metal. Water splashes. Another turn, and another, an for a moment they're going sideways and Danny is sure they're going to crash, but somehow Gant gets the big car back under control and they straighten out, picking up even more speed.
They take a long, wide turn, then brake, coming to a skidding, sliding stop, and the engine cuts out and the door opens and Danny hears the woman grunt. Something thuds heavily on to a crackling surface. Twigs. The ground is covered in twigs and old leaves and Gant and the woman are rolling around on it. The woman struggles fiercely. Gant curses. There's a burst of snapping branches and trampled undergrowth and another thud, and Jeremiah's heavy panting is added to the mix.
"Let go of me!" the woman shouts. "Let go! Let-"
There's a gunshot.
Danny lies in the darkness, listening to Jeremiah getting his breath back while Gant mutters to himself. After a minute, Jeremiah gets to his feet with great effort. He sighs a few more times, grunts, and Danny hears something being dragged, getting closer. It moves round the car to the trunk. A rattle of keys.
The trunk opens and Danny shields his eyes. He hears Jeremiah's cry of disgust as the smell hits him, and then Gant is saying something and Danny finally looks up.
"No!" says Danny, but Jeremiah drops the woman's body on top of him and slams the trunk shut.
Danny screams, shrinking back from the tangle of limbs and long hair, trying to push the body away, but his hands are suddenly wet with something warm and sticky. There's a new smell in the trunk now, the coppery smell of blood.
"That's what you get," says Gant from outside. "That's what you get."
Danny wants to scream and scream, but he locks it down, he keeps the screams clamped inside his chest, and he breathes fast and shallow. He can smell the woman's coconut shampoo.
Car doors close, and the engine starts, and the Cadillac reverses into a three-pointed turn and heads back the way it's come at a gentle pace.
When they get to the road, they stop, and Jeremiah comes round and opens the trunk again. His face is red from exertion. Dribbles of sweat run from his forehead. Glaring at Danny, he takes hold of the woman's torso and hauls her out. He lets the body fall at his feet, and looks in at Danny, his nose wrinkled in disgust.
Then he closes the trunk.
