Chapter 44

Cassie awakens in intense pain, zip-tied and lashed to a post in a rotting cabin, and spots Agent Sterling similarly bound and bloodied. Sterling explains they were knocked out and transported in a car trunk to an isolated, wooded location.

Cassie reveals she wore a GPS anklet, expecting it to alert Briggs to her departure and lead a rescue. Sterling breaks down and admits she never activated the tracker, believing the anklet alone would deter Cassie—meaning no help is coming. Both recognize the killer will return.

Trying to sustain each other, they analyze the offender: male, mid‑20s, intelligent but not necessarily educated, using a trunked car likely not his. Sterling vows to distract him so Cassie can run, despite the near impossibility with guns, bindings, and the isolated setting.

To steady Cassie, Sterling recalls her late friend Scarlett—a childhood “worst‑case scenario” planner who later worked in the FBI lab—and how that spirit lives on in Sloane. The memory strengthens their resolve even as Cassie’s profiling instincts envision the killer’s escalating violence beyond Redding’s script.

The door opens; heavy footsteps approach. The man believed to have killed the professor, Emerson, Clark, and likely Christopher stands between them, holding a hunting rifle, confirming their immediate danger.