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face. He let go, and I scrambled across the landing and up the second set of stairs.

Lex was hot on my heels as I raced into the living room, desperately looking for something I could use to defend myself.

The contents of my purse were still spilled everywhere, and the cell phone was still lit up and open on the table. “Help me!” I screamed in the direction of the phone. “He has a gun!”

Lex jumped me from behind, and I fell under him, onto my stomach and crying out as the glass in my thigh was shoved even deeper into my leg. Pain screamed through my body and tears filled my eyes.

I couldn’t seem to think past the pain.

Lex flipped me over and straddled me. I forgot about the pain as my hand closed over something lying on the floor and I brought it up and jammed it down into the top of his thigh.

Lex shouted as the pen buried itself into his leg. Then I picked up a pack of Tic Tacs and threw it at his head. (What? I had to use what was available.)

He knocked the mints away and then reached for the pen sticking out of his leg. I twisted beneath him and he fell sideways. We went rolling across the floor as I reached up and gouged my thumb into his eye socket.

He jerked away and I followed him, ripping my gun out of his hand.

“Please stop!” I cried. I knew he wouldn’t, but I admit, I yelled it for the benefit of the operator on the other end of the phone line.

I wanted absolutely no doubt that what I was about to do was self-defense.

Lex grabbed onto my ankle and grinned up at me. I kicked him in the face and blood bloomed around his teeth. He looked like some funhouse clown that had gone mad.

With a single jerk, he sent me falling backward, landing on my back.

Inside the bathroom, Lucy barked and I could hear her clawing at the door, trying to get out.

“After you’re dead,” Lex said, crawling up my body. “I’m gonna screw your body before it turns cold.”

I shot him.

The bullet slammed into his shoulder and he recoiled. I scrambled out from under him and stood.

“Honor!” Nathan screamed from downstairs, and my knees went weak with relief.

“I’m up here!” I yelled, my voice sounding more like a squeak.

Feet pounded on the stairs, and I moved to rush toward him. I wanted his arms around me. I wanted to see that he was okay.

A hand closed around my ankle and jerked me back.

I screamed.

Lex laughed.

Twisting quickly, without hesitation, I shot him in the head.

Nathan skidded to a stop at the top of the stairs, his wide eyes going between Lex and me. I could only imagine what he saw. Me covered in blood with a busted lip and a heaving chest, holding a gun, while standing over a man with a bullet in his head.

Reality crashed over me.

The gun fell from my hand and bounced off the carpet.

I shot someone.

I killed him.

My kidnapper was dead.

“Honor,” Nathan said breathlessly and rushed across the room to wrap me in his arms. My body shook violently, so hard that my teeth chattered and my skin felt icy.

“I killed him,” I said, shoving my face into his bare, blood-smeared chest.

“You protected yourself, baby,” he murmured. “You did real good.”

Police sirens drew closer and soon, the flashing blue-and-red lights filled the windows and the driveway.

I felt lightheaded and I knew I lost a lot of blood. I pulled back from Nathan and looked at his side where the bullet entered his body.

“It’s not so bad,” he murmured, tipping my chin up so I couldn’t look.

“He was crazy,” I said, my voice hollow.

“Hell yes, he was.” Nathan agreed, swiping the pad of his thumb across my chin. My lower lip was swollen again.

The cops burst in the front door with weapons drawn. I weaved a little on my feet. Standing up was growing harder and harder.

Nathan scooped me up in his arms and turned toward the cops. “I need a medic!” he roared.

Then he glanced down into my face. “Just hang on, Honor.” He got this pinched look in his eyes. “Don’t you die on me.”

I smiled. “I wouldn’t dream of dying. I have way too much to live for.”

As my house filled with emergency workers and medical personnel, Nathan and I held each other’s gaze.

“Me too,” he murmured, pressing his lips to my forehead. “Me too.”

EPILOGUE

Honor

One Year Later…

Flashbulbs exploded everywhere around us, blinding me, and I tried not to recoil. This night had been everything that dreams are made of, but all the attention, the crowds, and the noise was starting to wear on me.

Nathan wrapped a solid hand around mine and pulled me through the crowd toward the waiting limo. He held the door while I slid across the black leather seats, and he followed me in, shutting the door behind us.

“Holy cow,” I gasped. “That was awesome and insane all at the same time!”

“Better get used to it. You’re a celebrity now.”

“I think you’re more popular than I am.” I smiled coyly from my side of the very long seat.

Nathan grinned and pushed off the door, slipping right up alongside me so we were pressed together, hip to ankle. “It’s only because this author I know wrote this book about me that made me look like a real hero.”

I climbed into his lap. The red gown I was wearing made it hard to move so I bunched it up around my thighs. “All I did was tell our story.”

“You did more than that,” he said, pride filling his voice. “You gave a voice to every single victim out there.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but I did pray that I gave hope to some. Once the questioning, the media frenzy, and the funeral of Mary (her body was found weeks later, disposed in a crude shallow grave on the mountain) was over, Nathan and I settled into life together.

Being with him was more than I could have ever asked for. He made me so incredibly happy that I couldn’t begin to regret being kidnapped.

But it wasn’t something I was able to get over so quickly either. Nightmares, visions of Lex with a bullet wound in his head, and anxiety were all side effects of what happened.

Through it all, Nathan was there. He understood better than most people could. He never pushed, but his quiet strength was always there. He never complained when my screaming woke him in the night, and he put all his guns out of sight until I could look at one without feeling panic claw at my lungs.

I might have been the one to write a book about what happened to me, a book that debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and remained there to this day. I might have been the one whose name flashed in the credits on the big screen after the movie that was based on my book— based on us—premiered tonight. But Nathan was the one who encouraged me to write it.

After watching me go through various stages of anger and guilt, he suggested I write it all down. That I sit