The night bled into morning as the car ate up the empty highway, a pale gray ribbon twisting through the hills. I hadn’t slept in nearly thirty hours, but the adrenaline kept my eyes open. Dante drove with one hand on the wheel, the other resting near the pistol in his lap. Every so often he’d glance at the rearview mirror, his jaw hard enough to cut glass.

We’d been on the road for hours—no music, no words, only the hum of the engine and the heavy pulse of everything unsaid between us. The world outside blurred into streaks of mist and dawn. I could almost believe we’d escaped, if...