Surrender by Stephanie Tyler Page A

enough to make her drop to her knees. Her skull seemed to be squeezed by a tightening band that threatened her sight and her sanity.
    No pictures or flashes—nothing. But something was very, very wrong, and it was happening to someone she was close to.
    There weren’t many she could think of.
    “Dare,” she managed to croak.
    “I’m here—I’ve got you,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
    “A headache,” she lied.
    “Come on, you need to sit down.” He half carried her to the chair, would’ve done so completely if not for her stupidly stubborn resistance.
    “I’m fine. It must be the stress.”
    “Looks like more than stress,” he said.
    Telling him the truth now would make her far too vulnerable to Dare—and although Dare told her he planned on turning her over, she’d gotten the sense she could change his mind.
    She closed her eyes, massaged her temples and tried to divine the feeling, tried to get it back, but everything had faded, leaving her exhausted and tense.
    Outside, thunder rumbled and the rain came down harder than before. A phone began to ring—and immediately she knew what was happening. “There’s another phone in my bag—front pocket. It’s the phone I use for my job—a throwaway—and the only one who has the number is Marnie.” She heard herself babbling even as Dare grabbed the phone and handed it to her.
    She put it on speaker when she picked up. The female voice on the other end didn’t wait for her to get out “hello” before she started screaming.
    Marnie.
    There was a scuffle and another scream, and then the phone went dead. Grace jumped up. “We have to go to her. Dare, you have to take me to Marnie’s house.”
    She met his eyes and saw he believed her.
Thank God.
He went outside first, checked the area before coming back to usher her into the car.
    She followed him out into the rain and into his truck. He threw her a blanket, which she pulled over herself. She was soaked again from that short walk, but she didn’t care. The most important thing was that they were headed to Marnie’s. She clutched the cell phone, continued attempting to call and getting only a busy signal in return.
    That wasn’t a good sign. She stared at Dare’s profile in the darkness—his jaw was tight. “Breathe, Grace—we’ll get to her.”
    “She’s already dead.”
    He didn’t argue with that, didn’t try to give her false hope or ply her with platitudes. Was it Marcus who’d come back for Marnie, or someone else?
    It was much different riding with him when she wasn’t bound, but she was even more frightened this time around.
    “You’re on the right track,” she told him now. “It’s behind the old Barlow place.”
    “I know where that is. Hang on,” he told her as they rounded the most dangerous bend in this part of the parish. The bridge would be partially covered with rising water. It never got bad enough that cars couldn’t pass over it, but you had to be careful or you’d lose your brakes and go careening off the side.
    Dare drove like an old pro, like he knew this place intimately. Darius had mentioned that Dare had lived here from the age of twelve, and she could picture him as a young boy, heading out in the truck by himself, determined to find his way around.
    She’d bet anything he hated being lost as much as she did.

Chapter Thirteen
    Y ou could live in these bayous for years and still not know there were houses hidden in secret pockets. Darius’s was one such place; the small bridge that connected it to the road could easily be missed or hidden. Darius had made sure of it every time he barricaded himself in.
    Dare had done the same after he’d driven across the bridge tonight.
    By boat, the house was impossible to find unless you had exact coordinates. If Powell ever found the place, it would be because Darius had given him the coordinates. Dare could never see that happening.
    Now, as he headed to Marnie’s house, he made a mental note to find out more