***This is a new adult contemporary novel and contains sexual content and graphic language. It is not intended for young adult readers.***

One text can change everything.

Honor Calhoun never thought her life would ever be like the books she writes for a living. One morning while out for a run, she learns not all bad things are plots in novels. Some horrors can actually come true.

She faces off with a persistent attacker, holds her own, but in the end is taken hostage and thrown into a hole. In the middle of the woods.

But Honor didn’t go down there alone.

She took her kidnapper’s phone with her. With a spotty signal and a dying battery, her hope is slim.

Nathan Reed is an active duty Marine stationed at a small reserve base in Pennsylvania. All he wants is a calm and uneventful duty station where he can forget the memories of his time in a war-torn country.

But a single text changes everything.

Nathan becomes Honor’s only hope for survival, and he has to go against the clock, push aside his past, and take on a mission for a girl he’s never met.

Both of them want freedom… but they have to survive long enough to obtain it.

Excerpt

As I ran, something darted out from the side. I jerked, the sudden movement startling me. My stride faltered and I turned toward whatever it was, but I didn’t see it.

It plowed into me, knocking me over, my hip taking the brunt of my fall. I grunted in pain and scrambled to get up.

But someone pinned me down.

I shoved at the man, and he glanced down, his eyes meeting mine. There was something cold in his blue-eyed stare. Something empty and flat.

Panic bloomed in my chest, spiking through my body as my heart rate went wild and alarm bells started sounding in my head.

Yes, I read the stories. Yes, I saw it on the news.

Woman is kidnapped. Search for missing woman continues. Woman is found beaten and dead.

But that stuff didn’t happen to me. That stuff happened to other people. Unfortunate women… women that weren’t me.

This isn’t happening to me.

A surge of adrenaline had me bringing up my knee and catching the man in his balls. He made a high-pitched sound and fell to the side. I scrambled up and took off, racing down the path, toward the road that intersected it. If I could make it there, I could flag down a car. I could find someone to help me.

The earbuds had fallen out of my ears and hung around my neck, banging into my skin and reminding me that I had my phone. My phone! As I ran, my hand fumbled, trying to yank it out of the band around my arm. Finally, I managed to grasp it and I held it up in front of me, calling up the keypad and dialing.

9-1—

He tackled me from behind and I fell face forward, the phone tumbling out of my hands, just ahead, just out of reach. I cried out and stretched my hand toward my lifeline, desperate to finish the call.

“You’re going to pay for that, bitch,” the gruff voice said.

I’d never known such fear in all my life. I could barely think straight. Straight-laced dread and panic took over my body, making my limbs feel heavy and numb.

Don’t give in, the voice inside me screamed.

I bucked like a pony and reached forward, my hand closing over my phone. Yes! My joy was extremely short-lived when the man, who was still straddling my back, snatched it out of my hand and tossed it into the nearby creek.

“No,” I cried, watching it swept away beneath the surface.

“No one’s going to help you,” the voice above intoned.

Cambria Hebert is the author of the young adult paranormal Heven and Hell series, the new adult Death Escorts series, and the new adult Take it Off series. She loves a caramel latte, hates math and is afraid of chickens (yes, chickens). She went to college for a bachelor’s degree, couldn’t pick a major, and ended up with a degree in cosmetology. So rest assured her characters will always have good hair. She currently lives in North Carolina with her husband and children (both human and furry) where she is plotting her next book. You can find out more about Cambria and her work by visiting http://www.cambriahebert.com

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