Danny laid in the back of the van, defeated.

Fuck his hiding place. Fuck this van. Fuck this trip. But most of all, fuck me.

His hand lay limp on the ground. It was covered in faint, dried blood. Turns out he'd bumped his head pretty hard on the roof of the van during the chaos and hadn't realized it. Only when he'd rubbed a hand through his greasy, unwashed hair did he notice the blood. It was a pretty nasty wound and for awhile he wondered if he had a concussion but thought he was alright.

Still, he did have a terrible headache and felt exhausted. His ears had been ringing too, although that had stopped. The dizziness remained to some degree, though.

It had been hours now. The van hadn't stopped moving. He'd spent the first couple of hours angry, followed by a good hour of plotting an escape, followed by actually feeling guilty.

Why the fuck do I feel guilty? he bemoaned to himself. He knew why. He liked Tyrone and especially ScarJo. He wanted to like them and he wanted them to like him back. In fact... he more than liked ScarJo... and now he new that she felt the same way. Despite everything, when she said those words, it felt like she meant them.

I'm such a cuck he sighed to himself outload, using the popular nomenclature of the Dark Web boards he toiled in.

But in that moment came an idea and it involved ScarJo.

If anyone seemed like the aggressor, the problem... it was Tyrone. Tyrone had threatened to shoot them. Tyrone had even seemed to... silence ScarJo at moments. It felt to Danny as if ScarJo often didn't want to go along with things or was even trying to tell him something. If he could swing her to his side...

He rung his hands together and hatched a plan.

He'd wanted to see where they were going anyway. From the back of the van, he could only get a good look out the window behind them, dimly lit by the tail lights.

If he could persuade Tyrone...

He got on the walkie talkie.

"It's Danny" he said, trying to sound woozy.

"Danny, it's ScarJo" came a familiar voice back quickly. "You okay?"

"I feel... funny..." Danny said. "I hit my head. It's bleeding some. I think I might have..."

Danny purposely stopped talking.

"Danny? Danny?? Danny!?"

There was some fast talking back and forth from the cab and the van pulled over hard and fast on the shoulder of the road. Within minutes both Tyrone and ScarJo had the van door open.

ScarJo jumped inside and grabbed Danny and hugged him.

"You okay? How's your head?" she said, touching it and pulled her blood stained hand away. "Oh no! You're bleeding! I'll get the first aid kit..."

Tyrone, meanwhile, stood out behind the van gun drawn and ready. He looked like shit. Tired and weak from his injury.

"There's no time" he said to her. "Come on Danny, you come in the cab with us. She can patch you up there. No one is watching the front of the van. Someone could jump in and take it at any second and we'd be fucked..."

It was what Danny wanted...almost. He had to get Tyrone to agree to go into the back.

"What if I drive?" Danny said. "Dude, you look like shit. Worse than I do."

"I'm fine... I'm fine..." Tyrone said, but he was clearly not. He said this like he felt like he was going to puke.

"Oh honey you're in no shape to drive, but I can do it" ScarJo said.

Danny nodded.

"How's he going to patch himself up if you're driving?" Tyrone demanded weakly.

"It's fine. I can do it myself. I mean, it's in my hair... not like I can bandage it, just clean it..."

Tyrone nodded and relented. He looked weaker than Danny had ever seen him.

"Fine" he agreed. "Just go, hurry... get us out of here..."

Tyrone climbed into the back and immediately up into Danny's cubby hole where his make shift bed was. Danny and ScarJo hopped into the cab and began to drive.

As Danny used the First Aid kit to disinfect the wound, he still felt dizzy but pushed through it. They were on a back road and it was wooded with nothing of interest to be seen.

"You okay, sweetie?" ScarJo asked with concern.

"Yeah. Fine" Danny said. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere in New Hampshire. Almost to Vermont" she said.

Danny finished with the kit and put it away. He laid his head to the side, pretending to look pathetic but truthfully, he didn't have to pretend hard. He truly did feel like shit.

"You okay?" ScarJo said, frowning.

"Can I... lay my head...?" Danny leaned into her and she smiled a little. It was a sad smile.

"Of course you can" she said and Danny laid his head on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry about everything that happened back there" she said. A tear ran down her cheek unseen.

"It's not your fault" Danny said.

ScarJob didn't respond, she just stroked his hair and held his hand with her free hand, keep her right on the wheel.

"He did scare me though.... he seemed to scare you too..." Danny whispered.

"Yeah he did" she confessed. "But... that wasn't him. This has been...just really hard for him..."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"It's okay, Scar" Danny whispered. "You can tell me the truth. I... I love you, too."

It was extra powerful the way he said it -- because he meant it.

ScarJo was speechless.

"Danny..." she began, but stopped. There was a long silence.

"I just..... I don't want him to hurt either of us..."

"Oh Danny he wouldn't do that" she said quickly taking her hand off the wheel to wipe her eyes, but her voice lacked certainty to say the least.

"But he tried to shoot us both, Scar" Danny countered.

"No, no... he wouldn't have... I mean, he's... he's..." she stammered, trying to find an argument. The wrong one came.

"He's known you for so long now. I mean... you guys started talking on the message boards, right? I mean that's a long time..."

"What?" Danny said, stopping her, lifting his head off her shoulder and looking at her directly. "What message boards? What are you talking about?"

ScarJo choked and swallowed hard. Her eyes got wide for a second.

"Um... no wait, I'm wrong" she said, with a fake laugh. "I was thinking about someone else. I'm tired too Danny. I just..."

"ScarJo" he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "What fucking message boards?"

She didn't respond, but her tears did. They came fast and hard.

"Motherfucker" Danny muttered outloud. "Goddammit! You bitch!"

She cried more. She seemed scared now.

"Dante! Dante! Date!" Danny screamed over and over. "Tyrone is Dante!"

It all made sense. Tyrone had known about Dante. He'd used Dante to fucking manipulate him! He thought about the file he found on Tyrone's tablet with his name.

"GODDAMMIT!" he screamed, filled with rage.

"Danny...I...I...I..." she stammered. "Please stop. I can't see the road I..."

"CAN'T FUCKING SEE!?" he screamed. "I'll make sure you can't fucking breath!"

He wrapped his arms around ScarJo's throat and began choking her, and not the good kind she'd wanted during sex before.

Danny had forgotten they were in a moving vehicle, still flying down tree laced backroads. He had tunnel vision.

But ScarJo's next words shook him back to reality: "Do it Danny. I deserve it" she said, her face purple almost out of breath.

He eased his hands off then ScarJo screamed.

"DANNY LOOK OUT!!"

She swerved the van hard, just avoiding a big tree right on the side of the road. The van skidded back on the road and crashed through a road block and a sign of some kind, both scorched from fire put this put it in the path of another tree. At the last moment before impact ScarJo screamed Danny's name again and grabbed him and placed her body over him trying to shield him.

The van hit the tree head on, metal clanged and screeched, glass shattered and ScarJo's head smashed against the steering wheel as the air bag deployed, sending her head smashing against the seat. Then everything went black.

Danny awoke with a surprising amount of clarity and tiny pieces of glass all over his hand he scrambled up with adrenalin energy and slid on his back out the passenger door, thudding onto the ground after wiggling himself out of the seat belt.

He tried to stand on the pavement but the first time his legs gave out. The second time he managed, wobbly at first. The van was completely smashed into the tree. Glass was all over the pavement, glinting red in the tail lights, which were still on. He thought he could smell gas.

He looked and saw ScarJo. She was unconscious, her face laid against a deployed airbag. There was a tiny bit of blood on her lips, but Danny could tell she was breathing.

He scrambled back and started to try to take off running. He had to get away from them. He didn't even check on Tyrone, but didn't have to. Within seconds he emerged from the back of the van, running out and falling on the ground himself. He pulled himself up with a painful moan, seeing Danny trying to run.

"Danny!" he yelled at him in a scratchy, gruff voice. "Don't! Stop!"

Danny didn't listen he continued to run but soon tripped over something and slammed face first into wood. He lifted himself up and looked down. It was the sign.

YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE DOMINION OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS KING EDWARD

Danny didn't even have time to consider what the fuck that meant. He could hear Tyrone behind him and with new found strength he picked himself up and ran, this time for real. He ran towards the woods. Limbs and trees smacked him in the face. Briars stuck into him. Leaves loudly crunched under his feet and behind him Tyrone screamed at him to come back. But the screams were getting further and further away. He was escaping.

He kept moving but suddenly began to fell extremely dizzy.

He stopped and fell to the ground and everything started to turn white like TV static.

He saw flashes of something... a monster toy...

MAINE. MAINE. MAINE.

The old voice came and he clawed into the forest floor to get back on his feet one last time. He took a step and then another and his last thought before he blacked out was "oh fuck maybe I really do have a concussion".