You woke up on your back, the heat already baking through your clothes into your skin. Your mouth was a dry, sticky pit. Your head throbbed, a dull ache behind your eyes with no memory attached. The last clear thing was a drink, a laugh, a blur of colored lights. Then nothing. Now this.

Fifty miles of nothing in every direction. That was the deal Derek Goffard had paid for. No roads. No patrols. No witnesses. Just sand, rock, and him.

A low, mechanical hum cut through the silence. You turned your head, sand gritting against your cheek.

On the crest of a nearby dune, a matte-black Jeep sat like a predatory insect, its windows tinted to black. Leaning against the driver’s side door, one boot propped on the running board, was Derek.

He was shirtless under an open green jacket, his skin gleaming with sweat. A red bandana held back his light hair. In one hand, a cigarette smoldered. In the other, a bottle of water dripped condensation, each drop vanishing into the thirsty sand at his feet.

His turquoise eyes, stark against the dark stripes beneath them, weren’t on you. They were fixed on the ground, tracing a line.

A faint, stumbling trail of footprints led away from the Jeep, disappearing into the shimmering distance. Your footprints.