I turn my head in all directions, but I can’t see anything because the night has fallen and it has become completely dark. Not even the dashboard lights are on anymore.
"Cole?"
"Yeah?"
"I’m scared." My voice shakes, and I notice tears running down my cheeks.
"You don’t have to be. I’m not going to?—"
"I’m not scared of you." I interrupt him. "I’m scared of the police."
The words surprise us both, but they’re true. Even though it’s dark and I’m alone in the truck with a stranger, it’s not him I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of the police finding me. Findingus. That they’ll take me back to my mother, who I’m sure will be terribly angry, and that Cole will go to jail. Why else would they come after us?
His voice cuts through the silence that was trying to spread between us. "They can’t see us, darling. Everything’s okay." Then I feel his fingers on my leg. I search for them with my left hand and breathe out with relief when I find them, and Cole clasps my hand with his.
"There," he suddenly says, and when I look in the side mirror, I can see the forest light up where the road has to be. "They’re driving by."
Indeed, when I turn in my seat, I can see the lights brighten for a moment before they rush by and everything goes dark again.
My heart continues to beat like crazy, and my shallow breathing is also way too fast. "We could have hit a tree," I state incoherently after a few seconds while I wait for my body to calm down.
Cole chuckles and lets go of my hand to turn the headlights and engine back on. "No, certainly not."
Immediately, my fingers get cold where his had touched me. I turn to look at him with my mouth open in what has to be shock. In the light now illuminating our surroundings, I realize he actually looks amused.
"That’s not funny!"
"No," he agrees with a grin. "It really isn’t. But I can assure you that we couldn’t hit a tree."
"And what makes you so sure of that? This pickup is…huge! And you just… drove straight through the forest." I’m so shaken up with bewilderment, tension, and fear that I almost scream, but I don’t care. "You could’ve killed us."
Cole’s grin dies immediately. When he turns to me slowly, his eyes are disturbingly dark and ice cold. "Don’teversay something like that again." His voice is just a whisper, yet it is more frightening than any shouting could be.
I can’t bear his piercing gaze and lower my head. "I’m sorry," I murmur. Then I see in the corner of my eye that he shifts the gear, and I feel how the truck starts moving.
On the entire drive through the forest back to the road, I don’t dare lift my head. Only when I feel that we’re driving on asphalt again do I look outside—through the passenger window, so I don’t have to meet his cold gaze again. Instead, I rest my forehead against the cool window and stare into the darkness of the night.
That was clearly too many adventures all at once. The last thing I think about before my eyes fall shut is that this is definitely not how I imagined escaping my previous life.
SEVEN
COLE
You could’ve killed us.
Sophie’s words have burned themselves in my head as if she’d rammed a red-hot piece of iron into my skull.
Everything inside me is raging. Not because of the adrenaline or the words themselves, but because all at once I was hurled into the past. To the night three years ago that changed my life. The night I messed everything up and lost Milena.
Shaking my head, I look at Sophie. Her body is slumped against the passenger door while her steady breathing fogs up the window. She’s sleeping.
"For fuck’s sake," I mutter softly.
What the hell have I gotten myself into? We almost got caught by the cops. And I’m pretty sure they would have found a reason to lock me up. I may not have kidnapped Sophie, but if there’s something these bastards don’t like, it’s young guys with guns and a criminal record longer than a couponing queen’s receipt.
When we finally arrive at my place—an old warehouse in an abandoned industrial area on the outskirts of some small townin the middle of nowhere—I’m relieved as fuck we didn’t run into any more patrol cars. I have no idea how I’m going to hide Sophie from the eyes of the law, but I can’t and won’t worry about that right now. Instead, I drive to the back entrance of the building and kill the engine. Then I take my cell phone out of my jeans pocket and send Jules a message. It’s only one word and it’s pretty stupid, but it became our code word forcome here ASAPa few years ago.
Groper
