His finger goes to his ear, and he says, “They’re here.” To me, he says, “The others are at the vans. They have Piero. We’ve got about twelve minutes before the fire department arrives.”
I hear him, but I don’t react. I’m in the part of myself that can’t.
Wes doesn’t seem worried about it. I once thought he didn’t understand me, but he does.
“Get moving,” he says. “I’ll catch up.”
As I turn to leave, Wes stows the drone’s controller and shoulders the rocket launcher.
I head through the woods. I’m almost to the road when there’s an explosion. I look back. Through the trees, I see the burst of flames.
By the time I get to the vans, Wes catches up.
Rafael is pacing behind Rocco’s van. He’s agitated, playing with a knife. His cock is hard. Dominic is leaning against the side of the van, watching him.
“Fucking finally,” Rafael mutters as he gets in the back of Rocco’s van. So does Dominic, then the rest of his waiting crew.
Seeing me watching, Noah, who’s waiting at the back of Wes’s van, explains, “They have Piero. They’re going a different way.”
To kill Piero, Noah means. And they’re going to take their time about it.
Good.
They leave as Wes loads his equipment, then the rest of us get in his van. He starts it up, and we get moving.
I’m still holding Elias, who’s huddled silently against me. No one says anything about it. No one stares at me.
It’s really fucking freeing, I realize, to be understood, to not have to hide the way I need to be.
THIRTY
Elias
I know that Andre is angry. I can feel it in his body as he carries me into the warehouse apartment. I can feel it in his silence. But I don’t panic until he takes me down the stairs and into the dark cell.
He releases me when I struggle, but he’s blocking the door and there’s nowhere to go. It’s pitch black. All I can hear is my own harsh breathing as I grope around and find a wall.
“Are you going to leave me in here?” I gasp, finding words for the first time. Until now, everything between us has been silent understanding. A sort of dark, unspoken clarity. A connection. But this …
This is separation.
This, I don’t want.
I almost hope he won’t answer, that he’ll just growl at me, prowl toward me, attack me, but the silence is already broken and we’re well outside the dark, wild space of the woods.
“Shouldn’t I?” he demands.
His boots move with a quiet, dangerous tread across the floor. I can’t tell exactly where he is until I hear a soft clink of metal about where I remember the chair being.
“Isn’t this where I can best control you?” he asks. “Since I can’t trust you.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t tell me that’s not fair. Don’t tell me that’s not true. Itrustedyou, and at the first fucking opportunity, you broke that trust.”
My chest starts heaving. “That’s not what happened!”
“You don’t get to say whether or not you broke my trust.”
