“For now,” I tell her. “There’s a few things that need clean up but, for the most part, the odd passerby would never notice.”
She lets out a breath that sounds like it’s been stuck in her chest for hours. “Okay. What happens next?”
I look at her, really look at her, and feel the weight of the answer unfurl somewhere behind my ribs. “We’re heading to the sulfur pits.”
CHAPTER
THREE
ALMA
I don’t move.I just…lock up. It’s like my brain has gone momentarily offline and taken the rest of me with it.
“The what?” I ask, because apparently, my mouth is still operational even if my comprehension isn’t.
Crew doesn’t answer right away. He’s still standing there, calm as ever, as if he didn’t just suggest we take my dead husband somewhere that sounds like a supervillain’s lair.
“The sulfur pits,” he repeats.
I blink once. Twice. “The volcano sulfur pits? As in the ones that smell like Satan’s armpit and come with extremely clear warning signs about toxic gas and death?”
He tips his head. “Those are the ones.”
I laugh, actually laugh, because if I don’t I might scream, and screaming would attract the wrong kind of attention. “Okay, cool, just checking because for a second there I thought you meant something else, like an exclusive bar, or I don’t know, a metaphor?”
Crew doesn’t respond. He doesn’t even make a sound. He just steps past me and crouches, hands firm and efficient as he grips Lance beneath the arms. One smooth motion with a grunt and he hauls him up, settling my husband across his shoulderslike the dead weight is just another variable to account for. Lance’s arm slips loose, dangling uselessly, his wedding ring catching the moonlight as it swings.
My stomach lurches at the sight of it.
I try not to look, but I fail.
Horribly.
My gaze snaps back despite myself, tracking the way Crew adjusts his grip, how solid and unhurried he looks doing something that should not look this easy. It’s not reverent exactly, but it’s not careless either. Then, as though this were the most natural next step in the world, he turns and starts walking. I hesitate for half a second, long enough to realize there isn’t another option, before following behind him.
Save for the crunching of grass beneath our feet, it’s eerily silent. Every hair on my body rises at attention, more still when I note the night somehow feels thicker here, heavier. It almost feels like it’s watching us pass and filing the information away for later. The further we tread, the more the forest closes in around us, and while I know better, I can’t shake the feeling there’s someone—or something—behind us.
With that thought in mind, I speed up slightly, falling into step beside Crew. A slight breeze whips past me, and before I can stop myself, my brain latches onto the smell wafting up from the hoodie he gave me.Clean.Pine and soap, and something darker underneath. Metal maybe, or leather—or just him. It’s grounding in a way that feels unfair. Unfair because my senses have no right reaching for comfort given the situation.
Absolutely not, I tell myself.Now is not the time to notice how good a man smells.
Still, I find myself pulling the hoodie tighter around my body anyway, the fabric warm and immensely oversized. When he handed it to me earlier, I was confused, and while I know now it was just to cover up the brightness of my shirt, a partof me wants to believe it’s almost like he knew I’d need it. The weight of that sentiment—whether factual or fantasy—makes my stomach flutter. I also hate(with a fiery passion)that my next thought is how attractive he looks right now.
In the dark.
In the middle of the woods.
Carrying a dead body.
This is not a kink I asked to discover.
Focus,I scold myself.You just killed your husband. You do not get to be attracted to the man helping you hide the evidence.
But it’s so hard. Dirty blond hair peeks out from the brim of his beanie, sweeping over his forehead and tickling his neck. His blue eyes are absolutely hypnotizing. And don’t get me started on the hard lines of jaw. Even dusted with stubble, they’re not hard to see.
“I feel like I should say…” I blurt out, partly to fill the silence but mostly to keep my brain from spiraling into places it has no business going. “That this is exactly how people disappear.”
“Statistically?”
