It’s barely been a day, but the sensation is as undeniable as it is unexplained.
I’m choosing not to question myself, because I have more important things to focus on. And thankfully, he seems to be consistently compelled to do whatever I ask him to, whether he’s willing to admit that or not.
We can take two days to drive to California, pausing occasionally to fuck, I’m sure, and it’ll get whatever this intrigue is out of my system.
I can hear the pitter-patter of rabbit feet following along behind me as I move through the unfamiliar house.
“Can we go to store first? I seem to have misplaced my things in all the drama.”
Colm stays silent but keeps pace with me. I take a few wrong turns but eventually find my way back to his bedroom.
“Do you not have a bag to get or something?”
I shrug, still not looking behind me.
“I travel light. I don’t need much. Maybe I can just share skivvies with you, rabbit.”
I park myself in front of his chest of drawers and start rifling through them, looking for anything I can wear that I won’t be swimming in.
The sensation of his warmth right behind me is making me uneasy. Everything feels weird. I already regret committing to this idea, but I’m also completely unwilling to take it back. Everything will be better when we get there and I can put this whole damned trip to bed.
I focus on looking at his outfit, picking up an assortment of dark, plain clothes that make him look more like a SWAT team wannabe than a criminal.
“Do you own anything with any kind of personality?”
“Not unless you count,” he replies.
I pause and look at him over my shoulder.
“Droll. You’re the cleverest criminal I know.”
Colm snorts. “I doubt that.”
My attention is drawn to an empty duffel bag in the bottom drawer—also black, of course—so I pull it out and start throwing things inside, mostly at random.
Colm sighs and moves away from me, and I have to physically stop myself to look at where he’s going. He’s back in a minute, though, throwing some toiletries into the bag and following it up with a couple of handguns and extra magazines.
“We can get whatever else we need on the way,” he says. “If we’re going, we might as well go now. The longer we wait here, the longer the Aryans have to work themselves up into a fit.”
COLM
“Are you going to tell me what this is really about?”
I say it when I can’t take the silence anymore. I’m normally good with silence. In this life, I don’t get enough of it. But something about silence and stillness coming from Fallow is disconcerting. I may have only known him since this morning, but for whatever reason it feels like a thousand years longer, and it’s enough to make me deeply disturbed by this level of stillness from him.
It’s been three hours since we left the compound. No one really understood what was going on, but I didn’t feel like explaining it. It’s pretty clear thatI don’t really understand either, but Fallow asked me and I’m powerless to say no to himwouldn’t go down well.
I trust them to at least keep the business running in my absence, and hopefully not get into a firefight with the Brotherhood. We got our stuff, got in a car and left on this half-baked mission, and Fallow’s barely said two words to me since.
“Whatwhat’sreally about?” he snarks back.
“This. This road trip. Why you seem lost in thought all of a sudden. You haven’t molested me in hours.”
“Oh, that’s what we’re calling it?” he interrupts.
Fair. “Okay, no, that was an exaggeration. But you know what I mean.”
“I’m tired. I never got my usual post-murder nap this morning. Maybe we should stop for the night.”
