It’s with this in mind that I take Aurora and our things from the house on the fourth day of our marriage.We continue north out of Springwater, past municipalities with absurdly sweet, storybook-sounding names.Places like Coldwater and Moonstone and Honey fucking Harbour.The kinds of places where somebody like Aurora should live and somebody like me should only ever pass on by under the cover of night.
It rains today, too.Not freezing rain though, thank fuck.But it does slow us down and affect visibility as we go.So it takes me longer than it should to notice that there’s one black pick-up truck that’s been sticking a little too close for comfort.I keep my eye on it in the rearview mirror, balancing probabilities against each other while Aurora gazes out the window, oblivious.How likely is it that this is just some random truck going the same way we are?Highly.Once you get north of Toronto, to Barrie and beyond, it feels like every other vehicle on the road is some big American truck, many of them black like this one.It’s probably nothing.Nothing at all.
But I decide to pull off the highway anyway.
The truck pulls off, too.
“Hand me my bag,” I tell Aurora.
She flinches into awareness, straightening up in her seat.
“What is it?”she asks, craning her neck to look out the back window.
“Just do it.”
Snaking her arm between our seats, she grasps the handles of my bag, pulling it forward into her lap.One-handed, I unzip it and pull out a pistol.Balancing the gun on my lap, I continue steering with my other hand, my eyes snapping back and forth between the rearview mirror and the narrow, winding road ahead.Now that we’re off the highway, we’ve ended up on a rural road, hemmed in by dense coniferous trees, the pavement giving way to gravel.
There doesn’t seem to be anything fucking out here.But the truck keeps following anyway.
And I decide that even if it’s not Messina driving, it’s somebody we don’t want on our fucking tails.
“Take the steering wheel.”
Aurora yelps her surprise when I open my window and use both hands to aim my gun out of it.Before I can pull the trigger, the sideview mirror on the driver’s side of my SUV explodes from impact.Glass shatters, some of it slicing into my cheek.
“Curse!”Aurora screams.I don’t stop to look at her.Not yet.
I recenter myself and aim my gun again, pulling the trigger.
A single hole appears in the truck’s windshield.A split second later, the big vehicle fishtails wildly, wheels spinning over the gravel.Normally, I’d stop my vehicle at this point, or reverse, and go finish the fucking job if the motherfucker isn’t dead already.
But I have Aurora with me, my precious fucking angel, her face pale with terror.And while she’s seen me kill before, and I have no compunction about doing it in front of her again, her safety is my only priority right now.
Taking control of the steering wheel again, I press down on the gas, sending slippery gravel flying from beneath the wheels.
“Who was that?Was it Alessandro?”
“Probably.”While there are likely a dozen men – or more – who’d gladly kill me the moment that they got the chance, I can’t think of any who would have happened to have tracked us out here.It would be far too fucking coincidental.
Did Messina know which house we were at?Was he waiting for us to leave, just so that he could follow?
Fuck.I need to get back to the highway.But going south this time.The whole point of leaving Toronto was to evade him.But if he’s followed us out here, then that plan has essentially been shot to hell.Just like my goddamn sideview mirror.
“Curse, you’re bleeding!”Aurora looks like she’s about to cry.“Oh my God, you almost just got shot!”
“But I didn’t,” I reply.I’m aiming for a soothing tone, but I don’t think it works.Or I just don’t know shit about soothing her, I guess.Because her breath starts coming in these panting little gusts, and she clutches her chest like all the organs in there suddenly aren’t working right.
“Breathe, Aurora,” I grit out.I wish I could touch her right now.But I’ve got one hand on my gun, one on the steering wheel, and none left to lend her any comfort.Not that my hands are much for lending comfort in the first place.For all I know, my touch would only make this panic attack, or whatever it is, worse.
“You have to slow down.Breathe,” I say again, even as I speed up.“You’re going to pass out at this rate.”
She makes a choked sound and bends over slightly, as if trying to put her head between her knees, but she’s not quite able to because of the seatbelt.Honestly, maybe her passing out is a best-case scenario.It’ll shut down her spinning nervous system.Force her breath back down to a normal level.
But she’s wheezing, and she’s suffering, and I cannot fucking stand it.I, Curse Titone, whose greatest pleasure for most of his life has been torturing other men to death, am fucking slaughtered by this.
“Fuck!”I make my choice and dump my gun, my right hand now free.I grip the back of her neck firmly, my thumb digging in behind her left ear.“Breathe.Fucking breathe, angel!”
If she obeys, I don’t hear it.All I hear is the demonic scream of twisting metal.The crunch of rock as were forced off the road.The uncaring spatter of the rain as the airbags deploy.
