The words hit me like a bucket of ice water.
"How many witnesses?"
"Lisa, obviously. But also the clerk at the gas station who worked with Carl. Then there is a trucker who was parked across the street that we didn’t see. There may be more, people from the diner, they weren’t very specific."
"And they saw us?"
"Everything. You, me, the van. They now have solid descriptions. Height, build, hair color. They know we are together."
Oh shit. "What else?"
He pulls out his phone and opens a news site. Shows me an article dated two days ago –Authorities Seek Information onCouple in Connection with Suspicious Death. There's a rough sketch, but it’s clear. A tall man with dark hair and a petite woman with long black hair and big eyes.
Us.
"They're calling it suspicious," Dom says. "Not murder yet, but they're looking. And they've connected us to highway traffic cameras. Three different sightings in the last week. The fuckers know we're heading west."
The adrenaline hits me all at once with a metallic flooding my mouth with a hint of copper. This isn't abstract anymore or some distant threat we can outrun. This isserious. They know what we look like and they know where we've been. They're building a profile, connecting dots, closing in.
Why am I not panicking? Instead I just feel like I’m full of a buzzing energy, more alive than I’ve ever felt.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask.
"Because I was handling it."
"Handling it how?"
"Planning, routes, timing, figuring out false trails. I've been working on the escape plan."
"Without me."
He looks at me, and there's something fierce in his expression. "I was protecting you."
"I don't need protecting."
"Yes, you do."
The possessiveness in his voice makes my stomach drop. He's not wrong, we both know I'm reckless, that I chase the danger instead of running from it. But the idea that he's been carrying this alone, that he's been trying to shield me from the consequences of whatwedid together…it pisses me off.
"We're in this together," I say, my voice sharp. "You don't get to decide what I can handle."
"Roxy…"
"Show me everything."
He hesitates, then pulls up more articles. More sketches. A timeline someone's constructed on a true crime forum, seriously, there is a forum? It contains our movements over the last two weeks, pieced together from witness reports and camera footage. They don't have our names yet, but they're close, so fucking close. I read through it all, my heart pounding, and the nerves I should be feeling are drowned out by a resistance, I want to taunt them all, play a game. All I feel is excitement. I want to fight, not run or hide.Fight.
"We need to move faster," I say.
"I know."
"No, I meannow. This escape plan you’ve made, we can't wait a month. We need to do it this week."
Dom frowns, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind.
"It's not ready. We need more time to set up the false trail, to…"
"We don't have more time, you just showed me that we have been found out. It won’t be long until they have our names."
