It only made it worse that he was a bottled stir of anxiety, continually glancing in the rearview mirror like we were running away from something rather than heading toward something terrible.
But no matter how hard I shook him, he just wouldn’t crack. Refusing to offer anything else during the two-hour trip we’d taken.
“If you’d just tell me what’s going on…” I finally released into the suffocating tension.
“Would you just leave it, Brinley?” The words stabbed the air like little daggers.
I let go of a sound of disbelief. “You got me wound up in something that I don’t understand, involved in paying back a debt that I don’t know the cost of, and you want me to just leave it?”
He glanced over at me.
It was the first time I really saw what he was feeling.
Fear.
Blatant and etched on every one of his features.
So distinct it nearly pinned me to the side of the door.
“I need you to trust me. Just this once,” he forced out.
Trust him?
God. He’d broken my trust so many times that I wondered if he understood what earning it meant.
He knew what it cost me.
The wounds that had been gouged and gashed into my being.
I shoved it all back down where it belonged, refusing the flashes of memories that wanted to inundate my mind, then I shifted forward in my seat when we suddenly broke out of the woods.
A town was sprawled out below. Nestled in a little valley up high on the mountain.
The single two-lane road ran right through the middle of it.
We passed by a sign that read:
Now entering Crimson Creek
Est 1832
It was a lovely little town with quaint buildings painted soft white with colorful accents. Some roofs were spired, others flat or pitched.
A mishmash of shapes and sizes and styles.
The sidewalks were brick and had these gorgeous planters with flowering shrubs situated in front of the shops and restaurants.
It looked like a place I’d love to visit if it didn’t feel like I was being marched to my execution.
Dereck drove directly through then made a left at the end of the main drag onto another two-lane road that wound up a hill.
On either side of us were family neighborhoods with small homes sheltered in the trees.
About a mile farther, the road curved to the right and the houses gave way to industrial buildings.
A cement business and a scrap yard.
A roofing company and a two-story building with what looked like commercial offices.
