Page 56
The engine hums quietly under us. I stare out the window as the town and its familiar buildings shrink behind us, becoming nothing but a smudge in the rearview mirror. Each mile feels like a small death; the death of yet another life I’d grown to know.
“Do you think this is going to end badly?” I ask, volume barely above the quiet crackle of the tires on asphalt. I turn to look at him, studying the sharp shape of his profile.
Preston’s hands clamp around the steering wheel, seemingly trying to strangle it; the muscles in his forearms are pulled taut, veins raised. He doesn’t look at me, but his jaw works silently, grinding down whatever words he’s holding back.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He says it with unbending certainty—it’s not just something to say for empty comfort.
I want to believe him, and honestly, maybe some of me did. He’s already crossed unimaginable borders most men would never dream of just to have me near him. He’s orchestrated and controlled, and now he’s willing to throw his entire life away for me. I want to believe he’ll burn cities to ashes if it means keeping me out of a cell. That devotion is both intoxicating and horrifying.
But what if the fear kicks in? Would he be willing to turn me in to give himself another go at life? Would he then start over in another country and find a new woman to obsess over?
I look down at my hands; the skin around my thumbnail is raw and bleeding from all the nervous picking I didn’t realize I was doing. I wrap my lips around the spot, sucking on it, letting the pain ground me for a moment.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
He shifts without speaking; his right hand slides from the wheel, settling on my thigh with ease. His palm is warm and anchoring. I hate how much I need that contact with him and how much comfort it brings me.
“We’re going to be just fine, darling. You’re not in danger. Did you forget that you are the danger?”
Preston presses his fingers into my leg softly, thumb tracing a small circle over my leggings. My pulse stutters as his gilded eyes catch mine for a second before returning to the endless road ahead.
“You’re not some fragile little thing that needs protecting. You’re a bona fide murderer now. You’re powerful.”
That is meant to be reassuring, possibly even to flatter me, but it scrapes wrong. I’m aching for the past where I could sleep without seeing dead eyes staring back at me.
“I don’t want to be dangerous. I want everything to be back to normal. I want to wake up, and this will be a terrible nightmare.”
Preston doesn’t respond right away, just squeezes me a little tighter, as if trying to say there’s no going back. I hate that I’m not feeling resentful towards him. My own choices led me straight to this moment because somehow the havoc with him feels safer than I’d ever felt in any other situation. He looks at me like I’m precious and worthy of destroying everything over.
I study him again, cataloging the details that are already planting themselves in my memory. The way his jaw tightens, then releases as he thinks, and how his fingers tap against the steering wheel. His face looks so composed and controlled, though the hairline fractures in his facade show. He doesn’t want me to know he’s worried, but the fact that he is makes me feel less alone.
“So… what exactly is our plan?” I ask, exhaling deeply as I attempt to sound more put-together than I am.
“We get out of the state tonight. Drive until we’re far enough away that they won’t think to look for us, find somewhere to lay low and sleep tonight. A motel, probably, something small they won’t think of looking at.”
I snort, unable to help myself despite the gravity of it all.
“Have you ever stayed in a motel?”
“No. But how bad can it be?”
I raise an eyebrow at him, feeling the first genuine smile I’ve managed in hours tug at the corners of my mouth.
“Preston Grant, heir to a multi-million-dollar fortune, in a skanky motel and for sure a vending machine filled with expired snacks that have been there for no less than, say, ten years?”
He glances at me with an amused glint. The one he’d give me in the library that would make it a little harder to breathe.
“We’ll survive. I’ll even let you choose the dingiest, sketchiest one you can find for the full experience.”
“So what I’m hearing is you’re fully committing to the fugitive lifestyle, eh? What’s next? Gas station coffee? Truck stop showers?”
“What can I say, anything for you.” He shrugs, but his smile still sits.
I’m thankful for the light energy that surrounds us for a heartbeat. That brief speck of time, we can pretend we’re just on a spontaneous road trip, rather than running from the law with a trunk full of cash and weapons. But the moment is fleeting, dissolving as quickly as it had appeared.
I rest my hand over Preston’s, needing more contact with him. Preston might be reckless, obsessive, and destructive, but in the shambles, he really is the only thing I have left. The only person who won’t look at me and see evil. For better or for worse, now, it’s us.
* * *
