11. June
Chapter 11
June
“ I ’m sorry you had to see that.”
I gripped the door as he sped down the lengthy driveway, through the black metal gate, and onto the dirt road. “What the hell was that?”
“He had to die.”
“Just like Ethan?”
“No, Ethan was a casualty of lies. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve it.” His fingers clutched the steering wheel, his white knuckles poking through the drying blood.
“This is all so messed up, Carter.” I sank my head into my hands, my chest tightening. “Oh God. I can’t breathe.”
His hand fell to my back and rubbed soothing circles on my skin. “You can breathe. In one, two, three...”
My body followed his direction like a puppet on a string.
“Out, three, two, one.” His hand withdrew from my shoulders to my lower back. “And again.”
I tilted to the left as the car turned a corner. “You slaughtered another man...” my chin quivered as I inhaled in a breath, “as though it were nothing.”
“It wasn’t nothing.” His rich, resounding voice sliced through the tension.
“That’s not what it looked like, Carter.” I inhaled on his command and then exhaled. “You killed him just as easily as Ethan.”
Sitting upright, my head thumped against the headrest, sending shooting stars into my vision, the dirt road transforming into the freeway.
“I killed Ethan to get to you, and I killed Paul to save you.“ His jaw clenched as he concentrated on the road, his elbow resting on the center console. “Neither one was innocent. But both deserved to die.”
The air whooshed from my lungs. “You can’t just kill people because you think they deserve it, Carter.”
He hit the brakes, and I flew forward, my hands taking the brunt of the force as I braced against the dashboard. The car came to a complete stop on the freeway, the hazards flashing against the trees lining the road. “I have never taken a life until this night, and both of them revolved around you.”
My brows came together. “Are you...” I sucked in a breath. “Are you seriously blaming me for this?”
His hand found my wrist, brought my palm to his lips, and peppered kisses across it. “Quite the opposite. Take it as my declaration. I’ll do whatever it takes to have you, possess you, and protect you.”
I jerked away from him. “Just moments ago, you were willing to slice and dice me.”
“And I’ll regret that until my dying days.”
Shaking my head, my hair tumbled over my shoulders, covering my chilled flesh. “And what’s changed?”
“I found out the truth. Isn’t it obvious?”
A car zoomed by, their horn blaring, sending my heart on a rampage. “We need to get off the road.” Another one followed, their lights flashing into the night, brightening the foliage lining the mountainous sides. “Carter.”
“Not until you understand.”
A semi-truck swerved to the left, his fifty-foot trailer rocking the car side to side, his horn like an imminent warning from Death himself.
“Okay. Fine.” My hands flew into the air. “I understand. Just get us out of the way.” I glanced behind us with a frantic patter in my chest. “ Please .”
Carter raised a brow and hit the gas. The Lexus catapulted us to sixty-five in nothing flat. My back pressed against the seat, my legs locked in place, as the car shifted with a jerk. He released the gas pedal at seventy, then took my hand and kissed my knuckles.
“Are we going to just pretend for the rest of our lives that nothing happened tonight?”
“I want you to remember the lengths to which I will go in order to avenge my family and protect those I care about.”
My teeth bit into my inner cheek. “As sweet as that sounds, that’s not normal.” I pulled my hand from his. “None of this is.” I leaned against the far side of the car, getting as much distance from him as possible. “And what about my parents? They won’t understand when the police find my boyfrie—“
“Ex-boyfriend.”
“I’ll be hunted across the nation.” The sign for Avon flew by, and I twisted to see it.
“Everything that happened tonight will be swept under the rug. The society has full immunity from the law.”
“How...how is that even possible?”
He shrugged. “I didn’t ask to be in it or how it works. I just know the rules.” His hand slid down the steering wheel, the fingers he used to bring me to climax wrapping around the bottom half. “I moved my parents to Philly with me after the last reckoning, and we never looked back.” He blew out a puff of air. “Until I started getting those damn emails.”
“So you had no intentions of coming back?” My heart cracked as I glanced down at my wringing hands, then back to him, our eyes clashing.
“No. I didn’t.”
I swallowed .
“Even though you were here, I couldn’t come back, June. Not for anything.”
Scoffing, I swiped my hair off my forehead. “Except to murder me?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?” I spun on him. “I waited for you to come back to me. I waited at the funeral. I waited after you graduated.”
He raised a brow.
“Yeah. I knew you’d graduated at the top of your class and then completed your residency in pathology. I waited for... a phone call... anything.” My heart slipped into my throat, my pulse hitting my temples. “Then your mom said you completed your fellowship and had started at the county coroner’s office.”
Both brows raised as he cocked his head back to the road. “You spoke to my mother?”
“I used to.” A considerable sigh fell from my lips as I glanced out of the window. The sun peaked over the mountains, brushing the treetops with a golden hue. “And then she told me to move on. That you had found your calling, and it was time I looked for mine.”
“That was four years ago.”
I puffed out my cheeks and leaned my head against the door.
“Why didn’t you just pick up the phone and call me?”
“Last time you saw me, you told me I was a mistake.” I scoffed.
“I was wrong.”
Pursing my lips, I rubbed my hands together in my lap, my muscles fluttering. “I know.”
My life as I knew it was over.
My students, the whimsical little home I’d adopted, and the neighbors I’d known my entire life.
All gone.
My chest tightened, and the overwhelming need for clean air pressed against me.
“Are you cold?”
“Huh?” I tore my gaze away from the road and glanced at my shaking legs. “Oh, um... yeah. I kinda don’t have clothes.”
Carter reached behind his seat, pulled out a small bag, and plopped it on my lap—the leather chilling my skin like a freezer burn. “I have a long sleeve in there. Put it on.”
I unzipped the bag, my teeth chattering, and dug into the clothes, his essence saturating my lungs.
His fingers dig into my hair, his lips entwined with mine as our tongues dance.
My hips buck against him. My leg wraps around the back of his thigh, giving better access to the hardness pressed against me.
He pulls away. “Wait.”
My fingers brushed against a rough surface, and I grabbed it, bringing it to the top of the bag, unlatched the buckle, and gasped.
Metal knives, scalpels, and saws sat tucked inside their individual spaces .
“Shit.” Carter reached across the console and rolled it back up, dropping it in his lap as he watched the road and buckled it. “I forgot it was even in there.”
“This is what you had planned for me?” A tear trickled down my cheek.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” I removed a button-up long-sleeved coal gray shirt from the bottom of the bag. I shoved the bag to the back floor, where it belonged, and wrapped the shirt around my gooseflesh-ridden arms.
“That was before. Please understand.”
“This was how you...” My words choked in my throat as though he’d wrapped his powerful fist around me, holding my voice captive.
A battered red truck grabbed my attention, traveling on the opposite side of the freeway, wiping the noxious thoughts of what could have been my death to the side. “How much time is left?”
“What?” His brows knit together, his lips parted.
“Do you still have time left?” Adrenaline spiked my veins, sending a rush to my brain.
“Yeah, but it’s over, June. We’re leaving. You’re safe now.”
“How much time is left?”
He glanced at the time illuminated on the dash. “About an hour.”
“Stop the car.”
“What?” He shook his head. “No.”
“Stop. The. Car.” I slapped the dash with quick hits. “Turn it around. I need to go back to the school.”
“What for?” His foot let up off the gas, and he turned the blinker on, taking the next exit.
“There’s something I need to do, and I need your help to do it.”
“That’s vague.”
I paused, staring out into the morning sky as he turned back. He made quick work of the drive, pulling into the roundabout at the front of the school.
“Now what?”
“Wait here.”
He scoffed. “ Uh, no.“ Carter unclipped his belt and opened the door, and I did the same, meeting him on the sidewalk. “Care to fill me in?”
“I need an address.”
“And it’s something you need to do right now?”
I shrugged, then tugged on the metal door with two windows filling the frame. The door banged against the lock and shuddered as it slammed back into place. “Shit. I didn’t even think about it being locked.” I glanced around the roof eves, spotting a camera pointing in our direction.
Shoot.
The cops are going to have a lump under the rug they’re sweeping this under, and my name’s going to be written all over it.
“Here. Allow me.”
He grabbed a decorative rock beneath the flagpole and tossed it into the window, shattering the rectangle to the ground .
Glass spread across the cement and around my bare toes.
He reached in and pressed on the bar, opening the door. “I’ve got you.” In one smooth motion, he lifted me into his arms and walked us through the doors. “Where to?”
“The office.” He took two more steps into the hallway. “You can put me down now.” My stomach swirled as his warm hands slid across my still-wet thighs, my feet touching the cold tiled flooring. “Thank you.”
“And when we get the address, what do you plan on doing?” He shoved open the office doors and allowed me to pass through.
I walked around the office partition, separating the students from the administrators, grabbed an envelope knife, and dug it into the side of the filing cabinet. I moved it downward and wiggled it up, flipping the latch next to the lock. The metal cabinet opened, allowing me access to the student records.
“Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?”
“My rebellious teen years contributed to my criminal knowledge.” My fingers filed through the folders.
Carter laughed.
Tatum...
Tatum...
T...T...T...
“They still have paper documents?” He leaned against the tall gray cabinet with his arm braced on top as he stared down at me.
I shrugged, glancing at him for a split moment. “We were working on the transition to digital, but it had some setbacks with funding.”
Ah, ha.
Snagging the file, I opened the docket and ran my finger along the paper, stopping when the address appeared.
“Got it.” I held the document in the air, my heart skittering in my chest. “We’ve got forty-five minutes.”
“For what?”
I spun on the balls of my feet and rushed down the hall toward my classroom, my bare feet slapping against the tile.
“June, let’s go.” His voice echoed down the hall, cocooning me in a blanket of concern.
Why did it have to be like this?
“Give me a minute.” I ducked down behind my desk and pulled out a pair of flats I’d kept for the days my feet grew tired and slipped them on.
Carter appeared at the door as I stood, his gaze dipping down to my covered dirty feet with a raised brow. “I would’ve bought you a pair.”
“Now there’s no need.” Shrugging, I walked around the desk and slipped past him through the doorway, and continued further down the hall into the gym.
Mr. Finnegan, the elementary school P.E. teacher, left his sports closet in a meticulous fashion, leaving us teachers in awe of the organizational skills he’d developed from a four-year tour in the Navy.
My hand wrapped around the hard wooden handle, the smooth grain fitting in my palm as though it belonged .
“And what do you plan on doing with that?”
I turned with a lopsided grin. “I plan to make use of the remaining forty minutes.”
“If you think I’m going to let you have a weapon, you’ve lost your mind.”
Lifting the bat from its holder, I swung it towards his crotch, stopping a few inches from impact.
Carter flinched, his large hand seizing the bulbous end of the bat and twisting it.
My wrist wrenched to the side, but my grip remained firm. I tugged the bat from him with both hands and used it as a pointer. “You no longer get to dictate what I do, Carter Morgan.”
He snarled. “Stop calling me by my full name.”
“Why?” I dropped the bat, the dim sports closet causing his silhouette to tower like a nightmare from a child’s dream.
“Because it makes me want to throttle you.”
My belly fluttered, and a smile crept over my lips. I wiggled my shoulders and stepped into him, pressing my mouth against his throat. “Maybe if we weren’t on a time crunch.” I licked his Adam’s apple and then shoved his chest when he groaned, moving him out of my way. “And if you hadn’t tried to murder me.”
“You didn’t seem to care when I had you bent over and wet,” he hollered after me.
Heat settled in my core and evaporated as my shoes crunched on broken glass.
I should really clean this up .
Leaning the bat against the wall, I opened the janitor’s closet as Carter caught up and took possession of the bat.
“What are you doing now?”
I raised my brows and shook my head. “I’m cleaning up the mess you made. I don’t want the kids to cut themselves Monday morning.” Taking the broom and dustpan on a stick, I swept the glass shards up and dumped them into the trash can nearby.
Thirty-five minutes left.
The clock in the hall ticked down, and a queasy uneasiness settled in my belly. “We need to go.”
“You’re the one wasting time cleaning.”
I rolled my eyes as my little students had done countless times with me. “Have a little compassion, Carter.”
He followed me toward the car, tossed the bat into the back seat as I settled into the passenger, then made his way around the front and sank into the driver’s seat. “I doubt whatever you plan on doing with that bat has anything to do with compassion.”
I scoffed. “And that’s where you’d be wrong.”