Chapter 11 Melissa #2
We rode until the engine choked on its own misery and Augustine coasted to a stop at a pull-off that overlooked a black, bottomless chasm.
He swung off the bike, boots crunching through sodden pine needles, then just stood there for a second, head down, rain tracing little rivers over his neck and into his shirt.
I peeled myself off the pillion seat. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I was so cold I couldn’t feel my toes, and my soaked hair clung to my face, a curtain I could hide behind. My jeans weighed about ten pounds. The whole world was water and bone.
Augustine didn’t say shit for a long minute. He just stared into the abyss like it owed him money.
Finally, I worked up the nerve to speak. “What now?” My voice sounded like a twelve-year-old with bronchitis.
He didn’t turn. “We wait for the sky to clear. Or at least for them to stop looking.”
A flash of lightning made the trees flicker electric blue, then dead black. Thunder rolled up from the valley, drowning out my next breath.
“Are you even listening to me?” I said. The words came out louder than I meant. “There’s nowhere to go, Augustine. They’ll be waiting at every border. You know how the club works.”
He finally looked at me, and for once his eyes were soft. Maybe even sad. “You hungry?”
The question was so normal it almost made me laugh. I barked something that was probably supposed to be a giggle but came out like a dry heave.
“I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” I admitted, rubbing my arms for warmth.
He limped to the bike and dug around in the saddlebag, eventually producing a Slim Jim and a pack of powdered donuts, both probably older than I was. He tossed me the donuts, then sat down on a mossy rock, chewing the beef stick like it was the only thing anchoring him to the planet.
I took a donut, my hands still trembling. The powder got everywhere, turning my fingers corpse-white. I forced myself to eat, jaw working on autopilot.
“Do you remember her?” I said, not even sure why. “My mom?”
He stared at me like I’d just grown an extra head. “Not really. Just the stories.”
I nodded, donut gone, not tasting any of it. “She was always running too.”
The next lightning bolt was close enough to light up the world for a split second. In that second, I saw myself reflected in the chrome of the gas tank—feral, drenched, eyes rimmed red. I looked like the daughter of a ghost.
“You don’t have to keep me,” I said, voice breaking. “You could just let me go. Maybe if you did, they’d stop.”
He snorted. “You think that’s how it works? Even if you disappeared, Saint Etienne would put your picture on every goddamn billboard from here to Mexico. You don’t just vanish, Melissa. Not from men like him.”
The name hit me like a slap. I wrapped my arms around my knees, digging my nails into my own flesh to stay present.
“You don’t know what he’s promised,” I said, rain leaking down my face like tears. “He said he’d kill anyone who helps me. Anyone.”
Augustine nodded, slow and deliberate, like a man who’s spent years making peace with his own extinction. “Yeah,” he said. “That tracks.”
We sat in the roar of the rain, neither of us talking.
My mind replayed every hide-and-seek game from my childhood, every time I’d been told to stay out of sight, every threat that had ever ended with “…or else.” I thought about my mother’s last day—the final time I ever saw her—and how she’d looked at me over her shoulder as she ran, not saying a word, but her eyes doing all the talking.
I’d always hated her for leaving. Only now did I understand.
Augustine stood again, slower this time. I saw him put a hand to his ribs, pressing hard. The shirt was nearly black with blood where the cut had started leaking again.
“I can’t watch you die,” I said, a whisper, almost lost to the wind.
He barked a laugh. “You think you get a say in it?”
“Dammit, Augustine—” I surged to my feet, toes curling in my boots to keep steady. “This isn’t some romantic bullshit. They’ll cut you up and mail your teeth to your mother. You have to let me go.”
The words hung there, jagged and ugly.
He shook his head, a sad smile carving trenches in his cheeks. “I’m not letting you disappear. Not now. Not ever.”
A wall of thunder obliterated anything else he might have said.
I staggered backward, boots squelching, and realized the overlook was a hundred feet above a river churning with runoff.
Lightning crashed again, blinding, and for a moment I saw Augustine silhouetted against the sky, every muscle taut, every ounce of his willpower dedicated to staying upright.
He took a step toward me, then stopped when he saw my face. I must’ve looked like a cornered animal, ready to bite or bolt.
“I’m not your dad,” he said, and the words were so careful that it broke my heart. “I’m not them.”
He made a fist at his side, then relaxed it. “You wanna run, I won’t stop you. But if you stay, I’ll burn down the fucking world before I let them touch you. Melissa is now officially a national treasure.”
I started crying then, a stupid, loud, snotty sob that echoed off the cliffs. I hated myself for it. I hated Augustine for making me feel safe, even for one second.
He moved fast, closing the distance and folding me into him before I could fight back. His shirt was soaked, and I felt the heat of his wound through the fabric. For a long minute, we just stood there, shaking and broken, and the mountain raged around us.
He whispered into my hair. “It was my uncle James. That’s the last person I gave a shit about before you. He got clipped in a botched job out in Albuquerque. I was supposed to watch his back. I didn’t. I let him die.”
He pulled back, cupping my face in both hands. “I’m not making that mistake again.”
His thumbs smeared the rain and tears from my cheeks. I blinked up at him, surprised by the gentleness in those fingers—like he was scared I’d dissolve if he pressed too hard.
The storm reached some kind of goddamn crescendo. The rain came in sheets, washing everything clean, at least for a second.
That’s when I noticed the blood. It oozed from beneath his palm, painting his shirt and the skin beneath in angry black streaks.
“Oh shit,” I said, panic cutting through the misery. “You’re bleeding.”
He shrugged, like it was no big deal, but I could see it in his face: he was graying out, running on fumes and stubbornness.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you inside.”
He tried to laugh, but it came out more like a cough. “You see a Motel 6 around here?”
I looked past him, into the woods. A hundred yards down the dirt road, I spotted the faint outline of a cabin—one of those prefab things, probably used by hunters or hikers too cheap to spring for a proper B&B.
I pointed. “There.”
He followed my finger, then grinned, all teeth and battered hope.
“You always this bossy?” he said.
I helped him walk. Every step he leaned heavier, but neither of us let go.
We left the chasm behind, and I realized I wasn’t afraid of the void anymore. The real risk, the real danger, was that for the first time in my life, I’d found someone who refused to let me vanish.
I wasn’t sure I deserved it. But I wanted it anyway.
***
The cabin was a piece of shit, even by forest hermit standards.
One room, half-rotted deck out front, “For Rent” sign duct-taped to the window.
Augustine tested the door—locked, obviously—then picked up a loose cinderblock from the steps and put it through the glass like he was dropping the check at a bad diner.
The inside was exactly what you’d expect.
The smell of old socks, a weird plastic couch, a threadbare rug stained with God-knows-what, and a stone fireplace choked with ashes.
The kitchen was just a countertop, a fridge, and a microwave.
Everything about the place screamed last-chance refuge for creeps and drunks.
But it was dry. And there was a pile of firewood, miraculously. I stood in the doorway, shivering so hard I nearly cracked a tooth, while Augustine limped in and started stacking kindling in the fireplace with the methodical patience of a guy who’d built more than a few arson cases in his time.
He got the fire going after a few attempts, using a bunch of junk mail for tinder.
The smoke filled the room with the smell of scorched coupons and sap.
I watched him from the other side of the couch, hugging my knees to my chest, unable to decide if I was more afraid of freezing to death or of the man who’d just broken me out of a Leatherback death sentence.
Once the flames caught, he kicked off his boots and peeled off his shirt, moving like every muscle in his body had a vendetta against him.
His torso was a horror show: one rib caved in purple, a deep cut above his beltline leaking new blood, another gouge near his armpit bandaged with duct tape and optimism.
It was a body built for violence and held together by pure, ugly stubbornness.
He dropped the shirt and turned, catching me staring. “You got a thing for scars?” he said, but the smirk was half-assed.
I tried to shrug, but my teeth were still chattering. “Never seen so many on one guy who was still breathing.”
He laughed—a low, ragged sound. “Takes practice.”
I crept closer to the fire, kneeling in front of it until the pins and needles hit my toes. The heat felt illegal, like the first time you get away with stealing something and nobody calls you out. Augustine knelt beside me and, without a word, handed over his Zippo.
“You should get out of those wet clothes,” he said. “Otherwise you’ll seize up, and I’ll have to drag you the rest of the way.”
I side-eyed him, waiting for the punchline, but he was serious. His face had that same surgical calm as when he’d killed Rex, only now the weapon was blunt honesty.