Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Fallow
Idon’t know why I did it. I rarely know why I do anything, and I care even less than that, but this particular case is bothering me.
The whole thing about Colm being stalked by the Aryans was convenient, and I’m obviously going to California with or without him. As soon as Kaitlyn had said the magic word, I was already planning my escape. But the thought of leaving without him… It didn’t sit right.
He’s interesting. And so very fun to play with. I’ve played with a lot of different people before—mostly men—but none of them have held my attention in this singular, ineffable way.
It’s barely been a day, but the sensation is as undeniable as it is unexplained.
I’m choosing not to question myself, because I have more important things to focus on. And thankfully, he seems to be consistently compelled to do whatever I ask him to, whether he’s willing to admit that or not.
We can take two days to drive to California, pausing occasionally to fuck, I’m sure, and it’ll get whatever this intrigue is out of my system.
I can hear the pitter-patter of rabbit feet following along behind me as I move through the unfamiliar house.
“Can we go to store first? I seem to have misplaced my things in all the drama.”
Colm stays silent but keeps pace with me. I take a few wrong turns but eventually find my way back to his bedroom.
“Do you not have a bag to get or something?”
I shrug, still not looking behind me.
“I travel light. I don’t need much. Maybe I can just share skivvies with you, rabbit.”
I park myself in front of his chest of drawers and start rifling through them, looking for anything I can wear that I won’t be swimming in.
The sensation of his warmth right behind me is making me uneasy. Everything feels weird. I already regret committing to this idea, but I’m also completely unwilling to take it back. Everything will be better when we get there and I can put this whole damned trip to bed.
I focus on looking at his outfit, picking up an assortment of dark, plain clothes that make him look more like a SWAT team wannabe than a criminal.
“Do you own anything with any kind of personality?”
“Not unless you count,” he replies.
I pause and look at him over my shoulder.
“Droll. You’re the cleverest criminal I know.”
Colm snorts. “I doubt that.”
My attention is drawn to an empty duffel bag in the bottom drawer—also black, of course—so I pull it out and start throwing things inside, mostly at random.
Colm sighs and moves away from me, and I have to physically stop myself to look at where he’s going. He’s back in a minute, though, throwing some toiletries into the bag and following it up with a couple of handguns and extra magazines.
“We can get whatever else we need on the way,” he says. “If we’re going, we might as well go now. The longer we wait here, the longer the Aryans have to work themselves up into a fit.”
COLM
“Are you going to tell me what this is really about?”
I say it when I can’t take the silence anymore.
I’m normally good with silence. In this life, I don’t get enough of it.
But something about silence and stillness coming from Fallow is disconcerting.
I may have only known him since this morning, but for whatever reason it feels like a thousand years longer, and it’s enough to make me deeply disturbed by this level of stillness from him.
It’s been three hours since we left the compound. No one really understood what was going on, but I didn’t feel like explaining it. It’s pretty clear that I don’t really understand either, but Fallow asked me and I’m powerless to say no to him wouldn’t go down well.
I trust them to at least keep the business running in my absence, and hopefully not get into a firefight with the Brotherhood. We got our stuff, got in a car and left on this half-baked mission, and Fallow’s barely said two words to me since.
“What what’s really about?” he snarks back.
“This. This road trip. Why you seem lost in thought all of a sudden. You haven’t molested me in hours.”
“Oh, that’s what we’re calling it?” he interrupts.
Fair. “Okay, no, that was an exaggeration. But you know what I mean.”
“I’m tired. I never got my usual post-murder nap this morning. Maybe we should stop for the night.”
That throws me a little.
“We’re not even out of Missouri yet. You made it sound like this was a time-is-of-the-essence situation, and we would drive straight through, and now you want to stop?”
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even look at me, but the malaise that’s fallen over him is obvious to anyone with half a brain cell.
Something inside me softens, whether I want it to or not.
“Okay. We can stop and you can sleep. I don’t know how to deal with this version of you, it’s bumming me out.”
That almost gets a laugh out of him, but not quite.
Once the option of rest is on the horizon, all the aches and pains I’ve accumulated in the last 24 hours start to insist on their presence, and I’m abruptly grateful for the excuse to stop.
It doesn’t make me less confused by Fallow’s sudden personality shift, but I don’t have the energy to get worked up about it right now.
My wrists hurt from being tied up. My shoulders hurt from being held over my head.
Every part of my lower body hurts from desperately fucking up into Fallow while I was tied to a chair—worth it, but still—and I cannot begin to imagine how dehydrated I probably am.
Fuck it, I’m stopping at a Walgreens before we find someplace to sleep.
There’s no one here but him to see me first aid myself and he already thinks I’m a pussy.
I don’t know why I even bother with the too-tough-to-care routine anyway. It’s more of a habit than actually caring how tough the other Banna guys think I am.
The rest of the drive continues in a semi-comfortable silence. I get a little more of the highway behind us so we’re at least into Oklahoma and then take the next exit where I can see a Walgreens sign on the horizon.
The scenery here is painfully familiar. We’re going to go straight through Oklahoma City and I’m going to do everything I can to pretend it wasn’t my home for twenty years.
It’s not the city’s fault. Not per se. And it’s a hell of a lot better than the shithole rural town I came from before that; the one I’ve worked very hard to erase from my memory.
There are no fond memories for me of the reason we had to leave in a hurry. I thought I was going to die on the steps of the fucking courthouse when the Brotherhood attacked us, and then I spent a week convinced that Sav was going to die from his injuries. It was miserable.
But the silver lining was getting me to a new town for a fresh start. Possum Hollow isn’t that different from where I was born, but it’s different enough that it feels like a whole other world, where I am nothing like the people I came from.
I didn’t expect to care about driving through Oklahoma. We’re barely stopping, and there’s not a lot to look at. But every time I see a certain kind of a tree, or a fucking Braums, it just reminds me that I’m back in a place I was ecstatic to finally leave.
I’ve never been someone who dwells on my past. But being here again is making all my shitty memories bubble to the surface in a way I didn’t expect. At least it’s a reminder that there’s a reason I do what I do, and all the alternatives to this job are a hell of a lot worse.
Exhaustion really must be getting to me, for me to be sitting here dwelling on my feelings and shit like this.
Without meaning to, I sigh loudly enough that Fallow flicks his gaze to me for the first time in hours, but I don’t say anything to explain and he doesn’t ask.
He also doesn’t ask what we’re doing when I park up at the Walgreens, but he does get out of the car and follow me inside.
Once I’m on my feet after sitting for a few hours, I feel dizzier than I’d like to admit.
Getting out of the air-conditioned car meant I go slapped in the face by the heat and humidity.
The waves of heat rising from the asphalt that have been collecting there all day only to start releasing now that it’s getting dark.
Then fifty feet later, we’re walking through automatic doors to get slapped in the face again, this time by cold and the smell of Freon.
The overhead lights are too bright, and one of them is flickering in and out with a low buzz that’s already pissing me off.
I swallow down the dizziness and focus on where I’m going.
I’m pretty sure Fallow is watching me, but I refuse to turn around and look.
My attention span is for shit as I grab a basket and then walk through the aisles, throwing in painkillers, bandages, and other shit at random.
There’s a sound of rustling behind me at one point, followed by Fallow reaching over to throw lube and condoms into the basket.
That does make me turn to look at him. I’m trying to glare, but the exhaustion is digging its heels in so it’s half-hearted and he doesn’t care either way.
“Don’t pretend they won’t get used,” he says, raising one eyebrow at me.
I don’t care enough to fight about it, so I take the whole thing and pay in cash without making a big deal about it.
The silence continues as I get us to a discreet-looking motel back by the highway.
They let me pay cash and not give ID, so I don’t really care if it’s a shithole.
Fallow raises an eyebrow at me when I ask for one room with two beds instead of two rooms. He can think whatever he wants, but the truth is that I don’t trust him.
If he runs off in the middle of the night, I can’t protect him, and if anything happens to him it will 100% be coming back on me.
The room is as dingy as I expected, but there’s a decent lock on the door and a heavy-enough curtain that I plan to fall asleep before the sun even finishes setting.