Chapter 14 #2
“Why aren’t you?”
I consider lying, but it sounds like too much effort.
“I don’t really think we need to be here.
I think this trip is bullshit, so as long as you were content to wander, I was happy to take the break.
I haven’t exactly had a lot of road trips and vacations in my life.
Once we got a little distance from home, it felt nice.
Peaceful. Apart from the Aryans busting in on us at the beginning, obviously. ”
“Yeah, that wasn’t my favorite part,” Fallow says with a wince, grazing his fingers over his camouflaged cheek.
“Look, we both know I’m only tagging along because you wanted me to.
Which is fine. I’m honestly starting to not give a fuck if we spend the next decade driving around the back roads of the desert, I’ve literally never had this much time in my life to just…
be. But you had a plan, even though you lied about what it was, and you were the one saying we’d be there in two days.
That was a week ago. So, you need to tell me what changed.
I should be in on the plan before we risk ourselves on a lizard-related B he wanted an heir.
He had one right in front of him, but Ellery has tits, so I guess that ruled them out.
It was all getting tense and weird, and then he sprang it on us that he arranged for Ellery to marry some asshole from another crime family.
Like medieval royalty securing a dynasty.
No warning, no asking, just said it as if Ellery would automatically comply.
I was ready to kill anyone I needed to in order to fix it, but I was too late. ”
Fallow crosses his arms over his chest and looks out of the window for a second. When he looks back, I can see tears shining in his eyes, which is not something I ever expected to happen.
“She just left me,” he says, his voice rising in a wail.
I’d correct him again, but I’ve never seen him in anything like this kind of emotional distress, and I’m scared to make it worse.
“The next morning Ellery was gone and I was alone. The only reason I know they hadn’t been kidnapped was that they left a note. And that they would rather die than be taken. Again.”
Fallow isn’t crying, but he sniffs, and I can tell that he’s right on the edge. All I want is to reach out and touch him, and I’ve never felt so fucking neutered as I do in this situation right now.
He shrugs, still not looking at me.
“I followed the trail here. They always wanted to come home, anyway. I was okay with Murph taking us with him after our parents died. It was a whole Banna drug deal gone wrong, and I think he took pity on us. We didn’t have any other family, and it beat the hell out of child services.
Be some fancy crime man’s spoiled pet, have plenty of money as long as we performed tricks on command.
As long as everyone mostly left me alone, I was fine.
Ellery said it was a trap, though. That we didn’t belong.
They wanted freedom the whole time, and I guess that was the final fucking straw. ”
Fallow looks at me, still with his arms tight over his chest, rubbing his own arm absently with a thumb the way I wish I could do.
“I would have come with her if she’d asked. But she must’ve wanted to be free from me as well as everyone else.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, because there’s nothing else to say. But it’s making a lot of things fall into place. “Are you scared that once we find them, they’ll run away from you again?”
“Fuck off,” he says in a quiet voice, which I take as a yes. “Honestly, I never got the whole freedom thing. But once we were out here, I started to feel it. The lack of expectations. Being able to make all your own decisions. It’s tempting. It makes a little more sense to me, I suppose.”
There’s a deep, dark undercurrent of sadness in his voice, and I don’t know what I can do about it.
“Look,” I say, not really knowing where I’m going with this.
“I think it’s clear that I bought my ticket for this ride.
If you want me to keep driving around and looking at lizards, we can do it.
Fuck the Banna. We’ll go back when we feel like it.
But if you want my opinion, we should get the Ellery part over with.
They might surprise you, and at least you’ll know they’re okay, so you don’t have to worry. ”
“Fine.”
Fallow stares at me for a minute, and I feel like he’s waking back up from wherever he went while he was telling me that story.
“You’re ridiculous,” he says, prompted by nothing. “You understand that, right? Absolutely absurd. This—” he waves a hand at me, “is not a combination of attributes that is supposed to go together.”
It’s probably the closest to a compliment I’ve ever gotten from him, so it’s hard to suppress my smile.
“Maybe you’re not the only one who’s a contradiction. I’m just not as much of a show-off about it. And I don’t have a butterfly knife.”
Fallow nods slowly, like this is a critical issue.
“You would look fucking sexy with a butterfly knife. We should get you one.”
“Yes, dear.”
That almost makes him laugh, and I take it for the win that it is. In a normal way, of course. Not a heart-clenching butterflies type of way, because I’m a hardened criminal and I don’t get butterflies.
“Okay. We can go see the lizards. But if we get arrested for this, you’re calling Murph to bail us out.”
His smile widens, and he looks like a beautiful creature that might consume me.
“Grand.”