Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Colm
This stealthy shit is definitely more Fallow’s strength than mine, so I’m content to let him lead the way. Plus, he looks blissed the fuck out.
I watch him get into a low crouch, and immediately I’m reminded of how slick and cat-like he was the first day we met.
It’s becoming clear to me that even if I live a long, full life, I’ll never meet someone as beautiful as this murderous sex pest. It makes me want to keep him close.
But it’s also clear that he’s not the kind of person you can contain, and whenever he gets bored of me, he’s going to leave.
I’ll have to savor it while I can. This is the foremost thought in my head as I walk behind him, keeping enough distance not to blow our cover.
We’re almost at the exit by the time we catch up to them. They have noticed that their buddy is missing, but thank fuck we’re being tracked by the stupidest criminals in the history of organized crime, because these motherfuckers are acting like they’re in a buddy comedy, not a horror movie.
Fallow will quickly show them that was a mistake. One of the remaining five Aryans comes wandering back down the path to look for the missing member of the pack, calling out “Abe!” like he’s sure the guy just got lost.
He doesn’t even see Fallow before his throat is slit.
God damn, Fallow loves to slit throats. He also loves to hold a knife to mine while we fuck, but somehow the real-life danger of it only makes it sexier.
The man is left gasping, reaching for his ruined throat, and Fallow gives him a shove to help him to the ground.
His body is still twitching when I step over it to keep on the others. Good.
The remaining four are clustered near the gate when we catch up to them.
There’s more open space here, and they’ll have a line of sight on us when we approach.
Fallow seems totally undeterred, but I snag his sleeve—I guess I already got used to having touching privileges, although he still might kill me for it one day—and pull him back before he reveals himself.
“Wait,” I whisper. “At least let me cover you.”
He rolls his eyes and makes a big show of blowing his hair out of the way, like I’m being a drag. But I have to at least try to keep him safe.
I position myself behind the closest corner to our targets, pull my gun, and wait until Fallow is ready.
I’m about to give a signal when he decides to do it himself, by reaching out and pinching my side.
It’s so unexpected, I’m a few seconds behind him and he’s already well and truly exposed before I start firing.
He’s such a little shit sometimes. He’s lucky I’m a decent shot. I only have one magazine, though. Fifteen bullets. Could be worse, but I’m still not crazy about the odds.
It’s not like I have a choice. Fallow covers the ground between me and the Aryans like he fucking teleported, so at least he caught them off-guard.
He gets his knife in one of their necks before any of them has pulled a gun.
It takes me six shots to get two of them to the ground in a way that convinces me they’re truly down, but that leaves one lone loser to grapple with Fallow.
I don’t fucking like this. The guy is obviously not as experienced in hand to hand, but somehow Fallow’s knife got knocked to the ground and he’s facing off with someone who has half a foot and at least fifty pounds on him.
I’m taking aim when the man makes the mistake of grabbing for Fallow instead of punching him, and my little psychopath loses his cool.
I feel like I’m watching something on TV as Fallow slides behind the man and climbs his back, ending up with his deceptively muscular legs around the guy’s waist and his arm around his throat.
He uses one arm to lock the other one in place, with his forearm pressing hard against the man’s trachea and desperate noises already pouring out of his mouth.
I’m standing in the open now, holding aim on them, but I’m not convinced I have a truly clear shot that doesn’t risk Fallow. I hesitate, praying that Fallow has the strength to choke this meathead out.
I shouldn’t have been concerned. The Aryan scrabbles at Fallow’s forearms, leaving deep red marks with his nails.
He tries throwing himself backward into the fence to knock Fallow off, but it’s a chain-link fence and has too much give.
And Fallow, for all his quirks, has a ferocity in moments like this that I’ve never seen on anyone else.
The man makes a final wet moan before finally falling to his knees. Fallow gives another crushing flex of his bicep and then lets go. The second he’s clear, I put two bullets in the man’s chest and one in his head, because I’m not taking any fucking risks.
“What the fuck did you do that for?” Fallow is panting with exertion but still manages to look indignant when he gestures at the corpse. “I wanted to watch him die.”
Jesus.
“I think we have more important things to do. Like cleaning this up and getting the fuck out of here before anyone else shows up. Oh, and getting that goddamn tracker off our car.”
“You may have a point,” he says, pointing at me with a loose finger and bending over to take some more deep breaths.
“You alright?”
It’s difficult not to close the distance between us and inspect him for injuries, but I’m trying not to overstep more than I have to today.
Fallow looks down at his body, checking himself for wounds. He looks happy, though. Calm. Then he stares at his arms for a minute, where the dumb fuck we just killed was clawing and scrabbling at him.
With absolutely no warning, he leans to the side and pukes. This time I really do take a step toward him, but he holds out a hand to stop me.
“I’m fine. I’m fine,” he says, panting. “I just need a minute. I’ll be fine.”
Maybe he caught an elbow to the stomach or something. Or maybe his hatred for being touched really is that bad that he’s having a full-body reaction to it. I guess I should be grateful I don’t freak him out as much as a random stranger.
Fallow stands up after a few seconds, wiping his mouth on his t-shirt and looking at me like he’s waiting for instruction.
“You okay?” I ask again, and he just nods.
“I guess we should get rid of these bodies,” he says. “Time to put those big muscles of yours to work, little rabbit.”
This is going to take so fucking long.
FALLOW
I don’t know how many hours this shitty process takes, but by the time we’re done the sky is starting to lighten a little.
The stars are still out, but the world is a steely gray instead of black.
Traffic on the road beside us has gradually picked up, but we were alone for long enough to do the initial part of corpse disposal.
I dragged each of the six Aryans out of the facility and then half a fucking mile into the desert, where Colm used the emergency shovel from the car to dig a hole that was actually pretty impressive.
They got dumped and then covered with rocks, so hopefully the animals won’t pull them out any time soon, and I found a couple bottles of bleach that I poured over the bloodstains inside.
It’s not exactly the perfect crime. The staff will see the evidence of a fight as soon as they get in, and I’m sure the parking lot security cam caught the sounds of gunfire, even if they didn’t see us.
There’s no way I had enough time to clean up all the shell casings and DNA. But it’s close enough.
I’m relying on the powerful levels of disinterest the local police probably have in solving a crime with no bodies that—if you have an iota of common sense—is clearly a beef between bad people and not a threat to the general public.
No one makes a Netflix series about low-level gangsters offing each other. It’s just not newsworthy.
The most annoying part of the whole process was finding the tracker on the car.
It wasn’t that well-hidden, but still. What a pain in the ass.
Colm hunted for it while I brushed my teeth, and we both managed a whore’s bath and a change of clothes by the side of the car without getting spotted.
We can dump the dirty stuff somewhere once we’ve crossed into the next county, I’m sure.
The entire process is exhausting, and whatever buzz of endorphins I had from the murder and orgasms is long gone by the time we’re done. I end up leaning against the car for a second, summoning up the will to leave, more desperate for sleep than I’ve been in a long time.
Colm walks over to me, still pouring bottled water over his hands to wash them. His eyebrows are drawn together in that hangdog look of concern I’ve gotten familiar with, and I already know what he’s going to say.
“I’m fine.”
He passes me the bottle of water when he finishes, and I take a swig. I realize abruptly how thirsty I am and chug the rest without thinking.
“More?” he asks, still staring.
I shake my head.
“We should go. It’s almost dawn, and who knows how early these people have to get here to start portioning out crickets for the lizard breakfasts.”
Colm smiles a bit, but the concern is still there, lurking beneath the surface.
“Look.” I point to my cheek, where all the makeup has rubbed off but the skin is red completely unbroken, obviously healed enough to make it through some very vigorous activity. “Seems like I had quite the surgeon. Even hand to hand combat wasn’t enough to fuck it up again.”
Oh God, I shouldn’t have said that, because now he’s fucking beaming and I might be a little bit in love with the feckless oaf.
Creatures like me aren’t built for love.
It’s not how I’m wired. It’s been such a non-issue in my life that I never even considered it, it just seemed like something other people did.
But here I am with the kindest, most emotionally mature man in the history of organized crime, thinking about asking him to touch me again like he did before.
Breaking all of my rules, just to keep him close to me.
Fuck it. I’ve always loved surprising people. What’s the point in worrying about breaking rules, when I’m the one who made the rules in the first place?
“Kiss me,” I tell him, smiling to myself as his eyes slowly widen.
“What?”
“You heard me.” I make a show of leaning back against the car, stretching out and putting my now semi-clean body on display. “Find some balls, walk over here and kiss me.”
He doesn’t sputter as much as I expected him to. I think he’s felt the shift between us just as keenly as I have. Of course, he moves slowly, like I’m an animal he doesn’t want to spook, but there’s no real hesitance in it.
He stops when his chest is an inch from mine, keeping his hands to himself. He’s a little bit taller than me, so I tilt my chin up to look at him, trying to keep a confident expression on my face as I lick my lips.
“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” he asks, his voice low and honeyed in a way that makes my blood rush.
I shake my head.
“I never saw the appeal. Until now.”
Colm is serious, but I can see the pleasure lurking behind his eyes. Who doesn’t love to feel special? And it’s not a lie. He is very fucking special, for some reason.
He leans in even closer, then decides to put two fingers under my chin so he can tilt my head back a little more. I comply, and then barely have the chance to blink before he presses his lips against mine.
His lips are warm and he kisses me firmly, but not messily.
I can’t help but tense at first, but it’s not as unpleasant as I might have feared.
In a few seconds, I find myself softening into it.
I reach forward as well, slipping a few fingers into the front of his jeans so I can pull him closer to me.
Colm takes a half step, and then we’re finally pressed together, chest to hips. It’s nice. Weird, but warm. Like he’s a wall between me and the rest of the world.
I part my lips a fraction, and Colm takes the invitation for what it is.
His tongue slips into my mouth and it feels natural to do the same in response.
By the time he wraps an arm around my waist to hold me tight to him, my heart is racing and my poor, exhausted cock is attempting to summon an erection for the occasion.
Nothing goes further. It feels easy for a while to stand there, close together, kissing languidly under the desert stars. I’ve never in my life pined for this kind of closeness but now that it’s here, I understand a little more what the fuss is about.
When we finally break apart, Colm spends a long minute hovering close to me, all breathy and flushed like he gets when we fuck.
“Okay?”
“Good job, little rabbit. Top marks.”
He smiles again, small and sincere, and then finally pries himself away from my body. Neither of us says anything else, because there’s nothing else to say. Eventually, we’ll have to figure out what we’re doing here. But right now, I feel utterly content to just be.