Chapter 44 Willow
WILLOW
Once Ransom and Vic are up and we’ve all gotten ready, we leave the RV park and hit the road.
All four of us are on our bikes, and for a little while, I let myself enjoy the sight of Malice and Victor on their motorcycles up ahead of me, riding with ease.
They’re not quite as skilled as Ransom, who’s bringing up the rear of our little group, but they both look right at home as they lean into the wind.
I’m surprised how comfortable I’ve gotten on my own bike, honestly. I probably have to keep my mind on the task more than any of them do, reminding myself of everything Ransom taught me as we go along, but I feel more confident than I would’ve imagined at the beginning of this.
I’ve come to really enjoy motorcycles, in the last few days especially, mostly thanks to his enthusiasm for them.
But even with part of my brain focused on making sure I don’t hit a bump wrong and lay down my bike, I can’t stop my mind from drifting back to what happened with Malice this morning as we stood together in front of the window.
The view wasn’t much to write home about, just dusty asphalt and the other RVs around ours, but that was still one of the most unforgettable moments of my life.
My heart swells when I think of the words I never expected him to say. Maybe I should’ve seen it coming, though. So many of his actions made it clear how he feels about me, and the fact that we’re here now, leaving everything they’ve ever known behind, is proof of that.
Maybe that’s why I wasn’t waiting for the words.
Other people have said they loved me, and then treated me like shit.
Misty said it often enough, usually when she was drunk or high, or when she was trying to get me to do something for her.
She’d say it, and I’d fold, but in the back of my mind, I knew that people don’t treat someone they truly love the way Misty treated me.
Olivia acted like she loved me, welcoming me into her life, buying me expensive things, telling me she wanted to make sure I had what I needed. Acting the way a beloved family member should act. But it was all a game to her. All a trick to get me to do what she wanted, to use me for her own ends.
Malice never said he loved me until today, but he and his brothers have protected me. He’s looked out for me and gone after anyone who tried to hurt me. He fucks me like I’m the only woman in the world, the only woman he’ll ever want to be with again.
So I think a part of me knew how he felt, even before he said it.
After another couple hours of riding, signs for the border start to pop up around us, and my heart rate speeds up.
We’re so close now, so fucking close to reaching our destination and having Olivia’s threat ease up a bit. Hunkering down in Mexico won’t make her go away—not by a long shot—but it will give us some much needed breathing room.
But we have to get there first.
Victor makes a gesture with one hand, and we all stop our bikes, pulling off to the side of the road and dismounting so that we can do one final check-in.
The plan is set, and we’ve gone over it several times to make sure that we all know what to do.
We’ve all rehearsed our cover stories until we know them backward and forward, and we know what order we’ll go in as we approach the border.
We need to leave a bit of space between ourselves, so that it won’t seem like we’re together, but not enough that we’ll be too far away from each other if something goes wrong.
“Everyone got their IDs?” Vic asks, tugging off his helmet and holding it at his side with one hand.
I nod, removing my helmet too and triple checking my bag to make sure I’ve got the fake passport we bought from Chuck. Ransom plucks the little blue booklet from my hand, opening it up and then looking at me.
“And what’s your name, miss?” he asks, putting on an official sounding tone as if he’s a border agent.
“Christina Peters,” I reply.
“Date of birth?”
I tell him the birthday that’s listed on the passport, and he nods.
“How much do you weigh?”
I squint at him, pursing my lips. “Wow, that’s a rude thing to ask a lady.”
He laughs, but there’s a tightness around his eyes. I can tell he’s just as worried and tense as the others are, despite the fact that he’s trying to keep things light by joking around.
“What brings you to Mexico?” he asks.
“I’m on a break from school, just trying to see new things before I get locked into a job I’m probably going to hate,” I answer immediately, making a face that I imagine an overworked college student would make.
Ransom gives me a look of approval. “I think you’ve got it.”
The others have their own fake identities, and they’ve changed little things about themselves.
Malice has cut his hair a little, as well as stopped shaving, and he’s wearing blue tinged contacts, the natural color of his eyes turning them almost a stormy cobalt.
He has makeup covering most of his more noticeable tattoos, helping him to stand out less.
Vic has let his hair grow out longer since we’ve been on the run, and I can tell it bothers him.
He’s constantly flicking it out of his eyes, but now he steels himself, mastering that impressive control to ignore it.
His eyes are green thanks to another set of contacts, and when he looks at me, it’s startling.
Ransom’s hair is more buzzed on the sides now, and his eyes are a muddy brown from the contacts he’s wearing. But even that can’t hide how attractive he is.
We stand there together, none of us in a hurry to leave just yet, even though we need to.
We have a window of time that we need to get through the border, in order to take advantage of the research Vic did, but tension hovers in the air between us.
Like none of us want to admit that this could be the last moment we’re all together or even all alive.
But we all know it.
Ransom pulls me close and kisses my forehead. “I’m proud of you,” he says.
“For what?”
“For handling your bike like a boss bitch. For coming this far. For never giving up.” He shrugs. “Take your pick.”
I hug him tightly. “Thank you. For everything.”
I don’t even know how to start numbering all the things he’s done for me.
Being there when I needed someone, when I was alone and scared at their house for the first time.
Keeping me alive, when his brothers would have killed me in a heartbeat.
Being open and strong and kind and funny. It’s too much to say.
But there’s a look on Ransom’s face like he knows what I mean anyway, and we share a quick kiss.
He pushes me over to Vic next, and I stand there for a second, not sure how to approach this. I know Vic needs his control to get through today, and I don’t want to shatter that, but if this is the last time…
He makes the decision for me, striding closer and reaching up to touch my face.
“You can do this,” he murmurs softly. “You can do anything.”
I laugh, feeling emotional all of a sudden. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” he says, eyes blazing. “You’ve done the impossible before.”
He’s talking about him and his brothers, maybe. How I managed to win them over.
“Can I hug you?” I whisper, and he nods, just once.
I put my arms around him, and he stiffens for a second before melting against me. He breathes out a ragged sigh, and I hold him tighter, memorizing the way he feels against me, the way he smells.
When he pulls back, his eyes are a swirl of emotion, all of it so close to the surface. It takes my breath away, the split second or so that I get to see it, before those walls come back up because they have to.
He kisses the corner of my mouth and then moves away, fingers tapping at his thigh, pulling himself back together.
That leaves me with Malice. He steps toward me, his dark hair gleaming in the sunlight as he drops his head.
“You remember what I told you this morning?” he asks.
My heart flutters, and I arch a brow at him, because there’s no way I’ll ever forget that. “Of course I do. Do you remember what I told you?”
We believe in you. I love you.
Malice nods, his eyes on fire with determination. “I remember.”
I step into his arms, and he holds me tight, almost too tight for just a moment. I breathe out a long sigh, clinging to him, not wanting to let go.
But of course we have to. Long before I’m ready for it, he steps back.
He goes back over to where his brothers are, and I watch the three of them have a silent conversation.
Malice looks to Vic first, and Vic nods.
The two of them don’t touch, but they don’t have to.
Their connection, their bond is plain to see.
Then Ransom and Malice grip each other’s forearms, and Malice claps Ransom on the shoulder before they break apart.
As one, they turn back to me, and I take a deep breath.
Here we go.
We all head back to our bikes, mounting up again.
It’s only another half hour or so to the border, and by the time we get there, my nerves are a mess.
It’s a good thing I have to focus on the bike, and I’m actually grateful that Ransom suggested this way of getting there.
If I had to sit in a car with these nerves, I’d be close to barfing out the window right now.
We’re far from the only people trying to get into the country, and there’s a line to go through the checkpoint, which then splits up into separate lines, each going to a different border agent.
The guys and I are all separated, staggered with space between us, the way we planned it.
So far, nothing has gone wrong, but as the line inches forward, my brain conjures up all kinds of ideas of what could be waiting for us when we get there—the worst of which is a sudden flash of certainty that Olivia beat us here and will be right there, waiting to identify us and have us hauled off.
But I shake myself out of that negative line of thinking.
We know she’s been tracking our movements, trying to figure out where we’ve been and guess where we might be going, but despite all of her resources, she’s only one woman.
And if Victor’s decoy worked at all, she should think we’re heading toward Los Angeles right now instead of toward the Mexican border.
Finally, I get to the border agent. I take a deep breath as I roll to a stop, trying to act calm, as if I do this sort of thing all the time.
The agent is a woman who looks like she’d rather be anywhere but at work right now, and she takes my ID and glances at it. I pull my helmet off so she can see my face, and she nods.
“Reason for visiting?” she drones.
“Just a little vacation,” I reply with a shrug, trying to keep my tone casual. “I graduate soon, and I wanna see stuff before I get chained to a desk.” I make a face at that last bit, she snorts, nodding.
“Tell me about it. How long are you staying?”
“Just a week,” I reply. “That’s as long as I could get away.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Malice approaching the agent in his line. He looks so different with his tattoos covered and the dark scruff on his face, but I’d recognize him anywhere.
The agent looks at his ID and then back to him, and a slight frown crosses the man’s face.
My stomach drops.
Fuck. Does the guy recognize him?
A loud noise in the line behind Malice draws everyone’s attention. A horn honks and a dog barks, high pitched and grating. The agent with Malice frowns, leaning up to see what the commotion is, and then waves Malice through, handing the ID back before he goes.
I have to fight not to breathe an audible sigh of relief, and my heart unclenches a little as I shift my focus back to the agent in front of me.
“Enjoy your trip,” she says, passing me back my fake passport and waving me through.
I put my helmet back on and roll my bike forward, my hands shaking a little.
After driving past the border, I put some distance between us, forcing myself to keep going for a bit longer. I want desperately to turn back to check on Ransom and Vic, to make sure they get through okay, but I can’t draw attention to them. Or to myself.
So I keep going until I get to the spot we designated, parking the bike and tugging off my helmet to wait for the rest of them.
Malice shows up a couple minutes later, nodding at me, and then Ransom and Vic arrive, right on each other’s heels. As we reconvene, the knot of worry I’ve been nursing since Malice almost got arrested finally loosens enough that I can breathe.
We did it.
We did it.
Ransom pulls his motorcycle up alongside mine and takes off his helmet, grinning as he shakes out his hair. The bronze highlights in the brown strands glint with the movement, and he leans over and kisses me, his bike still humming beneath him.
“Welcome to Mexico, pretty girl,” he says when he pulls back. “We made it. I think this calls for a celebration.”
I couldn’t stop the grin that spreads across my face if I tried. “What did you have in mind?”