Chapter 39 Lance
Lance
Somehow, we get away and into an untraceable car that Paxton had ready to go for us—clothes included.
Genevieve falls asleep somewhere around hour two.
I don’t blame her. The adrenaline crash was bound to hit eventually, and after what we just ran from, I’m surprised she lasted this long. Her head’s tilted against the window, her breath fogging the glass in slow, even puffs.
She looks soft like this. Unguarded. Nothing like the woman who told me move while the Lye was tearing itself apart around us.
My hand is on her thigh. I should move it, let her sleep without me pawing at her like some desperate guy who just blew up his entire life, but every time I pull away, her leg shifts closer, like even unconscious she doesn’t want me to let go.
So I don’t.
The highway stretches out ahead, gray and mostly empty this time of morning. We passed the Connecticut border twenty minutes ago, and every mile puts more distance between us and Rosebrook Falls. Between us and the Lye and Art’s face in VIP and a dead man on a concrete floor.
My hands are still steady on the wheel. That bothers me more than the shaking would.
I should call Paxton. We were supposed to go straight to the address he gave me, no stops, no detours. That was the plan, and Paxton doesn’t do well with deviations from the plan.
But I’m running on three cracked ribs and a face that looks like a Pollock painting, and the woman next to me hasn’t slept in over twenty-four hours, and I just killed someone with my bare hands in front of witnesses, and if I don’t stop moving for one goddamn second, I’m going to come apart at the seams.
I pick up my phone and dial.
He answers before the first ring finishes. “Where are you?”
“Ninety minutes out. I need to stop.”
“Lance.”
“One night, Pax. We’ll be at her dad’s place by morning.”
“You just killed one of Myrddin’s men in a room full of witnesses, and you want to stop for a nap?”
“I want to stop, because if I don’t, I’ll pass out behind the wheel and kill us both, and that feels counterproductive to the whole saving-our-lives thing.”
He sighs. “Cash only. Don’t use your real name. Keep your phone on.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I’m not joking, Lance.”
“I know.” My voice drops. “Thank you.”
“Your dog says hi.” He hangs up.
I take the next exit off the highway, following signs toward a town I’ve never heard of. The main strip is two blocks long. There’s a gas station, a hardware store that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the seventies, and at the end, tucked behind a row of bare trees, a motel, the Avalon Inn.
It’s exactly the kind of place I need. The kind of place that takes cash and doesn’t ask questions and has a parking lot full enough that no one will notice a truck with Connecticut plates and two people who look like they’ve been through a war.
I pull in and kill the engine.
Genevieve stirs, blinking awake like she’s surfacing from deep water.
“Where are we?” Her voice is thick with sleep, and she rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand.
“Middle of nowhere, Massachusetts.” I nod toward the motel.
She follows my gaze, taking in the faded wood siding, the vacancy sign buzzing in the window, the empty lot.
“Charming,” she murmurs.
“You want charming, or you want invisible?”
“Invisible works.”
I nod and climb out, and she follows, stretching her arms above her head with a groan that does something to me it shouldn’t, given the circumstances.
The hem of her hoodie rises up—my hoodie, the one she’s always wearing—exposing a strip of bare stomach, and I step in close before I can think about it.
My hands find her waist like it’s second nature.
My thumbs graze that sliver of skin and she grins, eyes flicking up to mine.
“You look good in my clothes, Half-Pint,” I say.
She shifts closer. Tilts her head, running her fingers down the front of my shirt. “That’s funny, I thought you’d prefer to see me out of it.”
Her hand reaches my waistband, fingers dipping just beneath it, and I suck in a breath.
“That’s true.”
She smiles wide, rising on her toes and pressing a kiss to the bottom of my jaw. “We’ll see how long it stays on, then.”
I catch her wrist before she can pull away. Hold her there, close enough to feel her heartbeat against my chest.
The early-morning light catches in her hair, turning the copper into something that hurts to look at. Her eyes are bright with mischief even though there are shadows under them and blood on her sleeve and we’re standing in a motel parking lot in a town neither of us could find on a map.
I’ve never seen anyone wear chaos so beautifully.
I kiss her forehead and breathe her in.
“You make me happy.”
She blinks. Surprise flickers across her face, and then she gives me a smaller grin.
A shy one, almost, and it tugs at something deep in my chest and doesn’t let go.
She reaches down and interlaces our fingers, and we walk hand in hand into the lobby, and even though we’re technically on the run and hiding from everyone in our lives, this is the freest I’ve felt in years.
The lobby smells like old coffee and pine air freshener. A woman behind the counter looks up from her crossword puzzle, reading glasses perched on the tip of her nose.
“Help you?”
“Need a room for the night.”
She glances between Genevieve and me, and I see the calculation. Young couple. No luggage. Middle of the morning on a weekday. Guy who looks like he lost a fight with a concrete wall and is wearing clothes that don’t quite fit.
I don’t care what story she’s building in her head, as long as she gives us a key.
“Just got the one room available,” she says, turning to the pegboard behind her. “King bed. That work?”
“That works.”
I pay cash. She doesn’t ask for ID. God bless small-town motels that mind their own business.
When we reach the door, I notice the number. My brows lift.
Room seven.
I hold up the key and grin at her. “Talk about luck, yeah?”
She groans. “You’re not about to make a sex joke with the same thing you used to confess your love, are you?”
“I was. But now I’m gonna make several.”
She snatches the key from my hand. “If you say something about seven minutes in heaven, I’m sleeping in the car.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” I lean against the doorframe while she fumbles with the lock. “Although, for the record, I lasted a lot longer than seven minutes in that armchair, if you recall.”
“Oh my God.”
“Seven times longer, if we’re being technical.”
“If you weren’t so hurt, I’d kill you myself.”
I reach around her, caging her against the door, pressing myself flush against her back. I pluck the key from her hand and feel the lock click. Then I lean down and press my mouth to her ear.
“You can try.”
“Get inside, idiot.” She laughs, grabbing me by the shirt and tugging me through the door.
The room is small but clean. Wood-paneled walls, a bed that takes up most of the space, covered in a quilted floral bedspread that’s probably been there since I was born. A TV bolted to the dresser. A bathroom barely big enough to turn around in.
Genevieve stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed, surveying the space. Her eyes meet mine, and the air shifts, and turns into something with weight.
“Shower first,” she says. “You look like a crime scene.”
“Romantic.”
“I’m serious. You’ve got blood in your hair. Are you… Should we take you to a hospital?”
My chest softens. “I’ll be all right. I’ve had much worse.”
She pushes me toward the bathroom, and I let her, mostly because the alternative is grabbing her and not letting go for several hours, and I should at least wash the evidence of murder off my body first.
The bathroom mirror confirms what I suspected. My left eye is swollen half-shut, there’s a gash along my hairline crusted over with dried blood, and my ribs are a patchwork of purple and black that hurts to look at almost as much as it hurts to breathe.
Graves did exactly what he was paid to do. What I let him do. I just didn’t stay down.
The hot water stings every cut. I brace my hands against the tile and the water runs red, then pink, then clear. It swirls down the drain like evidence disappearing.
When I step out, she’s sitting on the bed, legs crossed, flipping through channels on the ancient TV. She’s taken off her shoes, her hair loose around her shoulders.
She looks up. Her eyes track down my chest, cataloguing the damage.
“How bad?” she asks.
“Three cracked ribs, maybe. Nothing’s broken.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what broken feels like. This isn’t that.” I towel off my hair, wincing when I hit the gash. “It’s just loud.”
She unfolds herself from the bed and comes to me. Takes the towel out of my hands. Presses her fingers gently to the bruise on my side, her touch featherlight, and I flinch.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be.” I cover her hand with mine, splaying it flat against my ribs. “I like that it hurts when you touch me. Means I can still feel it.”
She stretches up and kisses the corner of my mouth, the side that isn’t split, and it’s so careful it makes my chest ache worse than the ribs.
“Get dressed,” she whispers. “I’m starving.”
“Do you really think going out is safe?” Paxton would kill me.
“Can we just pretend for the day? One day where it’s just us, on a normal trip, being a normal couple, before we have to go back to the real world.”
Inhaling slowly, I roll over the thought in my head, and even though I know I should refuse, I don’t.
Because I’d give her anything she asked.
We get food from the diner across the street. Burgers and fries and milkshakes that taste like they were made in 1985.
The place is mostly empty. Just us and an old man nursing coffee at the counter and a waitress who calls everyone “hon” and doesn’t bat an eye when I order two slices of pie.
“You have a sweet tooth,” Genevieve observes, dragging a fry through her milkshake.
I point at the motion. “That’s disgusting. I thought you’d have better standards, given that you’re a trained chef.”
“Don’t knock it till you try it.” She grins and offers me one.