Chapter 17
JUDAH
“Grab that bag,” I said to Amelia as I turned away from the tunnel door. “It’s got sheets and pillows for the bed.”
I set my shit on the ground, unbarred the door, and shoved it open.
She didn’t move.
I withheld a growl—because of course she’d choose right now to be stubborn.
“What do you mean we’re on the run from everyone?” she pressed.
I didn’t even try to be coy about it. “Let’s just say that, in an attempt to get you away from the bad guys, I may have broken a few laws that the good guys would have an issue with.
And since we need to keep you alive long enough to get your brother out of his mess, we need to stay off the good guys’ radar too. ”
She was quiet for a moment, then cocked her head. “Did you just admit to kidnapping me instead of ‘proactively relocating’ me?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “If I say yes, will you grab the sheets and pillows?”
“Try your luck.”
“Fine. Yes. I kidnapped you.” I glanced over my shoulder as I started up the ladder. “Happy?”
Amelia tugged on the string, cut the light, and followed me up, carrying the linens.
The daylight was a necessary evil. I wanted to rest. I needed to rest. But I craved the darkness of the cellar. I wanted to bar that door, pull Amelia into my arms, and hold her until she stopped coping with humor and let herself be scared. Then I’d cradle her until she wasn’t afraid anymore.
I didn’t want to admit that I was what she was afraid of.
I was the boogeyman. I was the shadow that made people jump. I was the whistle of the wind that made you look over your shoulder. I was the prickle of awareness that crept up your spine when you realized you weren’t alone.
So instead of bothering her more, I left her to put the sheets and quilts on the bed and get some sleep while I headed out to the truck.
I popped open the toolbox, grabbed a screwdriver, and made quick work of removing the front and back New Jersey plates, then fastened the single West Virginia plate to the rear.
Sure, if a cop ran my plate number, they’d realize the registration sticker was bullshit, but if luck was on my side, the new plates and up-to-date sticker would blend in enough for me to move about unseen.
I tossed the screwdriver back into the toolbox with a clank and grabbed a few sheets of sandpaper.
In a perfect world, I’d change the color of the truck entirely.
But a shitty, DIY paint job was more noticeable than driving the same color truck that would pop up in BOLOs.
Then again, in a perfect world, I wouldn’t be doing this.
In a perfect world, Amelia would have shown up to the casino to celebrate her summer off.
In a perfect world, I would have flirted with her and gotten her number the old-fashioned way.
In a perfect world, I would have taken her on a proper date.
Maybe kissed her at her door but waited until the second date to go inside.
But it wasn’t a perfect world, save for the professor in the cabin.
There was a stack of bumper stickers tucked in the bottom of the toolbox.
I grabbed a few that sported slogans for protecting the forest and not starting wildfires and slapped them on the bumper.
I snagged a blue-and-yellow decal that cheered on West Virginia University football and added it to the back window.
The sandpaper was just rough enough to scratch up the paint.
Maybe a dent in the door would look good.
By the time I was done, the interior had been cleaned of any receipts or litter that tied us to New Jersey or any of the states in between.
The exterior sported a nice little dent in the side, new plates and bumper stickers, and sprays of mud that obscured some of the body.
Around here, muddy trucks were a dime a dozen.
I walked the majority of the trail, covering the tire tracks with leaves and branches until I had hidden all traces that led to the cabin.
Delirium began to make my head swirl as I gathered wood and used the cabin’s axe to split and stack it so I’d have a stash to get the woodstove going.
Fighting the exhaustion of being awake for nearly forty-eight hours was growing harder and harder.
I had done stretches like this before, but it had been a while.
My body wasn’t as accustomed to pushing through as it had once been.
I didn’t have a team around me to keep me going when I wanted to give in and sleep.
Just the idea of her.
I focused on the repetitive swing of the axe, the crack of the logs, and the sweat that streaked my face and neck.
I set the axe against the stump I had been splitting wood on and took a moment to just breathe. Once I was still enough, the birdsong returned.
It was the necessary reminder that the earth didn’t see me as a predator, no matter how much I believed it to be true.
When I’d first started with John Valentine, I had all these delusions that I could do my job and maintain my humanity. But with each speck of blood that had coated my hands over the years, I felt myself slipping more and more.
Nothing was shocking to me anymore. I should have left long ago, when it became normal.
Treating human beings as if they’re disposable should never be normal.
My hair was long and scraggly. Usually it didn’t bother me, but now that I was on the run, it was just inconvenient.
I had lost my ponytail elastic when I had to chase Amelia down in the gas station parking lot, and now I cursed myself for not having a backup.
I balled my hair in my hand and held it up, letting the breeze dance across the back of my neck.
Damn. I closed my eyes and breathed with the rhythm of the wind. That felt good.
“Do you need a ponytail?”
Adrenaline raced as I jerked in the direction of the cabin and found Amelia standing in the doorway. I hadn’t even heard her open the door, and that scared the shit out of me.
“What are you doing?” I rasped.
She lifted a willowy shoulder. “I dozed off and then woke up after I had this nightmare that I got kidnapped from a casino, trafficked across the country, and now I’m in a cabin that doesn’t have toilet paper.”
I blinked, then laughed. And God help me, I didn’t know why. I had burned my life and my identity for a girl who I couldn’t help but want to keep safe. “Toilet paper’s under the sink in the kitchen.”
Her smile was bashful as she slipped back into the cabin.
I split ten more pieces of wood before she appeared again. Amelia crept across the forest floor in that ridiculous sweatshirt and pants combo I had found for her.
I added find Amelia clothes and shoes to my mental to-do list.
She slipped a hair tie off her wrist and held it out. “I always have an extra one.”
Her kindness, even in the midst of fear and anger, wasn’t lost on me.
“Thanks,” I said as I took it from her and tied my hair back into a bun. Something so simple made me feel better instantly.
“You know, when I first saw you at the Four Horsemen, you had more of a motorcycle club vibe.” Amelia glanced down at my worn motorcycle boots, up my black jeans, to my black button-up and black coat. “I didn’t have you pegged as a lumberjack.”
“What can I say? I like the outdoors.”
She stuck her tongue out and pretended to gag.
I cracked a smile as I lined up the axe and split another log. “You’ll be thankful when you’re not freezing your ass off tonight.”
Amelia let out a slow sigh as she looked up and studied the trees. “Yeah, ‘roughing it’ was not on my to-do list for my first summer off.”
I had warned her. I had tried to keep her from showing up night after night at the Four Horsemen. But between her stubbornness and John Valentine’s orders, I hadn’t been able to protect her. I wanted to say, “I told you so,” but that wouldn’t have been helpful.
“If you had stayed in New Jersey, you wouldn’t have made it to the first day of summer. Make it through this and you’ll have more summers.”
Her demeanor shifted from cautiously friendly to mistrusting. “How long are we staying here?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not good enough,” she countered.
I huffed. “You know the ‘run, hide, or fight’ mantra?”
Amelia rolled her eyes. “I work in education. Of course I do.”
“We’re going to do all three. Right now, we’re in the second part of that little phrase.
Once I can get a read on how the other players are reacting, we’ll make our plan.
But for now”—I glanced at the cabin—“this is home sweet home.” I whacked the axe into the stump for safekeeping while I carted some of the wood inside and stored the rest under a tarp to keep it dry in case it rained.
Of course, I’d bring the axe in when I was done stacking the wood.
I wasn’t dumb enough to leave a weapon where just anyone could get it.
Amelia kept a careful eye on me while I carted the split wood inside and stacked it neatly beside the woodstove.
She was brilliant and clever in the most dangerous way.
She rarely asked questions outright, and when she did, it was because she was trying to find out something other than what she was asking.
She masked her intentions with polite nonchalance.
But behind the facade of someone who seemed not to care that she had been kidnapped was a woman who was carefully calculating her next move.
At least she’d be easy to spot in her bright yellow sweatshirt and sweatpants if she ran. The flip-flops would slow her down too.
The world spun as I grabbed the axe, yanked it out of the stump, and carried it inside. I could barely keep my eyes open.
Eight minutes. If I had eight minutes to close my eyes, I could keep going until nightfall.
I needed to stay awake until a reasonable bedtime to get my body back on schedule.
Granted, in my line of work, I lived on vampire hours.
But this wasn’t the kind of exhaustion that came from weeks on end of working the night shift.
It was the fear that came from not having a damn clue what my next move would be.
I set the axe on the floor behind the wood stove. The last thing I wanted was Amelia tripping on it, getting hurt, and having to go to the hospital.
Hospitals were the least discreet institutions on the planet, HIPAA be damned.
I locked the cabin’s door, picked up the board that was propped against the wall, and dropped it into place in the slots that had been added on either side of the doorframe.
Sure, it didn’t keep someone from breaking in—they could always try to smash a window.
Granted, the windows were bulletproof, but could be hacked through if someone put enough effort in.
But the bar on the door would prevent them from sneaking in unnoticed.
They’d have to make a hell of a lot of noise, alerting both of us and giving us time to get out through the cellar.
Goddamn, I’m tired.
My first mistake was sitting on the edge of the bed to take my boots off. Amelia was on the couch, and I wanted to give her plenty of physical space.
My second mistake was closing my eyes while I exhaled to calm my racing thoughts.
My third mistake was sinking into an unconscious abyss, lulled to sleep by the faint hint of her lingering perfume.