16. Lena #2
Knox steps in, takes the gun from my hands with quick, careful fingers, and for one second his hand closes over mine. “Run,” he says.
We don’t stop running until we hit the street.
By then my lungs are on fire, my legs feel half-numb, and the whole world still seems too bright and too fast, like the shot is echoing inside my bones. Knox yanks open the passenger-side door of a dark car parked under a dead streetlamp and practically shoves me in.
“Seat belt.”
I stare at him. “That’s your priority?”
“Yes.”
I fumble for it with shaking hands while he gets in, starts the engine, and pulls away hard enough to throw me back against the seat.
He doesn’t speed in the obvious way, not weaving or peeling out like in a movie.
He drives like someone who knows exactly how not to look panicked while absolutely being panicked.
Or maybe not panicked. Focused.
Which, somehow, is scarier.
I sit there trying to breathe normally and failing. My whole body feels wrong. Too light. Too alive. My hands still remember the weight of the gun.
“I shot someone,” I say.
Knox glances at me, then back at the road. “You did.”
“I really shot someone.”
“You did.”
“That’s your whole response?”
He turns a corner, checks the mirror, then another mirror, then the dark road behind us. “Do you want a certificate?”
Despite everything, a laugh bursts out of me. It sounds a little unhinged.
He looks at me again. “Good. Stay loud. Means you’re not in shock yet.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Not trying to reassure you.”
He drives for a long time without seeming to drive anywhere. Left turns, right turns, doubling back, slowing at lights, taking side roads that get progressively emptier and uglier. I start to realize what he’s doing.
“You’re checking if we’re being followed.”
“Yes.”
“That means this happens to you enough that you have a routine.”
“Yes.”
I stare out the windshield. “That is deeply upsetting.”
“I know.”
By the time we pull into a motel parking lot, my pulse has finally started to come down, which is almost worse. Now I can feel every scrape, every ache, every horrible detail trying to settle into place.
The motel looks like a place people go to disappear.
A flickering VACANCY sign buzzes above the office. The building is two stories of peeling paint and stained railings, with doors that all face the parking lot and curtains pulled tight behind greasy windows. One of the lights over the office door blinks like it’s struggling for the will to live.
I look at Knox. “No.”
He kills the engine. “Yes.”
“I’m not staying at a murder motel.”
“It’s not a murder motel.”
I look at the sign again. “That is exactly what a murder motel looks like.”
“It’s temporary.”
“No.”
He turns in his seat and gives me a look. “You’re staying.”
“I’m going home.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
He leans back, studying me with that same maddening calm. “Safer here.”
“For who?”
“For you,” he says. Then, after half a beat, “And anyone else you’d be near.”
That shuts me up.
Because I know exactly what he means. Mara. Jess. My roommates. Random customers at the café. Anybody standing too close to me if those men decide I’m worth following again.
I hate that he’s right.
“I really don’t like you,” I mutter.
“I know.”
I stare at him. “You are exhausting.”
“So are you. Get out.”
I want to argue more. I really do. But the adrenaline is fading into something shaky and ugly, and the idea of being alone right now suddenly feels worse than this awful motel and the heavily armed menace sitting beside me.
So I get out.
The office smells like old air freshener, dust, and stale cigarettes somebody definitely smoked indoors despite the giant NO SMOKING sign taped to the counter. Behind it sits a man in a yellowing undershirt, watching a tiny television with the volume way too high.
He looks up when we walk in.
He looks at me. Then at Knox.
Then back at me.
And immediately gets the wrong idea.
His face changes into this knowing little smirk that makes me want to die on the spot.
“One room?” he asks.
Knox says, “Yes.”
I say, “No.”
The motel keeper lifts his brows. “Ah.”
Knox doesn’t even blink. “One room.”
I turn to him. “Why are you answering so fast?”
“Because we need a room.”
The motel keeper leans on the counter. “King bed okay?”
“No,” I say immediately.
“Yes,” Knox says at the exact same time.
The man’s smirk gets worse. “You two seem fun.”
“We’re not together,” I say.
The motel keeper looks at Knox. “That bad, huh?”
Knox reaches for his wallet. “Room.”
I am now actively considering death.
The man takes Knox’s card, still grinning. “Long night?”
“You have no idea,” I mutter.
He glances between us again. “Don’t worry. I mind my business. Cash works better for that, but cards are fine too.”
I make a strangled noise. “Oh my God.”
Knox, somehow, still sounds completely serious when he says, “Please stop talking.”
The keeper chuckles. “She’s got some fight in her.”
“Yes,” Knox says dryly. “I’ve noticed.”
That makes the man laugh outright while I stand there feeling my soul leave my body in installments. He slides a key across the counter. “Room twelve. Ice machine’s broken.”
“That sucks, I was really looking forward to the ice,” I say drily.
The guy just scratches the top of his head. Knox drags me away from the reception.
As I turn away, the man calls after us, “Checkout’s at eleven. Or noon, if you reconcile.”
Knox keeps walking. He glances at me as we reach the room. “You shot a man an hour ago and this is what’s upsetting you?”
“Yes,” I snap. “Because that at least made sense in context. I’m not going to fuck you.”
“I wasn’t dreaming about that either,” he says.
The motel room is worse inside.
One bed. A humming air conditioner. A lamp with a crooked shade throwing weak yellow light over everything. The blanket looks scratchy. The curtains don’t quite close all the way. Somewhere outside, a car door slams, then silence again.
Knox locks the door and checks the window without saying anything.
I stand there in the middle of the room, still buzzing. My whole body feels wrong. Too tight. Too awake. Every time I blink, I see the alley again. The men. The gun. The way my hands shook after the shot.
Knox, meanwhile, looks like he just finished a mildly annoying errand.
It’s infuriating.
“You’re seriously this calm?” I ask.
He glances at me once. “No.”
“That’s your not-calm face?”
“Yes.”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “You are impossible.”
He takes off his jacket and sets it over the chair like we’re in a normal hotel on a normal night and not hiding in a motel that smells like old smoke after nearly getting killed.
“Sit down,” he says.
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
His eyes flick to me again. “Then stand there and shake. Your choice.”
I hate that he sees it.
“I’m not shaking.”
“You are.”
I step closer before I even fully decide to. “Stop doing that. You don’t know me.”
His face doesn’t change. “No.”
I should back off.
I don’t.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline. Maybe it’s the fact that he threw himself over me without hesitation. Maybe it’s because he’s been calm all night in a way that makes me want to crack that control open just to prove there’s something human underneath it.
Maybe I just need one thing tonight to feel like my choice.
So I go right up to him.
He still doesn’t move.
The air between us turns electric. Heavy. His eyes drop briefly to my mouth, then back up, and that tiny shift does more to me than it should.
“You don’t react to anything,” I say, quieter now.
“That’s not true.”
“Prove it.”
For the first time, something in his expression gives.
Not much. Enough.
I kiss him before I can think better of it.
It’s meant to be a challenge. A way to take something back. A way to make him feel off-balance for once instead of me.
For one second, he stays still.
Then his restraint breaks. His hand comes to my waist, hard and immediate, and suddenly I’m lifted off the ground. I gasp against his mouth as he picks me up like it costs him nothing, like he’d been holding himself back all night and now he’s done trying.
The kiss turns rough, hungry, out of control in a way that makes my pulse go wild all over again. His mouth is hot and demanding, his grip firm enough to leave no doubt that he’s there, that this is happening, that I asked for it and now neither of us knows how to make it smaller.
It is insane. Completely insane.
And it feels so good I can’t think straight.
He carries me toward the bed without breaking the kiss, and I can feel the tension in him, the effort it takes for him to keep any part of this controlled.
When he finally sets me down and pulls back, it’s only enough to look at me, breathing hard, eyes dark and locked on mine like he’s giving me one last chance to stop this.
I don’t.
I kiss him again.
That’s all it takes.
We barely know each other. We’re in a cheap motel after surviving a shooting. I should be pulling away, demanding space, demanding answers, demanding sanity.
Instead I’m kissing him back like I’ve lost my mind.
Because it feels so damn good.
His mouth opens over mine, rough and hungry, one big hand sliding up my back while the other grips my thigh and drags me closer over the bulge already pressing against his jeans.
I gasp into his mouth when it rubs right where I’m aching.
He swallows the sound, kissing me deeper, and suddenly I’m the one holding on while he takes over.
His hands move to my shirt, shoving it up, and the look on his face when my bra comes into view is almost enough to make me come undone. He drops his head and mouths at the swell of my breast over the fabric first, then hooks the cup down and takes my nipple into his mouth.
“Fuck,” I breathe.