CHAPTER 17 THE GETAWAY POV SYBIL #2
"What do you want to talk about, wife?" he rasps, a dark, breathless smirk pulling at the corner of his bruised mouth. "The weather? The economy?"
"Tell me about the safehouse," I say, my voice trembling slightly as panic finally begins to breach my adrenaline-fueled focus. "What is it?"
"It's a motel," he murmurs, his heavy eyelids dropping to half-mast. "The Starlight. Completely off the grid. Cash only. The owner owes the Syndicate a blood debt. He will keep his mouth shut and hand over the keys to the back unit."
"Okay," I breathe, desperately tracking the mileage markers through the heavy rain. "Okay, just hold on."
"I'm not going anywhere, Sybil," Thayer whispers, the velvet timbre of his voice turning incredibly soft, almost completely stripped of the monster. "I finally have you exactly where I want you. Completely alone."
The dark, possessive reality of his words sends a violent shiver down my spine. He isn't mourning the loss of his empire. He is relishing the absolute, terrifying isolation.
The neon sign of The Starlight Motel flickers through the gray, torrential downpour exactly when the digital clock on the dashboard hits 5:43 AM.
It is a dilapidated, miserable strip of single-story rooms arranged in a tight U-shape around a cracked, weed-infested parking lot. The neon letters hum with a faulty electrical buzz, casting a sickly, strobing pink light over the puddles of rain.
I pull the heavy muscle car entirely around to the back of the building, parking it flush against the peeling, water-stained wall of the last unit, completely hiding the vehicle from the main highway.
I kill the engine. The sudden, absolute silence in the cabin is deafening, broken only by the rhythmic drumming of the rain against the metal roof.
I unbuckle my seatbelt and reach across the center console. I press my cold, trembling fingers against the side of Thayer’s neck. His skin is burning up again, the fever raging through his bloodstream, but his pulse is still there—a heavy, stubborn thud against my fingertips.
"We're here," I whisper.
Thayer forces his eyes open. He reaches out with his uninjured right hand, entirely ignoring the door handle. Instead, he grabs the back of my neck, pulling my face across the console until my lips collide with his.
The kiss is desperate, a raw, bruising clash of teeth and frantic breath. It isn't romantic. It is a violent, biological check to ensure we are both still breathing. He tastes like blood, exhaustion, and absolute possession.
"Get the key," he growls against my mouth.
I pull away, my chest heaving, my lips throbbing from the pressure. I scramble out of the driver’s side door into the freezing rain. I run to the motel’s small, heavily barred front office.
The old man sitting behind the bulletproof glass takes one look at my pale, rain-soaked face, my dark, expensive clothes, and the complete lack of luggage. He doesn't ask a single question. He simply slides a heavy, brass key with a plastic tag marked '12' through the small metal slot.
I run back to the car.
Getting Thayer out of the passenger seat is a catastrophic, agonizing ordeal.
He is a massive, heavy wall of dead muscle.
He leans heavily against my left side, his right arm draped over my shoulders.
I brace my arm around his waist, practically carrying his weight as we stumble through the mud and rain toward Unit 12.
I jam the key into the rusted lock, twist it, and kick the heavy wooden door open.
The room is small, entirely suffocating, and smells intensely of cheap bleach, stale cigarette smoke, and damp carpet. A single, sagging queen-sized bed dominates the space, covered in a faded, heavily patterned bedspread. The heavy blackout curtains are drawn tightly shut.
I drag Thayer into the room, kicking the door shut behind us with my heel. I immediately slide the heavy chain lock into place, plunging the room into absolute darkness, save for the sickly pink light bleeding through the edges of the curtains from the neon sign outside.
I guide Thayer toward the edge of the bed. He collapses onto the mattress with a heavy, pained groan, his head falling forward, his uninjured hand gripping the edge of the cheap mattress so tightly the wood creaks.
"The bathroom," Thayer commands, his voice a breathless, ragged hiss. "Get towels."
I don't argue. I run into the tiny, cramped bathroom. The fluorescent overhead light flickers violently when I flip the switch, illuminating the stained linoleum and the cracked mirror. I grab the stack of rough, cheap white towels from the metal rack and rush back into the main room.
I drop to my knees on the floor between Thayer’s spread legs.
I drop the towels onto the carpet and reach for the buttons of his dark shirt. My fingers are completely numb from the cold rain, fumbling with the fabric.
"I have to check the bandages," I whisper, my voice shaking as the adrenaline completely abandons my system, leaving behind a terrifying, hollow exhaustion.
Thayer doesn't help me. He sits perfectly still, his chin resting near his chest, completely surrendering to my touch. I manage to unbutton the shirt and carefully pull the dark fabric off his broad shoulders.
The white pressure bandages Sybil wrapped around his chest in the cabin are entirely soaked through. The blood is no longer bright crimson; it is a dark, heavy, terrifying sludge.
"It's bleeding through," I choke out, a hot tear finally breaching my defenses, slipping down my cheek. "We need a hospital, Thayer. We need a real surgeon."
"No hospitals," Thayer growls, his right hand shooting out with terrifying speed.
He grabs my wrists, completely stopping my frantic movements. His grip is an iron manacle, completely immovable. He forces me to stop looking at his wound and look directly up into his face.
The sickly pink light from the window illuminates the demonic, obsessive fire burning in his pale gray eyes.
"They are looking for a man with a gunshot wound or a stab wound in every emergency room across the Midwest," Thayer states, his voice dropping into a dark, lethal hum that completely fills the tiny motel room.
"If we walk into a hospital, I spend the rest of my life in Florence ADX, and you go to federal prison for aiding and abetting.
I would rather bleed out on this cheap mattress with you than spend another second of my life in a cage without you. "
"I can't let you die," I sob, the absolute, paralyzing terror of losing the monster completely breaking me.
"I am not dying," he murmurs, his right hand sliding from my wrist, moving up my arm until his large, calloused fingers cup the side of my face. His thumb sweeps away the tear tracking down my cheek. "I am healing. But I need you to do exactly what I say."
"Anything," I whisper, the vow completely absolute, entirely devoid of the submissive hesitation of my past. I am offering him everything.
Thayer’s eyes dilate, the pupils completely swallowing the gray. The sheer, unadulterated devotion in my voice is a psychological trigger that completely snaps the last thread of his restraint.
He doesn't ask me to change the bandages. He doesn't ask for water or pain medication.
His right hand slides to the back of my neck. His fingers tangle brutally into the damp, heavy waves of my dark hair. He pulls me forward, completely off my knees, dragging my body flush against the vee of his spread thighs.
"Take your clothes off," he commands.
The words are a dark, feral vibration that rumbles directly against my lips. It isn't a request. It is the absolute, tyrannical demand of a predator who has completely cornered his prey in a locked room.
"Thayer, you're hurt," I gasp, my hands coming up to rest lightly against his uninjured right pectoral, feeling the frantic, heavy thud of his heart hammering against his ribs.
"I am cold, Sybil," he murmurs, his hot breath washing over my skin. "The fever is breaking. And the only thing in this miserable, frozen world that can warm me up is you. Take them off."
The cognitive dissonance completely fractures. The man bleeding out on a motel bed is demanding absolute physical possession. And the terrifying, undeniable truth is that my body is entirely desperate to give it to him.
I don't hesitate. I reach for the hem of the heavy, dark turtleneck sweater.
I pull it over my head, discarding it onto the damp carpet.
I am wearing nothing underneath but the sheer white lace bra from my wedding day, the delicate fabric completely inadequate against the freezing chill of the motel room.
I reach for the button of my tactical pants. My fingers shake, but I force the heavy fabric down my hips, stepping out of them, leaving me entirely exposed in the dim, strobing pink light.
Thayer’s gaze traces every single inch of my skin.
His eyes are dark, completely consumed by an obsessive, primal hunger that makes the breath entirely vanish from my lungs.
He catalogues the rapid, terrified rise and fall of my chest, the violent shiver wracking my bare shoulders, and the deep, flushed heat pooling between my thighs.
"Come here," he growls.
He wraps his right arm entirely around my waist, his massive hand splaying wide across the bare skin of my lower back. He hauls me upward and forward, pulling my entire body onto the bed with him.
I gasp as my bare knees hit the cheap, rough fabric of the bedspread. I am forced to straddle his hips, my thighs bracketing his waist, keeping my weight entirely suspended to avoid pressing against his ruined left shoulder.
The sheer physical friction of my sensitive center pressing directly against the heavy, hard ridge of his arousal, hidden only by the dark fabric of his tactical trousers, is a violent electrical shock.
I throw my head back, a sharp, breathless moan tearing from my throat.
"Look at me," Thayer commands, his voice dropping into a dark, guttural frequency that makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand straight up.
I force my eyes open, looking down at the devil I just saved from the fire.
His right hand slides up my spine, completely unhooking the clasp of my lace bra with a single, deft movement. He pushes the delicate straps off my shoulders, exposing my bare breasts to the cold air.
He doesn't gently caress me. He is fighting the excruciating pain of his wound and the terrifying reality of our isolation. His touch is desperate, completely possessive. He cups my heavy breast with his rough, calloused palm, his thumb dragging aggressively over my tightening peak.
A ragged, fractured cry completely escapes my lips. My internal muscles clamp down violently, a heavy, dark liquid heat flooding my core, completely soaking the fabric between us.
"You belong to me," Thayer hisses, his fingers tangling in my hair, dragging my face down until our mouths collide.
His kiss is a brutal, unapologetic invasion. He devours my mouth, entirely consuming my breath, swallowing my moans. He tastes like blood, survival, and pure, intoxicating obsession.
I completely surrender. I wrap my arms carefully around his thick neck, anchoring myself entirely to the monster who burned my world to the ground just to reign in the ashes with me.
We are locked in a dirty motel room, hunted by the entire federal government, completely severed from everything we have ever known. But as his heavy, unyielding hands violently map the curves of my bare skin in the dark, I realize the terrifying, inescapable truth.
This is exactly where we were always meant to be.