Chapter 28
Cade
The two-hour countdown is bleeding seconds.
I don’t look at Clayton as I step back over his boots, but my eyes track the dark red stain creeping outward across the floorboards.
My hands are sticky, covered in the wet, thick smear of the man who spent five years trying to convince the woman beside me that she was nothing but a ghost in his house.
I walk straight into the bathroom, grab a clean, dry washcloth from the rack, and turn the faucet on cold. I scrub my knuckles until the water runs clear down the porcelain, until my skin is raw and matching the split across my left joint.
I won’t touch her with his blood on me. I’ll never let a single piece of his rot cling to her skin again.
When I step back into the living room, Sadie is already there.
She isn’t packing bags. She’s standing by the coat closet, a single black garbage bag clutched in her fist, her face pale but her eyes perfectly level.
She’s gathered the cash Clayton kept hidden under the floorboards of the pantry, and a thick flannel shirt that belonged to her father.
I walk up to her, the wood groaning beneath my boots, and take her hand. I bring her hand up to my mouth, my lips brushing the pale, unblemished ring of skin where her wedding band used to sit. I press a kiss against the bare flesh, a silent covenant sealed.
“You’re mine now,” I whisper against her skin, my voice a rough vibration that rattles my own teeth. “From here out, you only look at me.”
Her blue eyes flare with a sudden, dark heat that matches the lightning fracturing the sky outside the window screens. Her fingers curl into my palm, her nails digging into my calloused skin until it hurts.
“I’m ready,” she breathes.
I grab the bag from her hand, pull the front door deadbolt back, and we step straight into the deluge.
The West Texas storm hits us like a firing line of water.
The wind hooks down the draw, a freezing wall of air that whips the rain straight into our faces, blinding us in half a second.
The gravel driveway has already surrendered to the mud, the ground turning into a slick, swallowing swamp beneath the soles of our boots.
I throw my left arm around Sadie’s shoulders, pulling her small frame flush against my ribs, taking the brunt of the wind to guide her down the incline.
Flint tracks a half-step behind her, his silver fur soaked through as he keeps his nose glued to her flank.
Halfway down the hill, Sadie stops. She twists her head back through the downpour, looking up at the black silhouette of the house on the ridge.
It’s the ranch her father gave her, the place where her daughter died, and the tomb where she spent half a decade waiting for the ceiling to cave in.
The rain streams down her cheeks, washing away the last of the blood on her collarbone.
“Don't look back,” I growl into her ear, my lips brushing the wet hair at her temple. “There’s nothing up there but a dead man. Look at the road, Sadie. Nothing but forward from here.”
She snaps her gaze back to mine, nods once, and we break for the equipment barn.
I yank the heavy steel door of the old flatbed open, throw the garbage bag onto the floorboards, and hoist Flint into the narrow space behind the bench seat.
Sadie slides into the passenger side, her wet sweatpants sticking to the vinyl, her chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath against the stagnant air of the cab.
I climb into the driver’s seat, and the physical reality of the escape crashes straight into my bones.
My right calf is locked down like a knot of dry ropes, the muscle fibers brittle from the residual rattlesnake venom.
When I try to lift my foot to find the gas pedal, a sharp, blinding fire arcs straight up my thigh and hits my spine with enough force to turn my vision black at the edges.
A low, pained grunt escapes my lips before I can choke it back.
“Cade,” Sadie says, her hand instantly reaching through the dark to find my knee. “Your leg.”
“It’s fine,” I grit out, sweat breaking across my forehead to mix with the rain dripping from my hair. “I’ve driven worse with less.”
My thigh tremors, the muscle seizing up completely.
Before I can curse, Sadie moves.
Her palm presses into my thigh, her body leaning into mine, and I breathe steady again, the pain fading into nothing but noise.
I strike the ignition.
The old diesel engine turns over with a ground-shaking roar that rattles the corrugated tin roof of the barn. The cab vibrates, the stick shift shaking in my left hand like a live wire, the sound of the cylinders firing drowning out the continuous cracking of the thunder outside.
I leave the headlights completely off. Ben’s metrics were clear. Keep your lights off until you hit the blacktop.
Navigating entirely by the brilliant, white strobe of the lightning leaking through the front gaps, I slide the transmission into low gear. Sadie keeps her hand locked on my thigh, her fingers tracking the muscle contractions. The heavy truck rolls forward, tires biting into the dirt.
The world outside is a liquid void.
The tracks cutting through the Rigley pasture are almost gone, surrendered entirely to a rolling sheet of brown, thick mud that threatens to swallow the axles with every single turn of the steering wheel.
The flatbed swerves, the rear tires spinning loose, fishtailing against the clay.
I fight the wheel, my forearms corded tight, my teeth grinding together until my jaw aches.
“We’re doing it, Cade,” she whispers through the dark, her lips brushing my jawline as the truck bounces over a submerged washout. “We’re leaving.”
“Just hold onto me,” I say back, steering us hard left along the huddle of cattle near the south fence line. “Don’t you dare let go of my leg, Sadie.”
“Never,” she says, and she squeezes harder, her grip a brand through the denim.
We hit the draw near the creek route, and the white-knuckle reality of Ben’s map-blocking arrives.
The old concrete cattle bridge is almost completely invisible, swallowed beneath a churning torrent of brown river water rushing down from the northern hills.
The water is high, spraying white foam against the willow trees along the bank, the current looking strong enough to roll a one-ton flatbed like a tin can.
“We’ll never make that,” Sadie breathes out.
I pull the truck up short at the lip of the bank, the engine idling with a deep, rattling choke. Through the streaming windshield, the strobe of the lightning shows nothing but a wall of rushing water.
“I can’t see the concrete,” I note, my fingers white against the wheel. “If Ben’s math is wrong, the transmission stalls in the middle, and we go into the creek with the truck.”
Sadie shifts her head, her eyes finding mine through the yellow gloom of the dashboard display. She reaches up with her free hand to touch the side of my neck, her thumb brushing the pulse point beating hard against her palm.
“What’s the worst that could happen? We drown?” she says, her voice dropping to a low, fiercely romantic certainty that silences the storm inside my skull completely. “I’d rather go into the river with you, than stay on that hill alive. Floor it.”
A wild, manic cackle escapes my lips—not the old, unstable sickness, but a pure, unadulterated rush of primal liberation.
“Hold on!” I shout.
I lock my boot onto the gas pedal, and gun the diesel engine until the exhaust screams.
The heavy flatbed launches off the bank and hits the flooded bridge with a deafening, structural roar.
A massive, blinding wall of brown river water explodes over the hood, slamming into the glass of the windshield with the force of a lead shot, completely blacking out the world.
The current hits the side of the tires, the truck shuddering, drifting two inches to the left as the water fights to drag us off the concrete.
The transmission whines, the RPMs dropping dangerously low.
2000... 1500...
“Come on,” I groan. “I don’t wanna fucking die in water.”
The tires catch, and we get a powerful surge of forward motion.
The truck erupts out of the wash, clearing the rising flood, and the heavy rubber tires smash down onto the hard, solid grit of the blacktop highway on the other side of the state line.
We have broken the perimeter.
I let the truck coast for a hundred yards, the engine purring steady now against the open asphalt. Slowly, I reach over, my hand shaking as I flip the toggle switch on the dashboard.
The halogens cut cleanly through the black night, illuminating miles of empty, wide-open road stretching out into the dark ahead of us.
Sadie doesn’t slide back to her side of the bench. She stays tucked right against me, her hand remaining locked over my knee, her head dropping back against my shoulder with a long, exhausted breath of pure peace.
I slip my right arm around her waist, pulling her into my center as I steer the truck into the storm, the headlights showing nothing but distance and bad ideas.
Together, we’ll figure this out.