Chapter Ten #2
They were following.
But neither of us seemed inclined to try to increase the speed.
“We’re going to need to ditch this car,” Caymen said, mirroring my thoughts. “At least for a while. We can come back to it once we’re sure they’ve moved on.”
“Any ideas?” I asked, taking another turn, trying to get out of sight for long enough to leave the car and make a run for it.
“Yeah, um… take the next left. Then a right at the red house.”
He’d tensed up in his seat, but I had no ideas, so I had to just follow his directions as he had me going further and further away from Miami.
“This is it. Turn in.”
I saw the sign for the trailer park just a second before I saw the first row of them.
This wasn’t one of the nicer parks.
This was the kind of place no one wanted to live, but clearly some people had to.
“This is where you grew up, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said, popping the P . “Park there,” he nodded toward a spot.
“Are we… are we going to your parents’ house?”
“Fuck no,” he said with a scoff as I pulled off and parked, hoping the fence around the place with the cheap green plastic privacy strips might be enough to hide us as we made a quick run for it.
“Where then?” I asked, going into the backseat to grab one of my bags.
Silently, Caymen took the other two, swinging one over his shoulder, then reaching for my hand.
Was this a possible life-or-death situation?
Sure.
Did I still feel an electric sizzle from our palms all the way up to my shoulder?
Absolutely.
His fingers tightened around mine, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he felt it too, or if he was just trying to hold onto me as he started to run.
There was no way to ask that sort of thing, so I just forced my tired legs to match his stride as we wove through rows of trailers until we reached the very back of the lot where the only permanent building was set.
“Office?” I asked, hating how I was panting and he wasn’t out of breath at all. Apparently, I needed to add running to my gym rotation.
“Yeah.”
“You have a key?”
“Nope.” He pulled me around the back of the building.
It was a squat stucco structure with ancient windows with spiderweb cracks.
Caymen dropped my hand to reach up to push at the window. But time and disuse had made it stick. So I got to watch the way his muscles did all sorts of delicious flexing as he pushed, punched, and jiggled the window until the sash finally slid up.
He turned to me, offering a hand.
“Am I sure I want to go in first?”
“It’s just an old storage room. Probably packed and dusty but nothing dangerous. Come on. We gotta get outta sight.”
I stepped into his hand and went ahead and let myself marvel at how easily he lifted me up.
It was an easy enough slide through the window and a straight fall forward onto my hands until I could walk myself down onto all fours.
“All good?”
“Yeah. Dusty as hell in here,” I said, sniffling.
“Incoming,” he called just before one of my bags made it through the window.
I reached for the other two, then moved back to watch him lift himself up.
“This is a much tighter fit than it used to be,” he admitted as he shimmied this way and that to squeeze in through the narrow window.
Eventually, he made it.
Then crashed down hard, making me wince, wondering if there was someone around who might hear.
“Don’t worry. He’s passed out cold by the above-ground pool.
He’s been a drunk longer than I’ve been alive.
Hence why this bottle,” he said, lifting up some noxious-smelling pool cleaner, “has been here since the last time I hid out in here to avoid an ass-kicking from my old man. I doodled on it,” he added, turning the label out to show me.
He put it down, then reached to close the window.
“It’s not much, but it’s relatively cool and safe.”
“Is this the first time you’ve been back since you moved your brother out?” I asked as he moved around, methodically reorganizing things so there was room for us to sit.
Luckily, underneath all the crap, the floor was pretty damn clean.
“Yeah,” he said, coming over to lower down onto the floor beside me, both of us leaning back against the wall and exhaling hard.
“I wish I’d grabbed that coffee,” I said.
Caymen reached for his phone, shooting off a text to, I imagined, his president.
“What’d he say?” I asked when he got a text back.
“Just encouraged us to stay put as long as possible. He said he’s gonna send my brother and Coast down to scope the place out to make sure it isn’t being staked out.”
“Is Dixon going to be okay with that?”
His gaze cut to mine, and he offered me a small smile. “Yeah. He doesn’t have as many bad memories here as I do.”
“You okay?” I asked, nudging him.
“Spent a lot of time here,” he admitted. “Probably still have some cheap vodka stashed in here somewhere. And a pack of cards. Played a lot of solitaire.”
“Sorry we had to come back here.”
“Not your fault.”
“Still.”
“It’s alright. Feels a lot different now.”
“Did you ever sneak girls in here?”
“Wish I’d thought of that,” he admitted. “Would have saved me from nearly getting caught by the cops a few times.”
“The window squeeze might have killed the mood anyway,” I said, stifling a big yawn.
“You should catch a nap.”
“Sitting up like this?” I asked, shaking my head.
Caymen folded forward, grabbing one of my bags and placing it on his lap, then patting it.
I didn’t want to nap.
But I wasn’t going to turn down the chance for a little physical contact.
It had been a rough few hours.
So I went ahead and lay down.
It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, with half of me on the hard ground. But coming from someone who spent a lot of time sleeping in cars while we traveled for my father’s work, it wasn’t bad.
It helped that Caymen’s fingers started to rub little circles on my scalp.
Before I knew it, my heavy eyes were sliding fully closed, and I was out cold.