Chapter Nine
Sejal stood on a perfectly white sand beach, with a view of blue water as far as the eye could see. The sun was setting in
the west, cotton candy pink and yellow stretching over the sky. There were no crowds, which made it truly perfect. Other people
ruined beaches.
She walked into the water. It was warm, kissed by the sun. She kept going, one foot in front of the other, until the water
was up to her shoulders.
The water shifted from warm to hot in the blink of an eye. She tried to stop herself from moving forward, but it was like
someone else had control of her body. The liquid crept higher and higher, covering her mouth, and then her nose, and finally
her eyes. She held her breath as she was swallowed by the ocean, but it didn’t matter, because there was no leaving—
“Sejal.”
She jerked awake, instinctively moving away from the hand on her shoulder. “What?”
“Wake up. We’re almost here.”
She straightened. It was dark out. The cab of the truck they were in smelled like coffee.
The clock on the dashboard told her that it was eleven p.m., which meant she’d been sleeping for almost an hour.
When they got off at their bus stop in Glenrock, Krish had said that they needed to drive from there to the house, that it was outside the town.
They’d been on the bus for hours, and she knew nothing more about where they were going than when they’d started, except that
their destination would be vacant and furnished and would give them some time to regroup. Further questions had been met with
terse, one-word responses or silence.
“Terrible what happened to you two. You must be tuckered out,” the truck driver said. His name was Deep, and he was a Punjabi
man in his sixties.
She sucked in her teeth. They’d hitched a ride from the gas station next to the bus stop where they disembarked. The truck
driver they’d approached had initially been wary, but the older man had taken pity on the poor young South Asian couple when
Krish had explained that their wallets were stolen at the bus station and they were close to his parents’ house.
Sejal hadn’t hitchhiked since her frontal lobe developed and she’d realized it was a great way to get murdered. She had tried
to stay awake like Krish, staring straight ahead, but without her precious phone or any entertainment—plus the exhaustion
of the last couple of days—the movement of the truck must have lulled her to sleep.
“You have a little something on your—” Krish gestured to his mouth.
A deep sleep, it seemed. She discreetly wiped at the drool on her chin. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“No problem.”
“Your husband and I had a good chat about some of our favorite foodie destinations.” The truck driver moved his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.
“You’re a foodie?” Sejal asked Krish, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be his wife.
“I like good food. Non-Cheeto food.” Krish shifted, moving his arm away from her. The cab of the truck felt more cramped than
when they’d first sat in it. “You can pull over here and let us out.”
“You sure this is it?” Deep pulled over to the side of the road and peered into the dark. His brow furrowed. “There’s nothing
here.”
Sejal took a good look at their surroundings and immediately concurred with their driver. The road stretched ahead of them,
bordered by a forest of trees. Was Krish’s safe house in the woods?
“Yes, this is it. We’ll be fine,” Krish assured the truck driver.
The man looked about as convinced as she felt, but he nodded. Sejal shivered as the icy wind cut through her sneakers and
sweatsuit when they disembarked. It might be fall on the East Coast, but it was almost winter in the Mountain West.
She looked longingly after Deep’s taillights. “Tell me we’re not walking far.”
Krish tugged on his baseball cap brim and started walking. “In ten minutes, we’ll be in a nice warm living room.”
That sounded good, but it also meant they had at least ten minutes of cold ahead of them. He walked down the incline, toward
the woods. She followed behind him, her trepidation growing with every step. “Uh, is this where you kill me?” she asked, as
they were swallowed by the forest.
“If I was going to kill you, I could have done it like ten times before we got this far,” he said, practical as ever.
“You didn’t have a remote dumping ground before,” she muttered as she stepped over a log.
“Do you give all your potential murderers ideas on how to kill you and dispose of your body?” he asked.
She hadn’t realized she had a real viable potential murderer until today, but Alexei fit the bill now.
It was a jarring readjustment. She hadn’t exactly been cowering in fear of Alexei all these years. The evidence her father
had found on him and threatened him with decades ago had been so damning that he’d left her alone immediately. But not if
he thought she’d fucked with his money, it seemed. And here she’d dragged Krish into it.
He dragged you into it, and nothing has changed since you first decided to go with him.
Except he’d saved her life. Twice. John and Viktor could have nabbed her back in New York if Krish hadn’t pretended to be
her boyfriend. And that was nothing compared to how he’d helped her escape back in that parking lot.
What Would Dad Do?
Dad would have taken anyone’s help, the risk to them be damned. He’d always been out for number one, and number one didn’t
include anyone but himself—not even his kids.
But Sejal wasn’t like that. Other people might think she was, even her own sister might think she was, but she truly wasn’t.
It was seductive, how much easier it was to survive when you had a partner. But since when had her life been easy? She needed
to get away from Krish before she started to expect easy. Because he’d leave her once he got what he needed from her, and the crash would be harder if she started to rely on him—on
anyone—for anything.
A bird hooted in the distance, and Sejal looked up.
The tall trees nearly blotted out the moon.
How on earth was Krish moving so confidently through the woods with barely any light to guide them?
Was this more of his elite training? “Are you a former Boy Scout or something? I can’t even see if we’re on a path. ”
“No, I’ve been here before. And I spent a lot of time camping as a kid. My mom believed in survival training.”
What an interesting mom. “Is the house much farther?”
“Yes. But we won’t walk the whole way.” They emerged from the copse of trees to find a rough trail, with tire tracks embedded
deep in the soft soil. Krish walked across the path and stood under a large maple tree. Sejal winced as a blinding light cut
through the darkness, shining down on them from above, from somewhere in the branches. She shaded her eyes.
Krish had no problem looking up into it. He waved his hands, and the light blinked off, then on, then blessedly off again.
“What the hell was that?” She lowered her hand.
Krish’s shadowy figure leaned against the tree. “That was the doorbell.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that the caretaker knows we’re here, and now we wait. They’ll come pick us up in a few minutes.”
The caretaker? How big was this house? “We can’t just walk up to the house?”
Her eyes had adjusted to the dark enough to see the corner of his arrogant mouth kick up. “No.”
“Oh Jesus, are you taking me to some cannibal cult where you eat me?”
“I told you, stop giving men tips on how to kill you.”
“This is some cloak-and-dagger shit is all.” She ran her hands up and down her arms.
“Come here,” he said, and she stopped fidgeting. A sliver of moonlight had peeked between the trees and it fell on his hair,
creating a silvery lock.
“Why?”
He dropped his duffel on the ground. He rummaged around, then brought out a rolled-up pair of men’s socks. “Come here for
a second.”
Confused, she walked up to him. She jumped when he took her arms into his hands.
She looked up at his harsh face in the moonlight. “Um, what are you doing?”
He brought her hands up and she nearly jerked away when he blew on them. But the warm current of air heated her throughout
her frozen body, making something sharp and foreign clang awake in her belly.
He raised his head, and their gazes met. She thought he was going to say something, but instead he shook out the socks. In
contrast to the almost delicate way he had blown on her hands, he put the socks on them roughly, rolling them up her arms.
“Here,” he muttered. “You look cold.”
She flexed her fingers in the sock mittens. They were tingling. From the cold, obviously. “Uh, thanks.” She glanced down at
her body. She was wearing Krish from head to toe now. “I seem to have monopolized your wardrobe.”
“I don’t mind. Looks better on you.”
From any other man, she might have considered that remark a form of flirting, but not Krish.
So far, his flirtatiousness had only reared its head when he was playing a role, and there was no one out here but them, and no reason to pretend to be into her at the moment.
Real Krish was way too serious to flirt with her, of all people.
She thought he’d release her, but he didn’t. His hands ran up her arms, and she swayed closer to him. She cleared her throat.
“Um.”
“Sejal . . .” His breath touched her lips. It was warmer than when he had blown on her hands. She wanted to feel it on every
body part. She tilted her head back, surprised at how close they were. One step. That was all that separated them. He could
have his lips on hers, and they could see if that spark she’d imagined in the very beginning actually existed—or if he was
a better actor than she’d thought.
What are you doing?
Something stupid probably.
“Do me a favor,” he said quietly.
“Sure.” She wasn’t one to grant favors without knowing what they were, but she’d say anything if it meant he’d lower his head
a little more.