Chapter 8
RUE
“You look better,” I say the moment Noah slides into the passenger seat and situates a black duffel bag on his lap. “He fixed your arm?”
“Yep,” Noah answers, his eyes watching the rearview as the overhead door rolls upward. “Let’s get moving.”
“I think that should be your new mantra,” I mumble, pursing my lips together as I put the car in reverse. “Are we ever going to talk?”
“We are talking,” Noah shakes his head at me. “We need to head north, then west.” He shifts his body toward me. “Where do you bank at?”
I blink as I shift the car from reverse into drive. “What?”
“We need to liquidate everything into cash. It’s going to be the cleanest way to go if, for some reason, they catch on. They’ll track your card transactions. We’re ahead right now.”
“Okay,” I let out a breath. “Well… I don’t have much.”
“How much?”
I narrow my eyes at him, feeling my embarrassment shift to defense. “It was expensive living in California.”
Noah lets out a heavy, obviously annoyed sigh. “Anything is better than nothing.”
“Okay,” I mumble, as we reach the end of the driveway. I take a left instead of a right, choosing not to backtrack closer to Moccasin Cove. The sun is going to break over the horizon at any moment, and we need to be as far from it as we possibly can.
“I have less than a thousand in there right now.”
“Perfect,” he grunts, his tone completely opposite of the word. f
I make my way back to the highway, coming out a mile north of where we turned. I glance down at the gas gauge and nod to myself. I can be out of state before I fill up.
“Let me see your phone,” Noah extends his hand, meeting my eye.
I furrow my brow and pick it up, handing it over. “It died before we ever made it to that shop.”
He nods, then rolls down the window and tosses it out. “No phones.”
“Great.” Swallowing hard, I suck in a breath. “We can probably get burners—like the prepaid ones.”
“Nope,” Noah deadpans. “No phones.” He glances at the car’s radio screen. “What year model is this?”
“2024.”
“We’ll probably have to ditch this, too.”
“Why?”
“Too many ways to track us.”
I eye him. “They think you’re dead, Noah. I don’t think we have to ditch my car. It’s not like I’m the criminal.”
“You should be,” he snaps, and I wince. “Sorry,” he quickly spits out. “I just mean that it’s probably better if we ditch this thing. Right now, we’re blindly trusting that my contact isn’t going to snitch.”
“Netty Morales.”
“Yeah.”
“He hated me.”
“That’s why you stayed in the car,” Noah snorts, shaking his head. “And it was a Matthew problem, not a you problem. The guy was a piece of shit.”
“Yeah,” I zone out on the road, a wave of anxiety rolling through my body. “Glad we readdressed that.”
Noah doesn’t say anything more, reaching for one of the bottles of water. He cracks it open and then shuffles through the bag, pulling out a pill bottle. He pops one of whatever is inside.
“Antibiotics,” he says to me, as soon as he catches me watching. “That lake is disgusting.”
I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows, my core tightening. His color appears to be returning as dawn illuminates the inside of the car. His dark hair is disheveled, and there’s stubble along his jaw, giving him this rugged, dangerous look.
And I want him to do dangerous things to me.
But the man hasn’t even fucking touched me since he came out of the lake. And my thought slips through my lips.
“How did you make it?”
“What?” Noah relaxes back in the seat, eyeing me.
“How did you make it out of the lake?” I rephrase, just as I reach an intersection of highways. I take a hard left and head west, just as Noah instructed. I want to ask where we’re headed, but one thing at a time.
“I went into the water, got stuck under the dock, and waited it out.”
I shake my head. “That makes no sense. They would’ve found you.” I glance over to him, where he shrugs.
“I don’t know. I don’t really know what happened. It’s a blur. I just know I went into the water, and then I waited for what felt like for-fucking-ever. When the voices and the dogs stopped, and the storm started, I made a break for the woods.”
“You should’ve died.”
“Yeah, it’s a damn shame I didn’t,” he laughs dryly. “But I guess I figure since I made it out alive… I'd better make this second chance count.”
I try to smile, but the emotions welling up in my chest are suffocating. I’m barely twenty-four hours removed from thinking Noah was gone forever, and now I’m driving us out of this mess.
Side by side. Together.
Except all his walls are ten feet tall right now.
But he’s still here. And I have to be thankful for that.
I glance back to where Bullet is curled up in a little ball. I’m sure my mom hasn’t even noticed that he’s gone yet. She probably doesn’t even care.
Still, I frown. I don’t have my phone. I’ll never know.
A pang of anxiety comes with that, but then quickly fades. The tires hum against the pavement, steady and unrelenting, like the world isn’t on the verge of falling apart around us.
Like this is just… normal.
I adjust my grip on the wheel, flexing my fingers one at a time, trying to get the feeling back into them. “Are we just driving west to get some distance? Is there some destination?”
Noah doesn’t answer.
I glance over, catching the way his head has dipped slightly forward, his chin nearly brushing his chest.
Shit.
“Noah.”
His eyes snap open, sharp and disoriented for half a second before they settle back into that same guarded expression. “I’m awake.”
I furrow my brow. “Uh… You weren’t.”
“I said I’m fine.”
Shaking my head, I gesture to his arm. “You’re bleeding through the bandage.”
His gaze drops to his arm, where a faint red bloom has started to spread through the gauze. “Just keep driving,” he mutters. “It’ll heal on its own time.”
I let out a slow breath, forcing my eyes back to the road. “Maybe you should get some sleep… I just need to know where we’re headed…” I eye him, but his expression is stone cold.
“Just head west.”
“I am.”
Silence.
My grip tightens. “This is not exactly comforting.”
“It’s not supposed to be,” he deadpans. “Nothing about this is going to be warm and fuzzy, Rue. It’s about fucking survival.”
“I understand that,” I accidentally snap at him.
“Do you?” he fires right back at me. “Because last I checked, you’ve had nothing but life handed to you on a silver platter. You got to run off to California, never missing a goddamn beat.”
Bullet shifts in the backseat, letting out a soft whine as he stirs. I glance in the rearview. He’s curled tighter now, his head resting awkwardly against the door, chest rising slower than it was earlier.
A knot forms low in my stomach.
“Hey buddy,” I murmur, reaching back to give him a pat. “You okay?”
His tail gives a small thump.
Noah’s eyes flick back to him, tracking the movement before settling back ahead. “He’s old,” he says flatly.
I glare at him. “I know that.”
“Then don’t act surprised when he acts like it.”
“Thanks for the advice.” Something sharp flares in my chest—at this new fucking attitude Noah has apparently been spat out of the lake with.
His jaw tightens as he holds my gaze, not an ounce of softness he’s shown me our whole lives anywhere in sight.
And that leaves me feeling smaller than ever.
Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did.
The sun finally breaks over the horizon, its light flooding through the windshield and filling the car. I squint against it, my eyes burning. If I turned around now, it wouldn’t be staring me right in the freaking face.
But it’s too late.
There’s no going back.