Chapter 16
RUE
How fast was I going? Was it really that much over the limit? The lights flash in my rearview mirror as I pull off onto the shoulder of the interstate. My stomach churns, my mind running with a thousand possibilities.
I mean, for all I know, they have a BOLO out on my car.
The Texas Highway Patrol pulls off behind me, kicking on his flashlight as he walks toward the passenger side of the SUV. I turn to look for Noah.
But he’s not there.
“Are you serious?” I call out into the car. “He probably saw you do that!”
“Just play it cool,” Noah calls back in a whisper.
Bullet lets out a bay at the trooper, and I grab his leash as I roll down the window. I’m met with the stone-cold expression of a man not much older than me.
“Good evening, Miss,” he greets me, his southern drawl almost charming. “You know how fast you were going?”
I swallow hard. “Um… Too fast?” It comes out in a nervous squeak. “I’m just ready to get home.” The lie comes out easier than I expected it would, but then again…
It’s not really a lie. I just don’t know where home is. Or if I’ll ever have one.
“Long drive back to California.”
I nod. “Yeah, I was visiting my mom.”
“Hmm.” He pauses for a beat as Bullet growls but doesn’t acknowledge the dog. “License and insurance, please.”
“Right,” I say quickly, grabbing for my wallet and fishing out my license and insurance card. I hand them across to him, the movement awkward as I try to restrain Bullet from attacking the officer.
He shines the flashlight on them and then nods. “I’ll be back.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I leave the window down, and white-knuckle the leash while my free hand pets the top of Bullet’s head. “We might be so fucked.”
My whole body feels light in the seat, and my foot taps nervously against the floorboard. I don’t freaking dare look into the back of the car, even if the trooper can’t see where I’m looking.
Just stay cool. You can do this. You fucking murdered someone and got away with it.
The intrusive thought is unsettling. I blink, unable to let go of it. I murdered someone and got away with it. I think that almost makes me a pro.
Except the man framed for it is in the back of my car.
What a fucked-up kind of situationship.
I take a deep breath and slowly settle my heart rate, surprising myself as I calm down in an almost eerie sort of way.
Footsteps grow louder on the passenger side of the car, and the trooper reappears with my license, insurance, and a slip of paper.
Shit. Am I seriously getting a ticket?
“Ma’am, I clocked you going twelve over,” the trooper begins. “At this time of night, you need to be mindful. You never know when an animal might end up in the road.”
Wow. Okay.
“You need to slow down.”
“Yes, sir.” My tone is flat.
He then goes into the jargon, explaining the violation, and where to remit payment for the ticket. And I tune him out, still clinging to Bullet’s leash.
My dog continues to growl at the trooper, and I don’t even bother hushing him. Honestly, I wish he’d just bite him at this point.
“Sign here,” he passes the little clipboard to me.
Bullet snaps at him.
“Protective dog, I see,” he grunts, completely unamused.
“Yeah.” I don’t apologize. I sign the paper, hand it back to him, and take my stupid fucking speeding ticket from him.
“Slow down and have a good evening,” the trooper says, and then gives me a nod, and then slips off back to his vehicle. Before I even shove the ticket in the console, his lights are off, and he’s crossing the bar ditch to head back in the opposite direction.
“Well, this sucks.” I put the car in drive and ease back out onto the road, Noah still hidden in the cargo space.
“How much?” Noah’s voice carries up to the front.
“Doesn’t matter,” I shrug. “I’m not paying it.”
“Oh, cool,” he snorts. “So, you really do want to go to prison, then. Why not throw in a warrant for your arrest, too?”
“I mean, by the time the court date comes around, I think we’ll be in a different country.”
“Not necessarily,” Noah hums. “We have no idea how long this is going to take. I’ve heard of guys having to sit and wait for weeks down at the border.” There’s a casualness to his voice that sets off an alarm in my brain.
“And how do we wait that out?”
“I don’t know,” he answers, plopping back down into the backseat and my view again. “I can’t guarantee we even have the funds to get across.”
“I only have four hundred dollars. I took off work when I went to Mom’s,” I say quietly. “I plan to use my credit card for everything that’s directly west—you know, toward LA.”
He nods but doesn’t say anything else. “What did you do?”
“Huh?” I furrow my brow as I meet his gaze in the rearview. “What do you mean?”
“What’d you do in California?”
“Oh,” I shake my head. “Um, I just worked as a content writer for a marketing company. It was pretty low pay.”
“You drive a nice car.”
“With a payment,” I shoot back. “I lived in a tiny studio apartment.”
“In Los Angeles.”
“Yeah.” I eye him again, not sure where he’s going with it.
“Hmm.” Noah’s face is pointed toward the window, and I can’t read the expression on his face.
My stomach knots up. “Did you ever go to California?”
“Once, but I don’t really remember it all that well.
” He hesitates and then pulls his eyes from the window, back to me.
“I didn’t get a lot of time to do anything before I got locked up.
I’m thirty-four, and I spent almost eleven years behind bars.
I don’t know what the fuck is out there in the world anymore. ”
And that’s my fault.
“What did you do after you moved?” The question slips from my lips in a jumbled mess, and I realize he’s right. There’s so much about him I don’t know.
“My dad got hung up in the Club,” Noah’s voice is monotone as he begins, letting out a light sigh. “So, I got stuck with my mom and her new husband. She moved us closer to the city, to a suburb, living with the doctor.”
“The doctor?”
“Yeah, my stepdad.” His voice stays unreadable.
“He adopted me when I was fifteen. I thought it was a big deal. My dad had long stopped calling. I thought about you a lot.” He pauses and then frowns.
“But I was pretty happy. We had a big ass house, and my mom had all the pills she could ever want to pop with the doctor feeding her addiction. But it was high-class addiction.”
“I see.”
“I went to rich kid parties, had a girlfriend.”
“Oh?” I hate the fact that I feel jealous of that.
“Yeah, she was all into me until I decided I wanted to join the Army, instead of going to the fancy fucking college the doctor wanted to send me to.”
“And you joined?”
“No.” He falls silent.
“Why?” My eyes jump back to him, but his gaze is still away.
“My dad died.”
“The doctor?”
“No, my dad.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I hate how much I do—and don’t—relate to him. “I’m sure that was really hard.”
“Yeah, he bit it on a drug run. Crashed his Road King right into the damn guardrail.”
“Oh…” I swallow hard, the nonchalance difficult to respond to, but the fear of him going silent is much worse.
“Yeah, so I blew off enlisting to go join the Iron Traitors and figure out who I was. Tommy Anders would always be my biological father, and I guess there’d been so much…
time… between the abuse and his death…” His voice trails off, but he picks up before I can say anything.
“I just wanted to feel connected to that side of me. I had a reckless streak, and my mom was fucked up on pills all the time, while the doctor fucked whoever he wanted. I hated that life, too. I guess the Club was some sort of self-discovery or something.”
I nod because my heart hurts for him. “And then…”
“Then you murdered Matthew Zendetti, your father framed me for it,” his voice turns icy. “And I would’ve spent the rest of my life in prison unless I did what I’m doing now. The end.”
I nod because I can’t find the words to say anything else to him. He could’ve found himself, healed from his dad’s death, and then moved on to having a good life…
But I happened. And I wish I hadn’t.