Chapter 22
RUE
The passenger door slams shut, and I can’t fucking believe what’s happening.
I don’t even have my seatbelt buckled before Noah throws the SUV into reverse.
The tires scream against the cracked asphalt of the Glenrio Travel Center, the heavy vehicle bucking backward.
My head slams against the headrest, a fresh wave of nausea rolling through me as the world violently tilts and blurs.
“Noah, wait—”
“Shut up, Rue,” he snaps, cutting me off.
He shifts into drive. The engine roars, and we launch forward.
He doesn’t bother navigating the parking lot; he bypasses the entrance ramp entirely, cutting across the dirt and gravel shoulder to merge onto the pitch-black stretch of I-40.
The suspension dips and sways, throwing me against the door panel before the tires finally catch the smooth pavement of the interstate.
Oh my God. Oh. My. God.
I twist in my seat, my hands frantically grabbing for the seatbelt and clicking it into place as I glance my eyes to the side mirror. My heart is a frantic, trapped, freaking bird battering against my ribs.
I expect to see the man from the bathroom charging out into the parking lot. I expect to see him screaming, waving his arms, reaching for a phone that isn’t there—or worse, drawing a weapon and firing at our retreating taillights or something.
But there’s… nothing. Just the receding, ghostly glow of the abandoned travel center lights and the vast, swallowing blackness of the state line.
“We just stole a car,” I whisper. The words taste exactly like the vomit still coating the back of my throat.
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking so much I have to shove them beneath my thighs to pin them down.
“Noah. We really just stole a fucking car.” My voice rises.
“They’re going to be looking for it now.
We’re… we’re going to be on the camera.”
“Maybe,” he says, his gaze fixed dead ahead, his knuckles white on the leather steering wheel. “But we had to get out of there.”
I stare at him. In the dim, icy blue glow of the dashboard, he suddenly looks like a complete stranger.
The rugged line of his jaw is set in stone, his expression dangerous and completely detached, his eyes dead.
It’s impossible to reconcile this cold, calculated carjacker with the man who held me in the motel bed just hours ago, whose breath hitched against my neck when he touched me.
“You didn’t have to do this. I gave you a choice,” he deadpans, as he finally glances over at me.
But that’s it. I can’t take it anymore.
“A choice?” I let out a rough, hysterical laugh that burns my bruised ribs. “You scooped up my dog and ran for a car! What was I supposed to do, Noah? Stand there in the freezing dirt and wait for the New Mexico State Police to find me at the scene of a grand theft auto?”
“You could have yelled for the owner,” he counters smoothly, not a single ounce of remorse in his tone.
“You could have played the victim. Told them some terrifying fugitive tried to grab your dog and took the car. You could’ve told them I forced you to take me this far.
You’d be safe and sound. You’d get a ride to the nearest station, call your mom, and get your spoiled ass back to California. ”
“Are you serious? Without… Without—” I cut myself off, my throat constricting so hard it aches. Without you, I want to scream. Because, unlike him, my feelings didn’t die when he went under those black waters.
They grew. Catastrophically.
Noah doesn’t try to continue the conversation.
He just reaches out with his good arm and adjusts the rearview mirror.
He drives ninety miles an hour with one hand, his injured left arm resting stiffly in his lap, the dark fabric of his hoodie concealing whatever fresh bleeding the exertion just caused.
This is insane. All the safe driving he bitched about is just… out the window.
Bullet whines in the back. He paces the spacious leather bench of a vehicle that doesn’t smell like us. It smells like pine air freshener, expensive upholstery, and a faint hint of stale coffee.
It smells like a life we just hijacked.
I slowly pull my gaze from Noah and take in the interior of the SUV. The panic morphs into a heavy, sinking dread as I notice the victim's artifacts.
There’s a travel mug sitting in the cupholder, the stainless steel still radiating heat. A lanyard with a gym membership tag clinks softly against the steering column. In the passenger door cubby next to my leg, there’s a crumbled receipt and a half-empty pack of spearmint gum.
This car belongs to someone. Someone who is currently standing in a dirty, freezing bathroom in the middle of nowhere, washing his hands, completely unaware that his belongings and his ticket home just vanished into the night.
“He’s stranded,” I think aloud, my voice cracking. “He’s stranded out there in the dark because of us.”
“But he’s alive,” Noah corrects flatly. “Which is better than you tend to leave them. And me too, for that matter.”
I wince at the jab. But the horrifying truth is that I am sitting right next to him on my own accord. I chose to open that passenger door. I chose to get in.
“You said you weren’t a thief,” Noah mutters, his eyes flicking to me for a fraction of a second. A dark, cynical smirk touches the corner of his mouth. “Guess we’re both full of shit, Little Rabbit.”
Little Rabbit. I swallow hard.
The nickname sends a shiver down my spine, a jarring mix of terror and twisted affection. I pull my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around my shins and pressing my throbbing forehead against the cool glass of the window.
The good person delusion I’ve been desperately clinging to since Moccasin Cove finally shatters, the pieces dissolving into the adrenaline buzzing in my veins. I am not righting a wrong anymore. I am not just paying off a debt.
I am an accomplice. And besides, I was the original villain.
The quiet stretches between us as the minutes pass, heavier and more suffocating than the deafening crunch of screaming metal when we hit the mountain lion.
Outside, the desert is an ocean of black.
The paranoia starts to spiral, tightening around my throat like a physical hand.
Every pair of headlights approaching from the opposite lane looks like a Highway Patrol cruiser.
Every reflective green highway sign counting down the miles to Tucumcari feels like a trap waiting to be sprung.
“Check the glovebox,” Noah commands, breaking the quiet about ten miles down the road.
“Why?” I ask, my voice muffled against my knees.
“Because we need to know whose life we just took over. Registration. Insurance. See if there's a gun in there. Something.”
I hesitate, staring at the latch on the sleek black dashboard. Opening it feels like crossing another invisible line—a final invasion of privacy.
“Rue,” he warns, his tone dropping an octave. “Just fucking check it.”
With a sharp exhale, I lower my legs and reach forward. I press the latch. It falls open, spilling a small flashlight and a stack of folded napkins onto my lap. I dig past them, my fingers brushing against a thick leather manual and a folded piece of paper.
I pull the registration out and hold it up to the dim overhead dome light.
“Well?” Noah asks, his eyes glued to the dark road.
I read the name printed on the blue-lined paper, my stomach twisting into a painful knot.
“Christopher Banderra.” The name is as foreign as this freaking car.
I shove the registration back into the glovebox, along with the napkins and flashlight.
And then, as if the boundary has already been destroyed, I slowly make my way to the console, flipping it up and peering in.
It’s empty, except for some loose change.
And a wallet.
My heart jumps to my throat, and I reach in, plucking it out and flipping it open. I’m met with the chocolate brown eyes of a stranger. I squeeze my eyes closed for just a second.
“Any cash?” Noah asks.
I purse my lips as I open the pocket, revealing a wad of green. “Oh.” I pull out the stack, flipping through ten twenties and three one-hundred-dollar bills.
“Worth it,” Noah glances over to me and then down to the gas gauge. “Five hundred is a lot of gas.”
I lean over, seeing exactly why he says that.
Eighty miles to E.
“Great, we stole a car without any gas in it.”
“It’ll be fine,” Noah says, his voice dropping. “Just sit back.” He catches my gaze. “And if anything happens, I made you get in this car.”
I narrow my eyes. “But—”
“I made you get in this car.”