Chapter 59
NOAH
I stare at the bed, and for a second, I can’t breathe. The yellow stationery is spread out like a fucking shroud, covered in her frantic, looping script. My name is everywhere.
‘Noah didn’t kidnap me. I chose this. I am not a victim.’
My heart fractures in my chest. “What did you do?” I roar again, the sound tearing out of my throat.
She looks up at me, her eyes puffy as she shrugs. “I told the truth.”
I grab her by the shoulders, my fingers digging into the thick fabric of my own hoodie. “Rue, why did you do this?”
“I ended it!” she screams in my face, shoving at my chest. She’s vibrating with a terrifying kind of resolve.
“I called them, Noah! They’re coming. I told them everything.
I told them you were gone so they’d come for me and leave you alone.
I told them I did it. I’ve always been the one who did it—and all I’ve ever wanted was to make it up to you.
” Her voice breaks, fresh tears spilling over her cheeks.
My mind flicks back to the little girl who kissed my broken hand and the woman who murdered a man for touching me.
“You stupid, beautiful girl,” I choke out, spinning away from her to rake my hands through my hair.
I feel like the walls are physically closing in.
The plan was for you to walk away clean.
You were supposed to be the survivor. You were supposed to have a life so much better than this. ” I gesture around the room.
“I don't want a life without you.” She steps into my space, forcing me to look at her. “I’m the one with all the blood on my hands, Noah. You don’t get to decide that I’m innocent just because you want to feel better about yourself. I turned myself in. It’s over.”
Fury burns in my chest. “It’s not over until I say it is, and I’m not going to let you end up where I did, Rue. I won’t let that happen.” My body aches with panic.
In the distance, a low wail begins to bleed through the night air. Sirens. They’re miles off, but in the desert, sound travels further.
They’re coming for the girl I destroyed my life to protect.
“Listen to that,” she whispers, her eyes widening as she looks up at me. “Go, Noah. Please. If they find you here, they’ll probably just kill you. Just go.”
“I’m not leaving you to rot in a cage.” I look at the letters on the bed. Those pages are a fucking death warrant. If the Marshals get their hands on those confessions, there is no defense attorney in the world who can save her.
I look at the cheap, plastic coffee maker on the desk, then at the pile of thin, synthetic towels by the bathroom. And a desperate, pathetic idea takes hold.
“What are you doing?” Rue asks, her voice rising in panic as I grab the matches from the nightstand.
“Finally starting that fire you wanted to start in the desert, and destroying the evidence,” I mutter.
I grab the stack of letters—the truth she tried to give the world—and throw them into the metal trash can. I strike a match. It breaks.
“Fuck,” I shout, causing Rue to jump. I strike another. The flame is small, orange, and hungry. I drop it in. The thin paper curls and blackens, the words I chose this vanishing into ash.
But it’s not enough. There’s too much of her DNA in this room, too much of us. I need a distraction. I need a reason for the perimeter to break, for the chaos to work in our favor.
Fuck it.
I grab the bottle of high-proof rubbing alcohol from the first-aid kit in my bag and douse the heavy polyester curtains.
“Noah, stop! You’re going to get us killed!” Rue lunges for my arm, but I catch her, pinning her against me for one searing second.
“I’m saving you, Rue. Whether you like it or not.” I touch the flame to the curtains.
The fabric whooshes, a wall of orange heat erupting instantly, licking the ceiling and casting monstrous shadows against the walls. The smoke is thick and black, stinging my eyes, filling the room with the scent of melting plastic and old regrets.
The sirens are louder now. Much louder. The red and blue flashes are starting to pulse against the smoke-filled window.
“We’re leaving,” I growl over the roar of the fire, which I’ve now spread to the bed. The room heats up instantly, and I turn to Rue.
“I won’t go!” she cries, coughing as the oxygen thins.
I don’t argue anymore. I don’t have time for her conscience or her goddamn stubbornness. I wrap my arm around her waist and haul her toward the back window, the room behind us turning into a screaming furnace of orange and gold.
I kick the bathroom door shut behind us to buy thirty seconds. I wrap my fist in the sleeve of my hoodie and smash it through the frosted glass of the window, tearing the screen out with my bare hands.
The cold night air hits my face, thick with the wail of police sirens pulling into the front lot.
“We’re going,” I bark, lifting her off her feet and shoving her through the jagged window frame into the dark alley behind the motel.
And then I dive out right behind her.