Chapter 61
NOAH
The engine of the stolen truck ticks as it cools, the sound sharp in the oppressive silence of the high desert. I parked behind a cluster of skeletal mesquite trees, miles from the main road.
There is no moon out here. Just a sprawling ocean of black brush and jagged rocks. If Elias decides to put a bullet in us, nobody will find our bodies for a decade.
Come on, Elias. Please don’t fucking ghost us.
Rue sits beside me, her silhouette rigid. The air between us is thick with the scent of smoke and the unspoken weight of what comes next. Her eyes jump to the clock on the dashboard of the truck.
“He’s late,” Rue mumbles, and then looks over to me.
“He’ll be here,” I say, and then shift in the truck seat, the Colt revolver that Rue hid in the bag tucked safely in my waistband. Under normal circumstances, I would question this as the final secret.
But then again, maybe she just forgot about it. Now’s not the time to bring it up.
It’s way more important that we get the fuck out of this country.
I lean back against the seat, closing my eyes for a moment. My ears pick up the scuttle of dry brush, the low moan of the wind through the canyons, and then, finally, I catch it—the crunch of tires on gravel.
My eyes fly open, half expecting it to be the marshals. But lucky for us, it’s just a pair of dim yellow headlights, bouncing as a rusted white van navigates the wash.
Thank God.
It pulls up twenty feet away, the headlights cutting through the darkness to illuminate the side of our truck. The engine dies, but the driver stays behind the glass for a long minute.
“Whatever you do, stay behind me,” I instruct Rue as I slide out of the truck, and she follows suit.
The driver’s door creaks open. A man climbs out—lean, weathered, wearing a denim jacket that’s seen better decades.
This is Elias. I take him in, the guy no taller than Rue. He’s supposed to be our ticket to the shadows of Mexico, a man who asks for cash and offers silence more than likely. But as he walks toward us, his hands shoved deep into his pockets, the hair on the back of my neck stands up.
He isn’t looking at me. He’s looking at Rue. His eyes are bright with a greedy, frantic energy.
“You’re late,” I grit out.
Elias stops ten feet out. He spits a glob of tobacco juice into the dirt. “Roads are crawling with Marshals, Noah. You failed to mention the whole damn country is looking for you—and her.” He pauses, folding his arms across his chest. “And I said one person. I take one at a time.”
“Plans change,” I counter. “You take us both across. Tonight.”
Elias laughs, a dry, hacking sound that sets my teeth on edge. He shakes his head, finally shifting his gaze to me, and there’s a cruel pity in his expression.
“I make the plans,” he says. “And there’s a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for the safe return of that girl. Fifty large, Peterson. That’s more than you’re carrying in that bag, and a hell of a lot less heat than smuggling a fugitive like you across the line.”
I shift my weight, my heart hammering. “I don’t give a shit about the reward. We go. Now.”
“No.” Elias pulls a snub-nosed revolver from his waistband with a practiced flick of the wrist. He levels it at my chest, but his eyes stay glued to Rue.
“I’m not taking you anywhere. You’re dead weight.
I’m taking her. I turn her in at the border station, I play the hero, and I collect the check.
You? You can stay here and rot in the dirt for all I fucking care. ”
The betrayal is absolute. I feel Rue flinch behind me, her hand grabbing the back of my shirt. The atmosphere shifts from tense to lethal in the heartbeat it takes for Elias to thumb back the hammer of his gun.
“Give me the girl,” he sneers. “Or I’ll just kill you and tell ‘em I rescued her from your corpse.”