Chapter 12 #2
I feel Raven react before I even see the cruiser disappear in the mirror. Her spine goes rigid. Not dramatic. Not enough that most people would catch it. But I’ve been cataloging her all night whether I want to admit that or not, so I notice.
I don’t comment. Neither does she. But a minute later her left hand is back on that bare ring finger, twisting skin where metal used to sit, and I know it’s not random.
I don’t know yet if the ex being connected means law enforcement or politics or one well-placed family with their hands in everything dirty. Could be all of it. But the way she reacts to cop cars makes one option more likely than the rest.
That settles something dark and mean in the center of my chest.
If that bastard wears a badge and put his hands on her anyway, I’m going to enjoy whatever happens next more than is probably healthy. The thought is ugly enough that I push it aside for now. No point getting ahead of the facts.
Still. It’s there.
The truck eats up another stretch of miles before Raven goes quiet in a different way than before. Not uneasy this time. Thinking.
She stares out the windshield, then down at her hands, then out the passenger window again. I wait because I can feel the question building in her and because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that people will usually talk if you leave enough room for it.
She wets her lips once. Twists that same ring finger. Then finally says, “Do you think we’re far enough away?”
I glance over. “For what?”
Her hand rises slowly to the brim of the cap. “To take this off.”
For half a second, I don’t answer. Partly because the question catches me off guard. Mostly because I’ve spent enough of this drive looking at that cheap blonde wig and knowing it doesn’t belong on her face that the idea of seeing what’s under it lands harder than it should.
I flick my eyes to the mirrors, check the road behind us, the empty stretch ahead, the dark shoulders on either side.
No headlights sticking with us too long.
No signs of a tail. No exits coming up that’ll force us into more visible traffic.
We’ve put enough distance behind Louisiana that anyone trying to trace our route now would be working from guesses and luck.
“We’re clear for now,” I say. “Go ahead.”
She doesn’t move right away.
I can feel her hesitation without even looking fully at her, the same way I can feel when the atmosphere in the truck shifts.
This isn’t just about discomfort. It’s about shedding the last piece of whatever disguise got her through the chapter doors and into my truck. Small act, maybe. But not meaningless.
Finally she lifts both hands and slides the cap off slowly, careful not to yank the wig with it. Cheap blonde strands shift in the dim cab light, dull and wrong against the shape of her face.
My hands stay steady on the wheel.
Barely.
She reaches up to the edge near her temple and peels the wig back with the kind of relief a man might feel taking duct tape off a wound. There’s a little grimace with it, like it’s been scratching at her scalp for hours. Then the wig comes free.
And her real hair spills down.
Dark.
Long.
A thick wave of black that tumbles over her shoulders and down her chest in one heavy, glossy fall like the night outside somehow decided it wanted a body.
I damn near forget how to breathe. It’s one of those moments that hits hard enough your brain blanks for a second before trying to catch up.
Because I knew the blonde was fake. Of course I did. Grinder’s people didn’t slap a cheap wig on his daughter because she naturally looked like that. But knowing something and seeing the truth under it are two very different things, and this truth lands like a punch.
The truck suddenly feels smaller. Hotter. More aware.
Her fingers move through the dark strands automatically, loosening the flattened roots where they’d been pinned up too long. The motion is simple. Practical. But there’s nothing practical about the effect.
She looks younger and older at the same time without the disguise. Softer in some places. Sharper in others. More herself, even though I’ve only known her a few hours and have no right to think I can identify what that means.
Her amber eyes lift for half a second, and maybe she catches something on my face because a strange uncertainty flickers there before she looks down and gathers the wig into her lap like she’s suddenly not sure what to do with her own hands.
I tear my attention back to the road so fast it almost makes my neck hurt.
Internal reaction stays exactly where it is, though. Nowhere useful. Nowhere safe.
Fucked.
That’s the word for it.
Entirely, comprehensively, inconveniently fucked.
I’ve seen beautiful women before. Been around them.
Been inside them. This is not new territory in any broad sense.
But this isn’t broad sense. This is one specific woman in my truck in the middle of the night, finally looking like herself after hours of fear and tension and careful conversation, and something about the reveal gets under my skin in a way I don’t appreciate.
Maybe it’s because the hair changes the whole shape of her.
Maybe it’s because the disguise coming off feels private, and I’m suddenly too aware of the fact that I’m the only one here to see it.
Maybe it’s because for the first time since I stepped into that room at the Louisiana chapter, I get a glimpse of the person underneath the situation.
Whatever it is, it’s a problem.
I keep my eyes on the road and say the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t wildly inappropriate. “Looks better.”
Smooth. Real smooth.
Beside me, she stills for half a beat, then lets out the smallest breath that might be a laugh if it had more air in it. “That’s a polite way to say the wig was awful.”
“It was real bad.”
This time she actually laughs, quiet and tired and surprised into it.
The sound hits me square in the chest. I grip the wheel a little tighter.
“Thank you,” she says after a second, still touching the ends of her hair like she can’t quite believe it’s free again. “I hated that thing.”
“I could tell.”
I chance a quick glance at her.
She’s looking down at the wig in her lap with open disgust, dark hair spilling over my sweatshirt and catching the faint dashboard light in blue-black streaks. Even exhausted and wrung out and hiding from God knows what, she is stunning enough to make a man stupid if he isn’t careful.
I have no intention of being stupid. That doesn’t mean I’m safe from it. “You don’t strike me as a blonde,” I say.
Her brows lift. “No?”
“No.”
“What do I strike you as?”
The question lands heavier than she probably means it to. Not flirtation exactly. More reflexive curiosity. But I still take a second too long to answer because anything honest is a bad idea.
Trouble, maybe.
Midnight.
A woman who probably used to walk into rooms like she owned them before some bastard taught her to make herself smaller. A lot of things.
Instead I say, “Somebody who shouldn’t have to hide.”
That one comes out before I can stop it. Silence settles between us again. Not awkward. Not exactly. Just full.
I can feel her looking at me, and I don’t turn my head because I’m not real interested in what my face might be giving away right now.
After a second she says quietly, “No. I probably shouldn’t.”
There’s enough in those four words to fill a room.
I let them sit.
A green sign flashes by overhead. A mile marker I clock automatically, filing our progress without thinking about it. I change lanes when the road opens, then settle back into the right with the mirrors giving me nothing I don’t want to see. Still clear. Still dark. Still ours for now.