Chapter 6
NOAH
I saw what you did. Just tell me why, Rue. I don’t care if I have to stay here for the rest of my life. I’ll do it for you.
I can still see the same fucking sentence I scrawled in my letters, over and over again. I probably sounded like a lunatic for how many times I wrote her that sentence. She’s the only person who ever really loved me, and I’d continue to take the fall for her in a heartbeat…
If she’d just fucking talk to me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my head feeling light from a lack of water. I roll my shoulders next, trying to work out the tension. I might only be thirty-four, but I might as well have the body of someone thirty years older than me at this point.
Prison does that to a person.
“Sammy!” a voice cuts right through my sleepy stupor, and I freeze, my eyes instantly opening wide. “Where are you? You silly little cat.”
There’s a cat in here.
My eyes peer to the edge of the loft, which still has a few rotten square bales of hay. I’m situated about fifteen feet from the ledge, keeping me out of sight, but still, the footsteps that I now hear loud and clear have my heart racing.
A heavy sigh follows. “I swear, if you’re up there sleeping in that nasty old hay, I’m going to have to call Benjamin to come and get you down.”
Hopefully Benjamin lives far enough away I can get the fuck out first.
“Sammy,” her voice carries. “I need to get to work, you little twat.”
My brows raise. Well, hot damn, Mrs. Wilson has a potty mouth. I never would’ve expected that out of the little churchgoing quilter. I guess you really never know what goes on behind closed doors.
“Okay, I’m giving up.” She lets out a light laugh. “I’ll set your milk on the porch.”
I wait for her footsteps to clear, before I start moving. But as soon as they do, I start gathering up my things pronto. I have no idea what time it is, no idea how long I passed out in the old barn, but I do know it’s time for me to get out for a while. I figured the place was abandoned.
But I guess Sammy lives here now.
I shove what leftover food and clothes I have into the backpack, my heart strangely steady. I know this is what the rest of my life is going to look like—unless I go back. But going back means catching a charge for escape.
And I can say goodbye to that level two status I earned.
Maybe I should’ve just fucking stayed.
“They’ll never find you guilty of first-degree,” my defense attorney’s voice echoes in my head. “You were there to collect a debt.”
I was such an idiot to believe him.
You know what I got, Rue? Fucking life without the possibility of parole.
I shake my head as I pull the zipper around the top of the backpack, and then attach the bedroll to the top. Now, I look like a regular ole hiker, not an escapee.
Maybe today I’ll confront Rue. Or maybe I should wait until I have an actual plan.
I slide my arms through the straps, and then ease to the edge of the loft, peering over just to see.
Oh fuck.
I’m met with a pair of horrified hazel irises, wild gray hair, and a blood curdling scream. Mrs. Wilson looks like she might fucking keel over right then and there.
That could be bad.
“Who are you?” she manages to wail, stumbling backwards in her little pioneer floral dress. “What are you doing in my barn?”
I raise my hands in a low show of surrender, though she still startles backward more, running violently into the sliding barn door.
“Easy,” I mutter, my voice coming out so groggy it might be confused with a growl—only further serving to terrify the old lady.
Good fucking gracious.
“I’m gonna call the cops,” she starts patting around on her skirt, like she might have a phone stashed away. “You better not come down from there!”
Too bad.
I throw my body over the edge of the loft, landing on my feet. “Sorry,” I mumble in her direction as she nearly falls right over, her face growing ghastly white. I bolt through the gap in the door, sprinting right out into the morning mist.
And I can already hear her voice.
“There’s someone in my barn,” she says, her voice trembling. “I don’t—I don’t know who it is, but he’s not supposed to be here!”
Well, at least she didn’t notice I was wearing her dead husband’s clothes. I gulp in air as the mist turns to a downpour, the exact opposite of what I need right now. Unless they bring in the dogs.
Fuck. I need to run faster.
My calves start to burn as I tear through the woods, I know I have a solid thirty minutes before the cops probably show up. Drifters come through here occasionally, and honestly, other than trespassing, they won’t be thinking about it too seriously.
Until they connect me to the inmate that walked away.
I’m sure it’s out on the news by now, but I push it away as I stumble through the thick brush, eventually breaking out of the trees to the bluff that overlooks the lake—and consequently the dock that I watched Rue shove Matthew from…
After she stabbed him at least a dozen times.
I pause to catch my breath there, running my hand over my face. I know I look like shit by now. I know I don’t look a damn thing like the little Noah Anders Rue befriended all those years ago. Sure, I was already fucked up.
But not like this.
I don’t know if I’m coming or going anymore. My prison therapist says it’s the trauma. My mother says it’s a few screws loose. Personally, I just think this is just what happens when life royally fucks you in the ass over and over.
But what do I know?
I zone out on the dark, murky waters of the lake, trying to picture a time when I didn’t think the whole thing was treacherous. Maybe I found safety in it when Rue and I used to run in the woods, playing make believe.
“You can come here any time you need to,” her father’s voice echoes in my brain as I slip back into the trees. “We don’t have to talk about what happens at home, but I just want you to know we’re here for you.”
And then seven years later, the man made sure every fucking nail was put in my coffin.
Fuck all the Iversons.
As I pick through the trees, heading to the trusty ravine I slept in yesterday, I hear the wail of sirens in the distance.
Uh oh. I stop moving, listening to the scream that used to give me an adrenaline rush. But that was in my misdemeanor days. Now, I’m a whole ass murderer apparently.
The sound of the cops grows, but I’m only able to count one car—not that I can be totally sure. My fingertips brush my full-blown beard, now about five inches long. I need to shave it off. When I busted out, I wasn’t clean shaven. I need a fucking razor.
I could’ve taken one of those off Mrs. Wilson.
I doubt she’s worried about shaving anything these days. I nearly chuckle at that thought and keep moving. I can follow the inner lake trails almost all the way to town, and probably slip into the small little Grab n’ Go without anyone thinking twice about it.
Except I have no cash.
I’ll just have to figure it out when I get there. Then, after a good shave, and I ensure the cops aren’t making a big scene, I’ll find Rue again.
Maybe I’ll get some answers.
And try not to become the murderer everyone thinks I am.