Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
DOM
I keep two miles back, close enough to see her taillights when the road curves, far enough that she won't notice the same headlights in her rearview for hours. Not that she’s checking.
I can tell by the way she drives, relaxed and unhurried like she’s the only person on the planet.
No paranoia, no constant mirror-checking, no sudden lane changes to test if someone is following.
She drives like someone who's never had a reason to look over her shoulder.
That’s going to change.
My car hums beneath me, a familiar vibration that has become as natural as breathing over the years.
I've driven this car across half the country, through deserts and mountains and forgotten towns where people still think the world is a good place.
Where they still believe in things like safety and trust and the fundamental decency of strangers.
Fucking idiots.
The road winds out ahead, only a handful of vehicles pass by.
Those ridiculous fairy lights are visible through the back windows, a soft light that makes the whole thing look like some kind of bohemian dream.
I can picture her in there, surrounded by her art and her music and all the beautiful dark angel energy she carries around like a second skin.
She's driving north out of Moab, just like I'd guessed she would. There are only so many routes through this part of Utah, and I know them all. I’ve driven through them enough times to know every rest stop, every scenic overlook, every shitty little town that exists solely to extract money from tourists stupid enough to think they’re having an authentic experience.
To be honest I've been following people for years, I was paid to do it for a while in my past life, and it paid fucking well.
I earned money doing something that fed the demon inside of me.
After a while, I knew how to read patterns of behavior, anticipate their movements, learning how to stay invisible until the moment I wanted to be seen.
It was a skill I'd developed out of necessity first, then refined into something close to an artform when it became a job, turning into a unique skill.
Most of the time, I’d followed people who deserved what was coming to them.
Dealers who sold to kids. Men who put their hands on women who said no.
The kind of human garbage that made the world a worse place just by existing in it.
You’d be surprised how many people were willing to pay to end others.
I'd follow them for days sometimes, learning their routines, finding the perfect moment when they were alone and vulnerable and in a position to understand that actions have consequences.
I don’t feel bad about it, or even lose sleep over the bodies I've left behind in alleys, empty parking lots and stretches of desert where nobody would find them for months. The world is better off without them, and I’m better off knowing I removed another piece of shit from the equation.
But this is different.
Roxy hasn't done anything wrong. She isn’t hurting anyone, or making the world worse. If anything, she is one of the few people I've ever met who seems to see things clearly, who wears her true self like a beautiful piece of clothing for everyone to see.
So why am I following her?
The question lingers in my head as I drive with the window down, smoking another cigarette to relax me.
The engine's growl drowns out everything except my own thoughts. I could tell myself it’s intrigue, or say I just want to see where she’s going, what she’s doing, to find out whether that moment on the roadside had been real or just a fluke.
I could pretend this is casual, meaningless, something I'll get bored with within a day or two.
But I've never been good at lying to myself.
I’m following her because I want her. I need to know everything about her, like what she thinks about when she’s alone, what makes her smile, what she looks like when she comes apart under someone's hands.
I want to peel back every layer until I understand exactly what had broken her to become this way.
I also desperately want to see what my hands look like wrapped around her slim neck while I fuck her.
But what I want the most is to own that darkness that lives inside of her, to claim it and make sure nobody else ever gets close enough to see what I'd seen in her eyes.
A lot of people would think this is screwed up. I know that every day people don't follow strangers across state lines, or obsess over a ten minute conversation that made them feel this bone deep certainty that someone belonged to them after a single meeting.
Her van's taillights disappear around a curve and I speed up, closing the distance slightly. The road climbs into the mountains, winding through red rock formations that look black in the darkness. Beautiful country, if you’re the type to care about that sort of thing.
I've always preferred cities as I love the anonymity, the constant noise, the way you can disappear into the crowd and nobody gives a shit who you are or what you've done.
But watching her van navigate these empty roads, I’m starting to see the appeal. Out here, there is nobody to witness, nobody to judge you or interfere. Just miles of nothing and the two of us moving through it like ghosts.
I know she has to stop eventually. Nobody drives all night, especially not in a van that looks like it’s held together with duct tape and wishful thinking. She'll pull over at a rest stop or a campground, maybe park in some scenic overlook to watch the sunrise and draw whatever catches her eye.
And I'll be there.
Not right away, as I’m not stupid enough to make it obvious.
But close enough that our paths will cross again, to the point that she'll start to wonder if it’s coincidence or something else.
The frequent interactions will plant a seed, so the idea of me will start to take root in her mind in the same way the very idea of her has already consumed mine.
I've done this dance before. I know how to make someone feel hunted without them quite understanding why. How to be everywhere and nowhere, and to make my presence felt without being seen. It’s a game I've always been good at, a particular kind of psychological warfare that most people are too oblivious to even notice.
But Roxy isn't most people.
I’m certain she'll notice, and will most likely figure out what I’m doing faster than anyone else ever has.
But that’s fine, it’s actually better than fine.
I don't want someone oblivious or want to have to dumb myself down or pretend to be less than I am.
I want someone who can keep up, who can see the game for what it is and will decide to play anyway.
I want someone who is just as fucked up as I am.
The highway finally opens up and I can see for miles, there is nothing but a dark empty space, where only the stars and her taillights cut through the night.
My hands are steady on the steering wheel, my mind calm in a way it rarely is.
This feels right, like fate, like something I am supposed to be doing, as if every choice I'd made had led me to that roadside where she was drawing death and seeing the beauty in it.
People talk about fate like it’s some romantic concept, where the universe gives a shit about bringing soulmates together.
That is bullshit. The universe doesn't care about anything. But rarely, you can have two people who are equally broken, find each other in the wreckage. And when that happens, you don’t question it or overthink it.
You just hold on and see where it leads, no matter how dangerous it is, even if the result ends badly for everyone involved.
Especially then.
I check my phone, glancing at the map I'd pulled up earlier.
There is a rest stop about forty miles ahead, right before the road starts its serious climb into the mountains.
She will stop there, I'd bet money on it. It’s late now, and she has been driving for hours, plus that van doesn't look like it can handle mountain passes without some kind of break.
I speed up, pulling ahead and passing her van doing ninety, close enough to see her silhouette in the driver's seat, but not close enough for her to get a good look at me. Just another car on a dark highway, nothing worth remembering.
By the time she reaches the rest stop, I'll already be there. Waiting.
The miles disappear beneath my tires and I let myself think about what comes next.
How I approach her, what I'm gonna say and how I will try to make it seem natural instead of the calculated stalking it actually is. I’m good at reading people, and knowing what they want to hear.
And Roxy, she wants brutal honesty, someone who doesn’t bullshit her and sees the world as clearly as she does.
I can give her that. I can be exactly what she needs, because it’s not even an act. We are the same, two people who have looked at the world and decided it is rotten, and don’t care about the things normal people care about.
She just doesn't know it yet, that I've already decided she is mine. That I am going to make sure she understands we belong together, that this isn't some chance encounter, but the inevitable collision of two people who were always going to find each other.
I'll burn down the whole fucking world before I let her slip away.
The rest stop appears in the distance, a small oasis of light in the darkness. I pull in, parking the car in the shadows away from the main building. There are a few other vehicles around, a semi truck, a couple of sedans, and a family in an RV that looks like it has seen better days.