Chapter 8 #2
But to my surprise, she tells us anyway. Maybe because we're strangers, sometimes there is more safety in offloading your fears and problems to strangers than it is to those close to you. And judging by the nerves this girl carries, she needs to speak to someone. We all have our ceiling of limits.
"He's my uncle," she says quietly. "He owns the gas station. And he…" She stops, swallows hard. "Let’s just say he’s not a good person."
"Has he hurt you?" Dom asks.
She doesn't answer, and that’s confirmation enough.
"What's your name?" I ask.
"Lisa."
"Lisa, when does your shift end?"
"Six."
I glance at the clock on the wall, that’s four hours away
"Okay," I say. "Go put our order in and we'll be here when you get off to make sure you leave safely."
“Why?” she asks, confused and I get it.
“Because we can help you. I know we’re strangers, but you can trust us, especially after experiencing your uncle’s asshole manners.”
“I don’t want any trouble,” she says, a hint of panic.
“Hey, you won’t get in any trouble. I promise.”
She nods and walks away, and Dom's hand tightens around mine.
"We're fucking doing this," he says.
"Yeah. We are."
We hang around until Lisa leaves at six, she walks quickly to a beat-up Honda in the parking lot, while her eyes manically keep checking the gas station, the poor thing is scared to death.
What has that bastard done to her? I smile gently at her as she waves at us while we watch her drive away.
As soon as she is out of sight, we cross the street to the gas station.
The OPEN sign is still flickering, but the pumps are empty of customers.
We try to open the door, but it’s locked. That’s a strange time to shut up shop, but I don’t see anyone at the counter inside.
"Around back," I say.
We circle the building and find a rear entrance where there is a metal door, luckily for us, it’s unlocked. Dom pushes it open and we slip inside. Some townies are just too damn trusting, leaving their doors unlocked.
The back room is exactly what I expected, a fucking mess with boxes of inventory, a desk covered in paperwork, and the disgusting smell of mold and stale beer. We move through the room silently, and I can feel my heart hammering against my ribs.
This is different from the bar, as it’s premeditated. Intentional.
We find Carl in the back of the shop in another small room, counting up the cash from the day. He looks up when he hears us, and his expression shifts from shock to anger and then to concern in the span of a heartbeat.
"What the fuck!"
Dom moves fast, grabbing Carl by the collar and slamming him against the desk, and I hear the air rush out of Carl's lungs.
“Grab his phone,” Dom says to me, and I pick up the old cell phone that’s on the desk next to his face. This guy is so fucking dumb that he doesn’t have a passcode, who the hell does that?
“Take the damn phone and get the hell out of here,” Carl shouts, struggling under Dom’s body.
“Shut up!” Dom shouts as I scroll through the phone, because I'm nosey, but I soon regret it when I go into his photo album.
“You sick fuck,” I hiss, showing the screen to Dom.
There are pictures after pictures of Lisa, ranging from shots of her at work, in her car, talking to customers, and then there are pictures of her with nothing but terror in her eyes, wearing only her underwear, with bruises on her arms and chest. This fucker archiving his abuse is beyond redemption.
To top it all off, there are hundreds of pictures of different women who have been in this store.
Some of women filling up their vehicles at the pumps.
All young and the shots are mainly close ups of their bodies. This guy is seriously sick.
“I wonder what your wife would think of these pictures? Or even better. What would the police have to say?” I say, taunting him with the screen close to his ugly face.
“Just take the money and leave,” he says, begging like the pathetic scumbag he is.
“He won’t stop, Dom. He’s lying,” I say, and Dom looks at me, smirking, knowing what I mean.
"You're going to listen very carefully," Dom says, his voice deadly calm. "And then you're going to make a choice."
"Fuck you!"
Dom slams him against the desk again, harder this time as Carl's head snaps back.
"The choice is this," Dom continues. "You leave tonight and you get in your car and you drive away from this town and you never come back. You don't contact Lisa, you don't contact anyone, we want you to intentionally go missing."
"You can't…"
"Or," Dom says, leaning closer, "I make you vanish. Permanently."
The threat hits the mark and I can see Carl processing it, trying to decide if Dom is serious. He’s not. We have no intention of letting him go, but who said it isn’t fun to play with your prey?
"You're fucking crazy," Carl spits.
"Yeah, we are," Dom says, and I can’t stop the giggle. This is fun.
Dom releases Carl and steps back, and for a second I think Carl might actually try to run. That he would consider leaving, but he doesn’t, instead he reaches under the desk, searching for a gun probably, or some other weapon, but he has nothing on the speed of Dom.
Before my eyes can register what I’m seeing, the first thing I hear is the sound of Carl gurgling on his own blood, a choking sound with panicked breaths, before his heavy body hits the floor.
Carl's breathing turns ragged before finally stopping. I look down to see Carl lying in a pool of blood that’s quickly spreading as it runs like a faucet from his neck.
I watch in awe as my chill guy wipes the blade on his pants and puts it into his pocket. I didn’t know he had a knife.
Dom straightens, his hands bloody, and looks at me.
"Are you good?"
"I’m better than good," I say as I grab my camera from my bag and start shooting.
Not Carl, I don't need that image, and I don't want it.
But the space. The desk, the cash scattered on the surface and some of it on the floor with drips of blood staining the notes.
I shoot the sickly yellow light that makes the room feel suffocating.
This is the evidence that something happened here, that we were here, that this moment existed and we are the creators.
Dom watches me work as he stands by the door, checking that we are still alone, and when I'm done, he takes my hand.
"We need to go," he says.
"Okay," I say as I scan the shop for any evidence that we may have left behind, and use a cloth we find in the back to wipe down anywhere we have touched, including the doors.
We leave through the back door, and by the time we reach the van, my hands are trembling. Not from guilt but from the pure adrenaline of what we just did, from the understanding that we crossed a line we can't uncross.
Dom drives this time, his bloody hands gripping the wheel, as I sit in the passenger seat with my camera in my lap. The highway is busier than before, as the sun starts to lower in the background, and neither of us speaks for the first twenty miles.
The adrenaline hasn't faded. If anything, it's building like a pressure cooker in my chest, a heat in my blood that makes my skin feel too tight.
I can feel Dom's tension radiating off him in waves, his jaw clenched, his knuckles white on the wheel despite the blood.
That familiar ache intensifies in my abdomen, creating a pleasure of tingling sensations in my clit. I have to cross my legs to control it.
"Pull over," I say, already panting.
He glances at me. "What?"
"Pull over, get off the road."
He doesn't question it and takes the next exit which is a dirt road that leads to an overlook, one of those scenic viewpoints that's empty at this time of day. The van's headlights cut through the darkening evening, illuminating scrub brush and rock as he parks.
It’s so quiet here it presses against your eardrums.
“Roxy…”
I'm on him before he can finish. Climbing over the center console, straddling his lap, my mouth finding his in a kiss that's more teeth than lips. He groans into it, his bloody hands gripping my hips before moving to my ass, and I can taste death on his tongue, its metallic, sharp and real.
This is different from before, it’s a toxic intensity that feels life threatening. We just killed a man together, and we don’t regret it. We wanted it. And now we need to claim each other, to reassert that we're still us, that the darkness didn't consume us, it just made us stronger.
I pull back just enough to yank his shirt over his head, and he does the same to mine, his hands rough and impatient.
I kiss and lick the column of his neck before managing to reach his hard nipple and suck on it.
He hisses with a moan and I lap up his chest, needing to kiss every inch I can reach.
But I’m impatient, so I sit up, removing my bra, and then his mouth is on my tits, sucking hard enough to leave marks, and I arch into him with a gasp.
“I love it when you suck my tits,” I moan, grinding my wet pussy against his groin. His hands squeeze each full tit, the attention he pays them makes my eyes roll to the back of my head.
"Need you," I breathe against his hair.
He lifts me off his lap like I weigh nothing and I slide into the passenger seat, my back against the door, and he follows, kneeling on the floor of the van between my legs.
His hands are still bloody as he unbuttons my shorts and aggressively slides them down along with my underwear.
The contrast of the blood against my skin makes something hot stir in my stomach.
"Look at you," he murmurs, his voice rough. "So fucking perfect."
He spreads my thighs wider and leans in, and the first touch of his tongue makes me cry out. He's not gentle and doesn't ease into it. He devours me like he's starving, his mouth hot and demanding, his tongue working me with a precision that makes my vision blur.
I thread my fingers through his hair, gripping hard, and he groans against me. The vibration sends shockwaves through my body and I can't stop the sounds spilling from my lips, gasps and moans and his name, over and over.
"Dom, fuck."
He slides two thick fingers inside me, curling them just right, the sounds of my wetness and his sucking are depraved but so damn erotic.
As he sucks and licks my clit, my hips buck off the seat.
The pleasure is almost violent in its intensity, building and building until I'm shaking, until I can't breathe, until I explode.
I cum with a broken cry, my thighs clamping around his head, but he doesn't stop. Just keeps licking and sucking and fucking me with his fingers until I'm oversensitive and begging him to stop. When he finally pulls back, his mouth is wet and his eyes are dark with need.
"My turn," I say, my voice hoarse.
I push him back onto the driver's seat and drop to my knees on the floor between his legs. His jeans are already tight, the outline of his cock straining against the denim, and I make quick work of the button and zipper.
He lifts his hips and I pull everything down, freeing him, and the sight makes my mouth water. He's hard and thick and already leaking, and when I wrap my hand around him, he hisses through his teeth.
"Shit…"
I don't let him finish, leaning forward and taking him into my mouth, as deep as I can, and the noise he makes is almost feral.
I work him with my mouth and hand, finding a rhythm that makes his breathing ragged, his hips jerking up to meet me.
He tastes like salt and musk and something uniquely him, and I lose myself in it, in the weight of him on my tongue, the way his hand tangles in my hair, in the broken curses falling from his lips.
"Fuck, just like that…"
I hollow my cheeks and suck harder, taking him deeper, and his grip in my hair tightens to the point of pain.
I use one hand at the base and the other to gently squeeze his balls.
I can feel him getting close from the way his thighs tense, the way his breathing turns shallow, so I double my efforts, wanting to taste him, needing to swallow him down, to claim him the way he claimed me.
"Roxy, I'm gonna…"
He cums with a loud groan, spilling hot and bitter on my tongue, and I swallow every drop, continuing to suck until he's shaking, until he's pulling me off him because it's too much.
I sit back on my heels, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, and he stares at me like I'm something holy and profane all at once.
"Come here," he says, his voice wrecked.
I climb back onto his lap and he kisses me deep and thorough, tasting himself on my tongue. His hands are gentler now, stroking my back, my hair, my face, and the tenderness after what just happened makes my heart flutter with fulfillment.
"We should go," I murmur against his mouth.
"Yeah, I guess we should."
But neither of us moves, preferring to just sit here, wrapped around each other, breathing in sync.
Finally, he shifts me back to the passenger seat and we dress quickly. He starts the van and pulls back onto the highway as the adrenaline starts to fade, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion.
"You okay?" he asks after a few miles.
"Yeah." I look at him, at the blood still drying on his knuckles, at the firm line of his mouth. "Are you?"
"I’ve never been more okay in my life."
“Me too,” I say, smiling, the post orgasm warmth washing over me, making me sleepy.
We drive in silence for a while, the highway stretching out ahead of us.
I take comfort knowing that behind us, Lisa is safe, along with any other women that man abused.
Carl is gone and soon he will be found, along with everything on his phone, and his wife will see she was actually married to a stranger.
And somewhere ahead of us is the rest of our lives.
"How long can we do this?" I ask finally.
Dom glances at me. "Do what?"
"This. Moving, surviving, handling people like Carl."
"As long as we need to."
"And when someone comes looking for us?"
"Then we handle that too."
His hand finds my leg again, that possessive touch I've come to crave, and I cover it with mine.
"Together," I say.
"Together."
The word seals us together like a promise, and I lean my head against the window, watching the road blur past.
We're dangerous together. More dangerous than either of us would be alone. And maybe that should concern me, the knowledge that we're capable of this, that we'll do it again, that we're building a trail of bodies that will inevitably have consequences.
But it doesn't.
Because for the first time in my life, I have someone.
I have him. And he has me. And that's the only truth that matters.