Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
DOM
It’s been three days since the small town, and I'm counting surveillance cameras.
Gas station, two outside, one inside pointed at the register. Motel parking lot, none visible, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Highway rest stop, state-funded, which means cameras at every entrance, every bathroom, every vending machine.
I'm cataloging exits, memorizing license plates, watching for patterns in the traffic flow. The paranoia isn't new, I've always been aware, always watching, but now it has teeth. Now it matters.
Because now we're not just two people moving through the world. We're wanted.
Lisa saw us. Carl's body will be found. Fuck, it probably already has been.
And somewhere, in some police station in some small town we'll never go back to, someone is putting together a timeline with witnesses and evidence.
A trail we left behind because we were too focused on chasing the high to think about the aftermath.
I guess they might connect it to the drunk guy at the bar, even though the update on that is that the police still have no leads.
Roxy's in the passenger seat, sucking on her usual lollipop while scrolling through the images on her camera that she took last night.
The motel room is behind us, another anonymous box with peeling wallpaper and a bed that smells like must. We never stay more than one night or use the same name more than once.
I glance at her screen. She's reviewing a shot of an abandoned store we passed yesterday, it’s one of the ones you see with boarded windows and weeds growing through cracked asphalt.
The composition is perfect. The light hitting the broken glass just right, creating shadows that look like fingers reaching.
"Are you going to sell that one?" I ask.
She doesn't look up. "Maybe. Depends on the buyer."
"How much?"
"Five hundred. Maybe more if they want exclusive rights."
Five hundred dollars for a photograph of a dilapidated building. It should seem absurd, but it's not. Her buyers aren't paying for the image, they're paying for what it represents and the story it tells. The truth of a decaying life and a dying society of people who actually give a shit.
She's been doing this since before I met her. Selling her art on the dark web, people who want the unfiltered world. People like us. But her drawings are more popular, specific in their uniqueness.
"How many buyers do you have?" I ask.
"Active? Maybe twenty. But there's a waiting list."
"For what?"
She finally looks at me, and there's something in her eyes, is it pride? Satisfaction?
"For the new work, a mixture of photographs and drawings."
The new work. The photographs she's been taking since we left the small town.
The aftermath and empty roads. The places we've been.
She hasn't shown me all of them, but I've seen enough to understand what she's doing.
Then there are the drawings of strangers, human interactions and all the other shit she picks up.
She's creating the story of our journey. The trail we're leaving, and she’s clever enough to turn it into currency.
"You're not worried about the trail?" I ask, keeping my voice neutral.
"The buyers are anonymous. Encrypted and untraceable. Trust me, they will want anonymity as much as I do." She tilts her head, studying me. "Why? Are you worried?"
"I'm always worried."
"That's why we're still ahead."
She's right, because the paranoia is what keeps us alive. The constant awareness, the planning, the refusal to get comfortable. I've been running routes in my head for days now, alternate highways, back roads, places we can disappear if we need to.
We're in New Mexico now, heading west. Arizona next, maybe California. Somewhere with enough transient population that two more faces won't stand out. Somewhere we can blend in while we figure out the next move.
Because there will be a next move. There always is.
I pull into a truck stop, one of the big ones with multiple gas stations, several food options and rows of semis parked in the back. Plenty of people with plenty of noise, so it’s easy not to be noticed.
"Stay here and I’ll grab us something," I say.
Roxy raises an eyebrow. "Ashamed to be seen with me?"
"You? Never. I want to be quick and need to make some plans in my head."
"I want a large coffee and a sandwich."
"You got it."
She holds my gaze for a moment, sucking on the last part of her lollipop in the most sexual way possible. She knows what she is doing.
I leave her with the engine running and the doors locked, and I walk into the coffee shop with my hands in my pockets and my head down. The place smells like the first place we have come across that actually makes decent coffee. It’s a decent place.
I stand in line and place our orders, before moving to the side to wait for my name to be called. I used the name Justin this time. While I wait, I pull out my phone and start scrolling through news sites, looking for anything about Carl and the small town.
Nothing yet. But that doesn't mean it's not coming.
The waitress brings my coffee and I wrap my hands around the cup, letting the heat ground me. My knuckles are still bruised from the bar a week ago, faint yellow and green now, almost healed. The split skin from Carl is scabbed over, barely noticeable, but it still lingers.
I think about Lisa and the way she looked at us when she drove away, with a grateful smile and wave.
She's not stupid. If the cops come asking, she'll remember.
And they will come asking. Carl's body will be found and the timeline of events will be constructed.
Eventually, down the line, someone will connect the dots.
The question is, how long do we have?
A week? A month? Longer?
I don't know. And not knowing is the worst part.
The barista doesn't make small talk, as she hands me our sandwiches and coffees. I leave cash on the counter, no credit cards means no paper trail, and walk back out into the parking lot.
Roxy's exactly where I left her, camera in hand, photographing something through the windshield. When I climb into the driver's seat, she lowers the camera and takes the coffee and sandwich I offer.
"What were you shooting?" I ask.
She gestures toward the truck stop. "The semis. The way they're lined up. It looks like a graveyard."
I glance over. She's right. The rows of trucks do look like tombstones. Markers for something dead or dying.
"You going to sell that one too?"
"Probably," she says as she takes a big bite out of her sandwich.
We stay in the truck and finish our food before heading back onto the highway, travelling west. The sun is setting behind us, casting long shadows across the road, and the sky is streaked with orange hues, and if you study it close enough, the sunset looks like a wound.
"We need to talk about what happens next," I say after a few miles, finishing off my cigarette that I throw out of the window. Ever since I joined Roxy, I have cut back a lot. Turns out I replaced one addiction with another, her.
Roxy looks at me. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we can't keep doing this forever. Moving from town to town. Eventually, someone's going to catch up, or worse, someone will recognize us from the news if they manage to get close enough descriptions."
"So what do you want to do?"
"Vanish for good."
"How?" she asks.
"We kill our names. Leave a trail that leads nowhere and start over somewhere no one's looking."
She's quiet for a long moment, her fingers tracing the rim of her coffee cup.
"You've been thinking about this."
"Yeah."
"For how long?"
"Since the bar. Since I accepted we weren't going back."
She nods slowly. "Where would we go?"
"Somewhere remote, ideally off the grid. Mexico, maybe. Or Canada. Somewhere we can build a life that doesn't involve running."
"And the art?"
"You keep doing it. Just under a different name with different buyers."
She's quiet again, and I can feel her thinking, weighing the options. Finally, she says, "When?"
"Not yet. We need to build the narrative first, make solid plans and build the foundation for a new life. But it needs to be soon."
"How soon?"
"A few weeks. Maybe a month."
She takes a sip of her coffee, her gaze fixed on the highway ahead. "Okay."
"Okay?"
"Yeah." She looks at me, and there's something fierce in her eyes. "I'm in. Whatever it takes."
The relief that floods through me is almost physical. I reach over and take her hand, threading my fingers through hers, and she squeezes back.
"We're going to make it," I say.
"I know."
We drive in a peaceful harmony for a while, the neverending road becoming more empty and dark. The cassette player is playing something low and static-filled, another 80s song I half-recognize. Bizarre Love Triangle by New Order.
Roxy hums along, her thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand, and I let myself relax into the journey. The paranoia is still there, the awareness of cameras and cops and every possibility, but it's manageable now. We have it contained.
Because I have a plan. And I have her, and that’s enough for me.
"Dom?" she says after a while.
"Yeah?"
"Do you ever regret it? Any of it?"
I think about the question. About the life I had before her, the isolation, the emptiness, the endless searching for something real.
"No," I say finally. "Do you?"
"No."
She says it without hesitation, and I believe her.
We're not good people and we've done things that can't be undone, crossed lines that can't be uncrossed. But we're real. And in a world full of people hiding behind masks and lies, that's the only thing that matters.
The motel we stop at is worse than the last one, peeling paint, flickering neon sign, a parking lot full of potholes. But it's cheap and anonymous, and the clerk doesn't ask for ID. It’s genuinely like living in a horror movie with how cliche these motels have become.
Roxy pays in cash while I carry our bags inside, and when she joins me in the room, she locks the door and sets her camera on the nightstand.
"I need to upload tonight," she says. "I have three buyers waiting."
"How long will it take?"
"An hour. Maybe two."
I nod and stretch out on the bed, watching as she sets up her laptop and connects to the encrypted network she uses. Her fingers move quickly over the keyboard, selecting images, adjusting contrast, writing descriptions in a language that's half art-speak, half code.
She's in her element. Focused. Living.
I watch her work and think about what comes next.
The joy of a new life and a new state. To be able to live out in the open without worry.
It’s kind of exciting, the idea of killing our names and leaving everything behind, to start a new life from nothing.
It would terrify some people, but for me, I've been dead for years.
Walking through the world like a ghost, searching for something I couldn't name.
And then I found her.
And now I'm living.
"Dom?" Roxy says, pulling me out of my thoughts.
"Yeah?"
"Come here."
I cross the room and stand behind her, looking at the screen. She's pulled up one of the photographs, the abandoned store, the one she was reviewing earlier. But the way she's edited it now shows that she has enhanced the shadows, sharpened the broken glass until it looks like teeth.
"What do you think?" she asks.
"It's great."
She leans back against me, and I wrap my arms around her, resting my chin on top of her head.
We stay like that for a while, watching the image on the screen, and I think about how far we've come.
From the dead fox on the Utah roadside to this moment.
From strangers to something deeper, darker, more permanent.
We're not going back.
We're only going forward.
And wherever that leads, we'll face it together.