“And that’s why you’ve been rotting in jail! That is not a normal reaction! That is not what you do, Max! Violence is not the answer!”
“I warned you, Tess,” I growl as she follows me.
“About what? And what on Earth are you doing?”
“Disposing of the motherfucking body. Like I should have when I ended Renee’s boyfriend.”
“Dear God,” she says and stops to look at me like she doesn’t know who I am. I guess she doesn’t.
“I warned you, Tess,” I tell her again. When I get to the edge of the swampy, riverbank, it’s polluted and stinks to high heaven. The stench is strong. It seems like a fitting end for the fucker. I go through his pockets, seeing if he has anything useful, and I’m not really paying attention, so it surprises me when Tess speaks, standing right beside me.
“What did you warn me of, Max?”
“I warned you not to forget who I was. If you thought you had the answers and that sucking my cock was going to magically transform me into a fucking Prince Charming, that’s on you. I am, who I am. I am, who I’ve always been, and it doesn’t matter how good your fucking pussy tastes or if you can suck cock, like a pro. You aren’t changing me.”
She stares at me for a minute, and I see it coming, but I don’t even try to dodge when her hand connects with the side of my face. She might be little, but Tess knows how to deliver an open handed slap. I touch the stinging flesh, my eyes never leaving hers.
“That’s the only one you get, Kitten. Don’t do it again,” I caution her, and then I finish feeding Hernandez and Dweeb to the nearby gator population.
My mind is splintered in so many directions; I can’t even grasp a single thought that makes sense. I’m a mess. Max just killed not one, but two men. He was calculated and definitely cold-blooded. It was like he was someone else. No, he’s right. It wasn’t that he was someone else, it’s that my fantasies and the puppy-love crush on Max that made me romanticize who he is and what he has done in his life. There’s no way to romanticize what just happened. It was cold, ugly and horrifying. I think it may stay with me the rest of my days.
We’ve been walking for close to four hours. I know, because I keep looking at the man’s wind up watch that Max took from the dead man he called Dweeb. It’s silver, and looks uniform, and even I realize it most likely belonged to a prison guard. A prison guard, who more likely than not, is probably no longer alive. This is the world that I have been thrust into. This is the reality that came crashing down on me in such a huge, momentous way that I don’t know how to deal with it.
I get tired of trying to hold my clothes together and find another t-shirt of Max’s in the backpack and put it on to cover me, but I feel dirty. It doesn’t make sense because Hernandez did very little besides groping me, but it’s like he somehow marked me inside. Part of me is glad that Max killed him, and I don’t know how to react to that. That’s not the person I am. Or at least, it’s not the person I was. The woman who wanted to work in law, to make a difference for other kids growing up like I did. I’m upset, and though part of it has to with Max and what he did, the bigger part has to do with me. He’s absolutely right. He did warn me not to forget who he was. The bigger problem is that being with him is showing me a new Tessa and I’m not sure how to deal with that, or even if I’m prepared to deal with it.
Max turns right off the trail that we’ve been following, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to question him and ask what we are doing, but I contain it. Talking to him, would mean opening the door to talk about other things, and I can’t handle that. I just can’t—at least not right now.
He finally stops in a wooded area that feels more than a little creepy. I look around and see nothing.
“Max, what are we doing?” I finally break down and ask.
“We’ll bed down here tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll take you into town and drop you off,” he tells me in a monotone voice. There’s no emotion, nothing coming from him. I rub my chest because the difference in him hurts me. I can’t blame him after my tirade. The more I think about what I said, the more I regret some of it. Not all, because it can’t be normal to think kill first in these situations. I’m so confused.
I go next to an old tree and slide down on my ass, letting it support my back. Max is a good twenty feet away from me, going through the backpack. He pulls out the wool blanket he’d rolled into a tight cylinder and tosses it at me. It lands at my feet, and I bend down to get it.
“You can lie on that, and use this to cover you as best you can,” he says without looking at me and tossing another large flannel shirt my way. Guess he’s not planning on sleeping with me tonight. That’s probably for the best. “We can’t have a fire, so I need you to sleep now. I’ll let you rest, and then we’ll start again, using my flashlight,” he adds.
“But what about you?”
“One of us needs to make sure you don’t get eaten by a gator, snake or even a wild boar. Would you rather I not shoot and have a talk with one if it tries?”
I swallow hard at his words, trying to get the picture of that out of my head. “They’re animals, you can’t reason with them, so quit being an ass,” I huff back at him, fixing my makeshift bed.
“Hernandez and Dweeb were worse than any animal I’ve ever seen,” He says taking out the bag of jerky. It might have a bacon flavor, but it’s a long way from bacon. I reach over and take a couple of pieces when he holds the bag out, and then I turn my back to him. “Stay awake until I get back. Going to find some water.”
“Could I go with you?” I ask, hating that I’m asking him for anything when he’s mad at me.
“You’ll be fine here, Tess. Just stay alert,” he says, already getting up to leave me.
“No, it’s not that, I mean I’d like to wash off, you know?
“Tess, you just had a bath, we don’t have the…”
“Max, he touched me. I need to wash, please?”
I glance up at him when I tell him the real reason I want the water, and I see his jaw clamp shut. His eyes darken, and I think he might deny me again. He doesn’t though. “Suit yourself,” he says and then starts walking further into the dense forest.
I follow him. I figure it’s okay since he didn’t forbid it outright. It feels weird that things are so stilted between us. I don’t like it, but there’s not much I can do about it. He finds a small creek somehow. I have no idea how he manages to do the things he does. Maybe it is part of that soldier survival training or whatever. He fills up our canteens and then hands me a bar of soap. My hand shakes as I reach out to get it. How can he be so thoughtful one minute and a wild vigilante the next? How can he rock me with kindness when I have seen the deadliness that lurks just below the surface? I wait, but he doesn’t really move.
“Max, could you turn around?”
He studies my face, and I can feel my face heat from the scrutiny.
“So you can suck on my cock and ride my face, but I can’t watch you bathe and make sure you’re safe?”
“Just turn, Max,” I tell him, ignoring his blunt words. I can’t let myself think about that right now.