At times, she seemed to overcome it, forgetting for a moment that just days ago there had been consequences to everything she chose to do on her own—cruel consequences that I had inflicted. I was an evil son of a bitch, and why she wasn’t trying to sneak away at every opportunity, I had no idea.
I was glad she wasn’t though. With threats still out there, I would have had no choice but to drag her back and hold her captive until I knew she’d be safe. It was my fault she was in this mess but this was my only hope of getting her out of it.
Once she was safely hidden across the Atlantic, then maybe things could be different. Unfortunately, by then she’d probably have come to her senses and would happily send me on my way. I’d fucked up. Actually, it turned out everything I was, was one giant fuckup. And I was going to pay for it big time when she mustered the nerve to walk away.
“Why don’t you go have a shower? It’ll help after sitting in the car for so long.”
The entire car ride hadn’t been bad. There were the pleasurable stops, but I’d also managed to get her talking afterward. I’d carefully avoided mentioning her books or the god damned journal—what the fuck had I been thinking about that confession?
We talked about hobbies instead, and it turned out the girl had come a long way from the stick figure drawings on my parents’ fridge. When she’d said she was kind of into art, I hadn’t thought much of it, but I must have seemed too dismissive because she’d searched around for pen and paper with a determined fire in her eyes—god, I loved that fire. Then she’d sketched out a rendition of the blazing car we’d walked away from, complete with an eerie pair of eyes staring back from amid the flames. Cold eyes. And despite the lack of color in her sketch, there was no mistaking who they belonged to—Marcos. It was as if he had been staring out at us even in death. It had sent a shiver down my spine and I’d promised myself to never underestimate her again. She was strong and smart, beautiful, and crazy-talented.
And right now, she was standing next to the door, fidgeting with her bottom lip. “What is it, Scar? If you have something to say, you’re free to say it.” Was that just another command? A few days ago, it had been ‘don’t speak’, and now I was telling her to speak. But what else was I supposed to do?
“I want you to come with me.” She looked up at me with hooded eyes—seductive eyes.
Fuck, what man could resist that offer? I shouldn’t have been doing it. Ending the physical connection between us would no doubt speed up her realization of what was really going on. I knew she was strong enough to break that tie if she saw it wasn’t supposed to be there. She just needed to see it. And yet, here I was, leading the way to the shower. But let’s face it, so long as I had a heartbeat, there was no way in hell I’d ever be able to resist her.
The alarm on my phone sounded at six in the morning and I reached for it on the bedside table to turn it off. Despite the few, short hours of sleep, I was wide awake. I had to be. I wanted to be out of here and on the final leg of our Central American portion of this journey as quickly as possible.
I’d even had the forethought to have Scar sleep in her clothes so there would be no naked tangle of limbs to slow us down. Unfortunately, it looked like her clothes had magically disappeared overnight because her naked leg was slung across my thigh and her hot pussy was pressed against my hip. If I hadn’t already been sporting morning wood, I would have been rock hard in an instant.
Gritting my teeth and forcing my mind onto every bit of unpleasantness I could think of—even that almost wasn’t enough—I forced myself to slip out of the bed, careful not to wake her.
Five minutes later, I’d taken a piss, brushed my teeth and froze off the lingering flames with an ice cold shower. I was awake, alert and ready to get the hell out of here. I stepped out into the room to wake her, but she was no longer on the bed.
I scanned the room, expecting to find her kneeling beside it or sitting at the small table. She wasn’t there. The door was closed and still locked, and the window curtains looked undisturbed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Where was she?
I shot to the window and looked out, but she wasn’t there. Nowhere. Not outside or in any of the cars in the lot. Scar was gone. A searing pain shot through my chest and the room started to spin in the red haze that clouded it.