by Brook Wilder
Her eyes caught on a black bird that was flying in pace with the car. She watched it floating, free and graceful in the gust of the wind. The sunshine glinted off its feathers, giving it highlights as bright blue as the sky beyond it.
She was instantly jealous. It was a small thought that echoed through her mind as she watched the animal. She couldn’t even begin to remember how it felt to be that carefree, to be that full of joy and freedom.
Olivia watched it until it disappeared behind a line of thick, green-leafed trees but she knew it was still out there, free to fly wherever it wanted, free to move and wander wherever the wind blew.
That jealousy pricked once more, but she shoved it back. She was there, trapped inside the car with a violent gang after her head. She wasn’t free. She wondered if she ever would be again.
Olivia blinked rapidly, trying to banish the glare of sunlight that pricked painfully at the corner of her eyes. She forced her thoughts away, forced herself to think of nothing. She was still in shock. The rational part of her brain understood that, and was grateful for the buffer it provided between her and the rest of the world. Between her, and the emotions hurtling inside her.
She continued to stare out the window as the world passed by in a blur on either side. For a moment, it felt like she was the one sitting still as everything else moved around her. It was disorienting, making her dizzy as she sat and stared. And it gave her something, anything, to focus on besides the man sitting next to her in the driver’s seat.
Olivia shied away from the thoughts of Preston. Any time her brain tried to move in his direction she jerked back like an unwary hand from a burning flame. She knew if she dwelled on him, it would be just as painful.
She was so focused on not paying attention to Preston that she nearly jumped out of her own skin when he spoke.
“How long do we have until Capone finds out his men are missing?” Preston asked, breaking the silence.
Just the sound of his voice, low and gravelly, made emotion pulse from deep inside her. Olivia fought to push it way but it was harder this time, breaking closer to the surface before she managed to wrestle the numbness back in place. She wasn’t ready. She couldn’t handle it yet. She knew she would break apart under the storm of her own pain and fear. She would be like a new spring flower, battered by a thunderstorm to powerful to stand against.
She was grateful when Charlie answered. She wouldn’t have been able to force a word from her frozen throat if her life had depended on it.
And it does, doesn’t it?
Olivia nearly choked out a laugh at the irreverent thought.
“An hour or two at most,” Charlie said from the back seat.
He was buckled in behind the passenger side, while Bowie took up the rest of the back. The dog watched on, silent and concerned as its gaze hopped from one person to the next.
“Did they contact anyone else before you… apprehended them?” Preston asked after a moment.
But Charlie was already shaking his head. He stopped suddenly, wincing.
“No. I was watching them before they even got into the building. They won’t have any way of tracking us either. There’s no security cams or anything like that.” Charlie paused for a moment, then let out a rough laugh. “Where are you taking us, by the way? Is it close? I’m, ah, I’m bleeding all over the seat back here.”
He tried to make a joke out of it, but Olivia could hear the pain in Charlie’s voice. Preston must have heard it too, because he sent a worried look at his friend through the rear-view mirror.
“Did you get hurt?”
Preston asked the question softly, but Charlie hurried to reassure him.
“It was just a graze, the bullet barely caught my shoulder, but enough to fucking hurt.”
There was a moment of quiet and Olivia could practically feel his gaze from the back seat, burning into the back of her head.
“Your girl saved me. She warned me just in time. Otherwise, the bullet would have taken me square in the back. This is just a flesh wound.”
Bowie lifted his head, giving a soft bark, drawing a chuckle from Charlie.
“Yeah, you saved me too, pup. Once we get out of this shit, I’ll give you all the treats you want, I swear.”
“Bowie?” Preston wondered, his brow furrowing in confusion. “What did my dog do?”
“When Capone’s thug missed his shot at me, he turned the gun on Olivia.”
At Preston’s glare of rage, Charlie hurried to continue.
“Bowie charged the guy before he could fire the damned thing. Your dog bit him right on the hand and made him drop the gun. Olivia grabbed it and I was able to knock the other one out just before you got there. They hardly even needed me at all.”
There was humor in Charlie voice as he finished talking but it was hard and forced. Preston grew coldly silent and Olivia could practically hear his enraged thoughts, could hear the gritting of his teeth at hearing their harrowing tale.
That’s what it seemed like to her. A story that had happened to someone else. She was just a listener. An observer in someone else’s life. It made it that much easier to shrug off everything that had happened, how close she’d come in as many days to losing her life because of the Devil’s Martyrs and their psychopath of a president.
The rest of the drive was made in a tense silence that stilted any conversation before it even began, not that any of them felt particularly chatty. Besides Bowie, of course. He was more than happy to stick his nose through the crack in the window and bark at any squirrels they drove past.
The sun had peaked overhead and was starting to sink down across the other half of the sky by the time they finally arrived at a rundown motel off the side of the highway.
Exhausted, they all piled out of the car. Well, everyone was exhausted but Bowie. He yipped excitedly at everything. To him, this was all one big adventure. Olivia shook her head. Little did he know.
She leaned against the car, holding onto Bowie’s makeshift leash with one hand while Preston went in to rent them a room. Olivia looked around, taking in the rusted metal sign that declared a pay-by-the-hour rate and a strict privacy rule and wondered just what type of motel this was. Her thoughts were interrupted as Preston came back a few moments later with a scowl plastered across the sharp features of his face.
“They only had one room available,” he said with a shrug. “We’ll rest and clean up. Then we can figure out what we need to do next.”
Charlie nodded eagerly and Olivia just tagged along without a single word as they followed Preston to the number printed on the room key. He unlocked the door and they filed inside. Bowie jumped right on the middle of the bed and laid down, asleep almost immediately.
Olivia felt another pang of jealously for an animal but pushed it aside as she turned and saw Charlie’s pale, pain-filled face. She rushed him to the bathroom before he could drip blood on anything else and helped to patch him up as best as she could.
Preston watched in concern from the doorway of the small bathroom, but Olivia was glad it was too small to fit him in there as well. She wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet.
She kept catching the looks he was sending her, knew that he wanted to talk to her, but she was more than happy to stall. For a few hours. A few days. Forever. That sounded just fine to her.
Olivia didn’t look at Preston as she wiped the blood from Charlie’s arm and wrapped it in gauze from the first aid kit that she found under the sink. He would just have to deal with the rapidly blackening eye and split lip on his own. There wasn’t much more she could do for those than offer him a few painkillers, which his tossed back with a drink from the bathroom tap.
After Charlie was as patched up as he could get, he stood and looked from Preston to her and back again, obviously feeling the uncomfortable tension filling the small motel room.
“I, uh, I’m going to take Bowie for a walk and see what we can find to eat. I’m starving,” Charlie said as casually as possible.
&nb
sp; Preston nodded in agreement, but Olivia was almost afraid for Charlie to leave. He was a buffer between them. With him gone, there was nothing to keep her emotions, or Preston, at bay.
All she could do was watch helplessly as Charlie left the bathroom, grabbed Bowie’s makeshift leash and left the room without another word to either of them. They were alone now. No distractions. No one else to keep the world away from closing in on her.
Preston just stood there, looking at her with those dark blue eyes of his, waiting for her. But she had no clue what to say. She looked down and saw the blood staining her hands. Charlie’s blood. It reminded her of Johnathan. Seeing his blood spilled on the sidewalk and pooling at the corner of his mouth as he coughed violently.
Reeling from the image, Olivia leapt to her feet and rushed to the sink. She kept her head down as she washed her hands, trying to get them clean, trying to wash away every painful reminder.
It was no use, though. As soon as she looked up, she met Preston’s piercing gaze through the dingy bathroom mirror, and all of a sudden it felt like the floor had fallen out from under her, stealing away her breath.
Chapter 19
Preston watched her. He couldn’t take his eyes from her fragile form as she desperately scrubbed at her hands in the bathroom sink.
Her face was so pale that the freckles scattered across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose stood out in stark relief. Her red hair was pulled up into a messy bun that had long since come loose, and there were tendrils that fell down her back in unruly waves.
Her eyes were what caught at him though. They were sharp and brittle like old glass. Something so delicate and fragile that just the barest wind could blow it over and shatter it into a thousand pieces that would never be put back together again.
Olivia’s hands were clean and rubbed red from the harsh soap, but still she didn’t stop scrubbing. It was as if she was trying to wash away even the memories of the blood on her hands. She just kept washing and washing until he was worried she would make herself bloody and raw from it.
Finally, she drew in a deep, shattered breath and shut the water off. She didn’t say a word and avoided his questioning gaze as she slipped out of the small bathroom and into the rest of the motel room, which wasn’t all that much bigger.
She walked around the room, or the little of it she could get to, around the bed that sat in the middle of the room, the night table next to it and the low consul that squatted against the far wall and held up an outdated T.V. set.
Her hands were constantly moving as well. She walked to the one window and flicked back the curtains, but the only view looked out into the brick wall of the building next door and the Texas countryside beyond that was mostly obscured.
Olivia moved to the nightstand next, rustling through the drawer to try and find the remote for the T.V., but it was missing its batteries and she tossed it back down on to the table top with a huff of frustration.
It was the first sign of emotion that he’d seen from her since she had come barreling out of the apartment with Charlie, maybe even before that, but he could almost see the way she was pushing it back, drawing that terrible blank expression back down over her eyes.
But her body wouldn’t stay still, revealing the restlessness buried underneath. Olivia left the nightstand in search of a glass for water but let out another sigh when that quest was just as unsuccessful.
She turned around and shrugged, moving to walk back towards the window. Preston watched her through it all, the whole time that she tried to pretend that everything was normal. But nothing could be further from the truth.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Preston finally said, pushing out the words as he reached out and pulled Olivia around to face him.
She looked up at him, blank faced and dull eyed.
“Enough, Red. I’m tired of this shit.”
She stared back at him for a long moment, still fighting not to meet his gaze, but he wouldn’t let her look away and there was nowhere in the small motel room for her to run away from him. He didn’t know why that thought hurt so much, but it cut through him, the knowledge that she wanted to.
“You’re tired?” Olivia asked archly. “You’re tired?” Her voice cracked and for a moment he thought the dam would finally break, but she reined herself back in. “No, Preston. I’m the one who’s tired. I haven’t slept in… Jesus, when was the last time I slept?” Her brows furrowed, and she shook her head, trying to shake off the question, but then shrugged again. “I’m going… I’m going to lay down… that’s it.”
Olivia started to turn away from him, but Preston stopped her again.
“No.” The word came out harsher than he intended, but Preston didn’t let that stop him from going on. “Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on. You can’t just keep ignoring me and pretending like everything is normal!”
“Excuse me?” she turned on him.
He saw a spark of anger flare in her eyes for a moment, but at least it was something. Anything was better than that awful blank doll’s stare she’d been giving him.
Olivia took a step towards him, her hand still clasped in his.
“You don’t tell me what to do. Not ever. You don’t get to order me around. I can do whatever I want. And I want to lay down.”
There was a note of something in her voice. A broken quality that tore at him, but Preston still didn’t let up. The sad look in her eyes hurt him as much as it hurt her; still, he didn’t let go of her hand when she tried to turn towards the bed. She didn’t turn around again and face him, just stood so that all he could see was her back and the slope of her shoulders.
“Please, Olivia.” Preston’s voice was soft and pleading, breaking on her name as he fought back the urge to just pick her up in his arms and drag her close to him.
He knew he couldn’t force this. He knew how important it was for her to decide to turn to him.
He nearly lost his breath in relief when she finally, slowly, turned back around to face him.
“What is it, Preston? What do you want from me?”
Olivia’s voice was carefully controlled once more. He wanted to rage and scream, to shake her until the warm, caring Olivia was back in his arms, but he didn’t do any of those things. Instead, he held her hand tight in his and started to talk.
He told her about how frustrated he had been with her when he’d left Charlie’s apartment. He grinned wryly when he mentioned her stubborn streak that was a mile wide. He told her about the long drive to find Knox at their old hideout, discovering it empty. He told her about the moment he knew what a big mistake he’d made in leaving. How his instincts had railed at him, and pushed him to race back towards her.
“I was almost too late,” Preston’s said, his voice cracking with emotion on the words. “I was almost too late, Red. Do you know how fucking scared I was? I’ve never been more terrified in my life. And then I heard the gunshot… I was so sure… so sure… that it was you, that you were…”
He couldn’t finish the words. The thought was too painful to say out loud. His whole body was trembling at the memory and he couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled her close against him and, when she let him, he let out the breath he had been holding.
He just held her like that, his arms wrapped so tight around her that she would never be able to be free of him again. Little by little, her body loosened in his embrace, letting herself lean against him until he was fully supporting her. Nothing had ever felt more right to him in his life.
“I’m so scared, Preston.”
At first, her words were spoken so softly that he wasn’t entirely sure she had spoken at all. But then she continued, and he had to strain to hear her.
“I’m so scared that, if I give in, it’s just… it’s all just going to crush me, and I won’t be able to breathe. I… I don’t know what to do.”
“I’m here, sweetheart. I’m right here. And I’m never going anywhere ever again, I swear to you.”
He held
her even tighter, crushing her to him, but neither cared.
“I don’t… I don’t think I can feel anything anymore, Preston. I just feel… numb.”
“Let me help you,” Preston whispered the words against her cheek, and then pulled back just enough to look down into her sparkling emerald green gaze.
He wiped a tear away with his thumb, pretty sure that she wasn’t even aware it was there.
“Let me help you.”
Chapter 20
Olivia stared up at him, watching his thoughts float through his eyes like clouds in a bright blue summer sky. She could read them all there, right in front of her. His honesty. His sincerity. And something else. Something deeper and scarier than all the rest, a warm feeling that called out to her, that pleaded with her to give in and trust him.
