by Ella James
I glance over at her and find her clutching her stomach with one hand, the door with the other.
Her face is pale and still stained with Ryan’s blood. Her eyes are horrified. Traumatized.
I’m shocked to feel my throat tighten, then swell. My eyes burn, but I’m fucking driving. I’ve got to fucking drive.
I turn some music up and focus on the road and my speedometer.
“Where are we going?” she cries over the music.
“We’ve gotta hide.”
We get maybe another mile without seeing anybody. Then, right at the horizon line, I see red and blue lights coming at us. I try to slow the car, so I can run off the road, into the scrubby trees on either side of it. I try, but we’re going too fast, and I’m not willing to risk spinning out.
The police cars are moving fast as fuck, because before I know it, the first one of them is on us. The pig does what I think he or she will do—this maneuver where they throw the car in front of us, spinning so we clip their tail. I’ve seen it dozens of times in action movies and in real car chases, so I’m halfway expecting it. I loop around them with some ease.
The second cruiser passes us, does a violent-looking U, and gets up on our ass. Angel starts crying. I keep my eyes on the road in front of us until I see them: spikes.
One of my characters, an HBO sex offender named Samuel Irons, was stopped this way.
I jerk the wheel hard right, swerving onto the dirt beside the road. A second later, the car behind us drops way back. They ran over their own spikes.
I laugh, and Angel starts laughing with me. We cackle until I see another light show: a wicked swarm of red and blue, maybe a half a mile ahead. And suddenly, there’s another one behind us. He sidles up beside me, almost scrubbing my door, and I hit the brakes. He sails ahead, and I note the landscape on either side of the road. Lots of trees here. Lots of trees for California desert land.
I’m still watching him, feeling out my next move, when his car shudders, then stops.
More spikes.
The line of red and blue lights ahead is closer now. Close enough that I can make out individual light bars on the tops of the cruisers. Close enough that in another mile or two, they’ll be right on us.
I make a split-second decision and jerk off the road, gassing the car as we drive into the trees. It’s the biggest gamble of my life.
Almost immediately, I’m faced with an even bigger one, as I realize I’m driving straight toward a pond.
I punch the pedal and shout, “hold on!”
Then I plunge us into the water.
CHAPTER 4
Annabelle
I can’t swim.
It’s one of my dirty little secrets
When our car hits the water, I learn what it means to see your life flash before your eyes. I see Adrian and Mom, and I feel my body under Beast’s that day he took me in the library. I see myself dancing in Mom’s room with Ad, holding her hands as we swing to U2, weaving between Mom’s beeping machines.
I feel desire so sharp it takes my breath away.
Desire for life.
I can’t die now!
I haven’t done enough.
The chill of the water seeping through the floor, up my shins, snaps me out of it.
“Oh my God! Shit! Fuck!” I curl into a ball in my seat, waving my arms and sobbing because I CAN’T SWIM AND THERE’S WATER EVERYWHERE.
Then Beast is unbuckling me, pulling me into his lap. He turns me around to face him and grabs my face, forcing me to look into his eyes.
“Hold on, Angel. Try to calm down.” His gaze clings to mine, penetrating my terror. His hand around my jaw is stroking as he speaks. “I’m going to push you through the window and shove you toward the surface. Kick your feet. That’s all you have to do. I’ll come right behind and push you up.”
In addition to the water seeping up through the floor, a mini waterfall is pouring in the cracked driver’s side window behind Beast, sloshing over our laps.
The water coming from the floor is rising, too, now up to the bottom of our seats. I shake my head and clutch his neck. “I can’t! I can’t swim!”
“You won’t be swimming,” he says sternly. “I’ll be pushing you.” He strokes my damp hair off my head and mimes a deep breath as water rushes everywhere around us. “Breathe, Angel. You can fucking do this. Do this for me.”
His voice is low and hypnotic. His beautiful eyes are a beacon in my haze of terror.
“Pull your shoes off,” he orders.
I reach into the cold water and toss them off, then look back him for more instruction.
“I’ll push you out first, and I’ll be right behind you. There will only be a moment when you don’t feel my hands on you, and that will be right after I push you out the window. Hold your breath. This pond isn’t deep, baby.” He nods toward the windshield, where I see a cloud of dirt and dark plant sludge.
I look down, suddenly realizing that the water is up to my breasts. I think the car is moving.
“Come on, Angel. We’ve got to go.”
“Okay,” I cry. “Okay, I will!”
Still, he has to peel me off of him. He shifts his body between mine and the partially broken driver’s side window, fiddling with it as I lift my head toward the car’s ceiling and try to breathe.
“I’m going to break the rest of the window out. In just a second, I’m about to grab you and thrust you through the window. Kick your feet and hold your breath. That’s all you have to do.”
With no further warning, he thrusts his elbow through the remainder of the glass. I don’t hear it shatter, but I know it does because more water floods in. I’m scooting back toward the passenger’s seat, fleeing it instinctively, when his hands come around my waist.
“Hold your breath,” he snaps, but I already am. Cold water is covering my face. It’s all I can do not to scream or pass out as I feel my body shoved forward. I grab the metallic window pane and try to thrust myself out. Then I feel a hard push on my butt, and I’m lost in mud-brown water.
Kick, Annabelle!
I’m supposed to kick!
I do, and the amber light ahead of me grows brighter. I wave my arms, but my lungs are screaming. I can’t breathe!
Something hard comes around my waist, and I startle, blowing out some of the air I’m holding in my lungs.
It’s okay.
It’s Beast!
He’s got his arms around my waist. He’s dragging me up toward the light, kicking hard enough for both of us. I wrap my arms around the thickness of his torso, clinging desperately, then belatedly wonder if I should be kicking, too.
It doesn’t matter. I get a split-second glimpse of the shiny underside of the surface, then I burst through, gasping.
His arm comes around my neck, and I struggle against him until I realize he’s scooping my chin into the crook of his elbow to keep my head afloat while he treads water with his other arm and tries to look around.
I can feel him kicking, hear him panting as he works to keep me afloat.
After a minute or so of watching him look around, I whisper, “Is there anybody here?”
“It looks clear, but not sure yet,” he murmurs.
He starts toward the grassy edge of the pond, stretching his right arm out in front of him and kicking his long, strong legs. His left arm holds me: keeping my face toward the blue sky as my body drags through the water behind me.
I’m so afraid of drowning, it’s all I can do to keep from crying. I try to focus on the blue of the sky—how smooth it is, how unknowing; it doesn’t care what happened today. I don’t need to think about what happened today.
I can feel it when Beast’s feet touch ground. He shifts me around to the front of him, wrapping an arm around my waist, so my back is pressed against his chest and my butt is propped against his hip. We rise out of the water, and my eyes fly around, eager to find out where we are and if we’re alone.
It looks like we’re maybe a half mile from
the road, emerging from an oval-shaped pond about the size of a football-field. Our side of the pond stretches underneath a couple of big trees. Around the trees and pond is lots of thick green grass—thick enough to maybe be some kind of pasture.
I run my gaze along the highway out in front of us, but I don’t see anything.
Is it possible that we would be so lucky?
Beast seems to read my mind. “Well, Angel, looks like we may have run into some luck.”
He hoists me over his shoulder and hurries into the middle of the grove of trees, where about a dozen thick tree trunks offer some shelter.
He sets me down on my butt, in the dirt amidst the trees’ big roots, then nods at a pile of what looks like dry, gray dirt a few feet away.
“That’s old, dry cow dung,” he says, standing over me. His broad, glistening chest is free of the white jumpsuit; it hangs from his hips, melding to his lower body.
The first thing he’s going to say to me after what we just went through is “that’s old, dry cow dung.” I actually laugh a little. “There are cows here?”
“From the looks of that, not anytime recently. This is probably a grazing pasture.” I look around us, at the flat, grassy field.
“If this is a grazing pasture, then where are they?”
He kneels down beside me. “When people graze cows, they switch up where they put them. This field is probably out of rotation. Which means it may be the perfect place for us to lay low for a little while.” He stands again, looking around with squinted eyes, as if he’s worried he missed something.
I find myself unable, even in this dire situation, to keep my eyes from roving his body. Which is how I notice his white pants have a red stain. A quick once-over reveals his whole left arm is red.
“Oh my God.” My eyes fly to the elbow he used to break the glass. It’s got a small gash, but… “Your shoulder!”
I jump up, and he takes what seems to be an instinctive step back. He turns his head to get a look at his left shoulder. On the outside of it, around the same spot my high school friend Todd had a scar from rotator cuff surgery, there’s a crazy huge gash—like, five inches big. Blood is pouring from it down to his elbow, then dripping off his elbow onto his pants.
“Did you get shot?”
His lips press together as his eyebrows arch. “Looks like it.”
I glance left and right, and left again, looking for I don’t even know what. There’s nothing but a field and the little highway out in front of us for what seems like miles. “What do we do? You’re bleeding a lot!”
He frowns, looking around distractedly. “I’m okay.” He walks from one tree to the other, dripping blood as he surveys the land around us.
“I think we made it about to Covington.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah—it looks kind of like that.”
If we’re in Covington, a little dairy farming community, we’re only a few miles from the wreck site.
“What do we do now? Where will we go? They’re going to find us—right?” I sink back down onto one of the larger roots and wrap my arms around myself. Even contemplating the question hikes my adrenaline up a notch. I’m shaking slightly as I wonder what if Mom dies today. What if I get hauled to jail for shooting Ryan? I don’t want Beast to take the fall for something I did, but Adrian needs me, badly.
“Oh my God,” I moan. I clutch my head as fear twists through me.
A second later, I feel Beast kneeling in front of me.
“Angel,” he murmurs. He pulls me up against his chest and buries his face in the softness between my shoulder and my throat.
“I’m so sorry. So very, very sorry, Angel.” He pulls away and looks up at me. “Are you okay? Are you hurt—physically?”
I shake my head as tears fill my eyes. “I don’t think so.”
I watch his face tighten, so much he looks almost mad at me. A second later, he walks over to one of the other tree trunks, leaning his right shoulder against it. I can see his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes. Angry? Upset?
What’s he feeling? What’s he thinking?
I remember how I found him in his cell. The sick collage on the ceiling. Needle marks on the inside of his thigh. What have the last few weeks been like for him? The last two months…
I walk over to him, unsure what he needs but unwilling to stand around and do nothing. I step over the roots so I’m right behind him and press my palm against his back.
He flinches, then turns around with hard eyes.
“Sorry,” I whisper. I take a small step back.
He whirls to face me. “Don’t be sorry. Never say you’re sorry—not to me, Angel. I’m the one who’s goddamned sorry.” He clenches his jaw and gives a brief shake of his head. “I didn’t keep you safe. I…” He inhales deeply, exhales hard, and bites the inside of his cheek as he dips his head down. For half a breath, his face twists painfully. Then his eyes meet mine. They’re red around the edges. “I’m really fucking sorry that I ever met you.”
CHAPTER 5
Annabelle
“Do you really wish that?”
He looks away and shakes his head a little. “Don’t you, Angel?”
“No.”
“Then you’re not thinking about it right.” He rubs his eyes. “I ruined your life today.”
“What did you do specifically do wrong today to ruin my life?” He presses his lips together, so I keep talking. “When the DA got the drop on you, he did because you didn’t dodge him. If you had, he’d have gotten me instead. Since then, you tried to take the fall for something you didn’t even do. You tried to let me of the hook for…murder.” I choke the word out, but I keep talking, holding his gaze as my body vibrates with adrenaline and emotion.
I step closer to him. So close we’re almost touching, and I can see every line of his face. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing with me, anyway. Things were fucked up there. Fucked up,” I say again. “You were being fucked with, you were in solitary, and that’s really, really wrong and really scary.”
“And now you’re caught up in this shit—and that’s wrong, too.” He runs his hand back through his dark, wet hair, then brings his gaze to mine. “I’m going to get you out of this. All I need is a phone. Do you have your phone?”
I shake my head. It got left back at the prison.
“It’s okay. I can find another phone. Can call.” His eyes take on a glazed look as he speaks, and some of the color blanches out of his cheeks. “I’ll get you home,” he mumbles.
He blinks a few times fast, then crouches. He shifts from a crouch into a sitting position, with his butt in the dirt and his long legs stretched out in front of him.
“Are you okay?” I step over to him and watch him rip his left pants leg along the seam on the side. As I kneel beside him, he rips it all the way off.
His eyes tug up to mine. “Can you tie this around my shoulder? Tie it tight.”
“Okay. Yeah, sure.” I take the swatch of fabric and, using my teeth, tear it in half again, so I have two long strips.
I move around to his left side, which I feel bad I didn’t notice is looking a lot worse. His whole left side is bathed in blood.
“Tie it under your arm, kinda up against your pec?”
“Sure,” he says, resting his head on his knees. “Just do it tight.”
I tie the bandages tightly and he grits his teeth as I knot them.
I come around in front of him and put a hand on his knee. “Is there something I can do?”
“Can you check the road?” he says, not lifting his head.
“Of course.”
I get up and walk to the edge of the trees so I can look out at the road. I see nothing. Hear nothing. Which is good, but what the hell am I going to do about him? What if he passes out? I walk back over to him and crouch back down. “We’re okay. There’s no one there.”
He doesn’t respond, and I start to worry. Then he lifts his head so he can look at me with dark, tired eyes. “Why didn’t you do w
hat I said, Angel?”
He doesn’t expound, but then, he doesn’t have to.
“I just couldn’t,” I whisper, sitting down in front of him. “I couldn’t do that to you.”
He groans. “I wish to hell I’d never asked you to come back that first day.”
“I’m glad you did, or you would still be in solitary. I came back this last time—and the times before, it, too—because I wanted to.” My voice cracks unexpectedly. “I’m sorry I messed things up today. I didn’t mean to shoot him! I meant to, but I didn’t want anyone to die. I’m glad I killed him, if I killed him. He was…tormenting you. But it feels so weird. To be a killer.” I cover my mouth with both hands and let out a sob.
“You’re not a killer, Angel.” He scoots closer to me, close enough so he can touch my knee. “You’re not a killer. Don’t say it again.”
He strokes my knee with gentle fingers. “You’re innocent, Angel. Innocent people come out okay.”
“They shot you. They were torturing you.”
He laughs, low and hollow. “I’m not innocent.” He shuts his eyes and rests his head on his knee again. “If there was any way to cut you loose... But I’ll protect you—this time,” he adds softly. “I just need a phone. I’m worried, though…” He runs his unhurt hand over his hair, which I’m beginning to see he does when he’s nervous. “I’m worried that I won’t get far. My face…” He lifts it up to look at me again.
“Someone will recognize you, you mean.”
“Not if you hit me.” His eyes widen. “You think you can bruise me up a little?” He waves at his cheek. “Just enough to make me look like…not Cal Hammond?”
I laugh. “Are you insane? No way. I don’t think it would work, anyway. Your skin is hardly the only thing that makes you look like Cal.”
He lowers his head, then props it up in the palm of his good hand, as if he’s getting tired, and holding up his head is just too much.
“Forget about hitting me,” he murmurs. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Who are you calling?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t want you to worry about it, Angel. Can you trust me? To get you home? I can do it, Angel.” His eyebrows lift a little, as if he’s just remembered: “How’s your mom?”
