Prescott

Checkmate, Godfrey. Your clock starts ticking now.

It should alarm me that I’m more excited about the prospect of killing Godfrey and Seb than I am with getting my own life back. But the truth is, life has become such a chore to maintain over the last few years, it’ll take me a long time to find my lust for it again.

He is standing in front of me, wearing his mask and to my dismay, my toes curl against the damp floor.

Even through the mask, his chin is strong and high. There’s something incredibly proud about this broken man. Nate’s fingers brush the wall as he paces like a predator in my direction.

“I fucked up. You confided in me, told me what they did to you, then I went and did the very same thing on the grounds of being drunk, horny and a prick,” he admits, his tone calm. “But I want you to know one thing. I’m a killer, I’m a murderer, I am a prick, but I’m fair. The minute you told me your story, you were already free. These walls,” he knocks on the concrete, “they mean nothing. Up until this afternoon, I thought I was going to let you walk away then go do my own thing. But then something dawned on me,” he says and inches closer causing my jaw to go slack in anticipation. “I’m not fucking done with you, Pea, and if it’s up to me? I’m not done fucking you, either.”

I hug my body, trying to protect myself from something that’s already embedded deep inside me, to shake away the looming calamity that’s moving my way. He rattles something within me that’s not ready to be moved. Not right now, and certainly not by him.“Nate.” His name on my lips sounds like a warning. On some level, it is. He stops, his mask still offering this wild, up-to-no-good smile. “I don’t want us to part ways yet. I want us to flip hourglasses. To stir up chaos. To start a blood bath.”

He stops next to me. His hand drops to his hip and he lifts the hem of his shirt, rubbing his six pack.

“Prescott?”

“Yes?”

“I’m switching teams.”

My knees turn to jelly as my body starts quivering with released tension.

He is switching teams.

He is setting me free.

God, he’s going to help me glue the pieces of my broken soul together.

All the tears I kept from him come spilling down, my face damp and happy and my heart so, extremely full. I’m a crier. I cry when I get a paper-cut, when it’s that time of the month and when Bambi’s mother dies. The only reason I haven’t cried in front of Nate yet is because I don’t let my enemies see me break.

But he is not an enemy. Not anymore.

“You won’t regret it,” I say, shaking my head, trying to gain control over my emotions. He needs to see me strong. “Together, we’ll overthrow his empire.”

Nate doesn’t answer, but his eyes are hungry behind the mask. It dawns on me that I’m about to see his face, and something unsettling stirs in me. It’s not that I don’t want to see him. I do. I’m dying to lay my eyes on the man I had sex with, who’s about to give me life back, who’s been the center of my world for the past few weeks.

But I’m not ready.

He’s become a fantasy; a bubble I don’t want to pop. A feather of hope that’s tickling but not quite touching me the way I crave. The minute he takes off the mask, the mystery is solved, and reality will kick in. A reality I’m not entirely prepared for, despite the fact I pushed for it for so long.

A reality that consists of people getting killed, of us running away, of trying to get by, of peeking over our shoulders, every second of every day.

Life starts here.

He erases the space between us with a long step, his abs bumping into my chest. My breath hitches and my spine tingles. This is bad. No, bad is forgetting to turn off the oven when you leave the house. This is disastrous.

“Where will you go after this is all over, Pea?” His mask touches my lips.

“Iowa,” I answer. “I want to go somewhere peaceful.”

“Cabo for me,” he replies, his thumb stabing his chest. “I wanna go somewhere wild.”

“Send me a postcard.” I muster a weak grin, but it feels wrong on my lips.

We don’t actually know if we’ll get out of this alive, and even if we do, I’ll dump him and move on with my life as soon as we kill the bastards.

We’re polar opposites. He’s peace looking for color, and I’m a storm looking for serenity. And somewhere between my chaos and his peace, we found each other. Even crazier—we want to save one another.

“Pea.” He rubs my chin with his thumb, staring at my lips with burning eyes. “I’ll fight your war while I’m winning mine, but you have to be honest with me. When I took you like an animal the night of the party. . .did it remind you of them?” “It was different,” I answer. “Intense, yes. Wild. But it reminded me that I could still enjoy how another body feels against mine. I didn’t think I could anymore.”

His jaw tenses and he looks down at his palms as he speaks.

“I’d like to be the person who reminds you of that again,” he says, his usually cutting tone sounds softer now. Maybe it’s just what I want to hear. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be. Wild, gentle, good, bad, rough, delicate. Your pick.”

I swallow and look down to his chest, blinking away my embarrassment. “I’d like that too.”

“Would you like that now by any chance?” he growls, his forehead dropping onto mine. “Ink’s out of town. Some family shit. I need inside you.”

You’re already inside me, I think. You crawled in the minute you showed me mercy, the minute you decided to switch teams. But I know what he wants. He wants what all men want.

He wants sex. My flesh, my warmth and what’s between my thighs. Because after all, before he became a killer, a captor, an avid reader and even my savior, he was the one thing I hate—a man.

The only difference between Nate and the others is. . .well, I want his body, too.

“Are you going to take off your mask?” I ask, staring at his army boots.

“Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

No.

My eyes are still trained on his feet as his mask floats to the floor, landing next to his shoes. This is it. The mystery man who has been occupying my thoughts all this time is standing in front of me, exposed and open, offering me everything I’ve ever asked him for.

I drag my eyes up, lingering on his groin, his hips, moving on to his flat stomach, memorizing his triangular upper-body, tan, inked throat, and once I get to his face. . .

I lose it. Completely lose it.

Cruelly beautiful, that’s what he is. A beauty so violent it demands to be appreciated despite my best efforts to ignore it. I can actually hear his face, and it’s loud. Screaming at me to drown in his perfect features.

Every bone in my body melts and my skin spikes with the need to touch him.

His cheekbones are high, prominent like blades, and sharpen his face into something that’s ruthlessly male. Which is good, because everything inside this frame is sickly pretty. Roman strong nose, bee-stung lips with a cupid’s bow, upturned, hooded eyes of a predator. Hard, dark, expressive, perfect.

I look away before it burns, like staring directly into the sun. I shift my gaze, feeling something funny crawling from my neck up to my face. Something I haven’t felt in a long time, maybe even ever.

Something I promised myself I’d never feel.

I’m about to get out of here and instead of being filled with joy and ecstasy, I refuse to look directly into my new partner in crime’s face.

I open my mouth, not sure what might come out of it, but before I get the chance to say anything, he braces a hand on the wall above my head. His eyes fall to my lips, then return to my eyes.

“Let me do filthy things to you, Prescott.” His husky tone breathes fire into my body. “Let me dirty you up with who I am.”

I close my eyes. I can do it. I can master my emotions. I’ve done it so many times before. Years of not letting anyone in made me resilient to whatever men throw at me.

But how do you let someone inside you without letting him into you?

My eyes travel to his, and I dare look at him again. So perfect. So, disgustingly, unwarrantedly perfect.

“You think you can rub your filth on me?” A lopsided grin pulls from the right side of my mouth. “I’d like to see you try.”

That’s all the invitation he needs. He picks me up, fireman style in one arm, and rushes up the stairs, tackling two at a time.

My nails are already digging into the flesh of his lower back, squeezing out the scent of his manhood and sweat—sweet and sour and animalistic.

“We’ll fuck, then we run away?” I pant.

“We’re not running. Running is for pussies. We do this shit in a stride.”

He marches the short distance from the narrow corridor to his small room, which I’ve never seen before, and bangs the door shut, me still on his shoulder. Before I know what’s happening, he throws me onto his bed like a ragdoll and looks down at me, still standing.

He’s huge.

Tall.

Tatted.

And completely stunning. This is not the first time I’ve gotten into bed willingly with a man since I ran away from the Archers, but it’s the first time I’m scared about how I’m going to leave it once it’s over.

Before Nate, I had sex to prove to myself that I could still feel.

But with him? I’m going to have sex and convince myself that I don’t.

“You’re beautiful,” I say breathlessly.

“You’re safe,” he answers reassuringly. Exactly what I needed to hear.

“Make peace to me, Beat.” I call him by his nickname purposely, my smile sly and cunning.

“Make fucking storm to me, Pea,” he says, doing the same.

He dives onto the bed on top of me, grinding his huge, scary hardness against my body. My legs spread on cue. Know that old cliché you read in romance books, Our bodies were made for one another? Well, that’s not the case with Nate and me. My body was made for an average-sized man, while his would be more fitting for a 6’2” Viking girl, or a full-grown elephant. He’s so much bigger than me, but it works. For us, it’s perfect.

His puffy, swollen lips find mine. Warm, fierce and comforting. I should probably close my eyes like he does, but I can’t, still crippled by his good looks. I watch him wide-eyed as our kiss deepens and his tongue attacks mine, his body grinding against my own. I gaze at him, mesmerized, as I feel his needy erection poking between my thighs, barely contained by his jeans and boxers. The bastard doesn’t have any bad angles. At all. He must’ve spent all his years in jail walking with his back pressed against the wall.

His fingers spread my thighs open roughly, and my dress rides up past my chest. His mouth sucks on my right nipple long and hard, teasing it with lazy circles he creates with the tip of his tongue. Then he pulls my panties down with one tug and slides his index finger inside me. Nate is so huge, his finger is probably the size of a typical cock. Simple math: Two fingers = Two cocks.

His finger pulls out of my folds and drags my wetness along with it. We both watch in awe, eyes half-closed under the mist of lust.

I never get wet anymore. Only for him, I do.

He uses my wetness and rubs the same finger around my clit, my head falls to his cheap, flat pillow.

“No hourglass in here, Pea. With me, we take our time.”

“Yes,” I groan.

“Yes,” he repeats with conviction as he starts rubbing my clit up and down, his tongue striking mine like it’s trying to punish me. “Fuck.” Kiss. “You.” Bite. “Godfrey.”

I smile into his mouth and reach for his cock, the sound of his zipper rolling down is the only thing audible other than our moans in the murky room. “Fuck.” I grab his junk in my hand. “You.” I move my palm up, rubbing the tip, then slide the pre-cum along his shaft. “Camden.”

“Fuck them,” he concludes, reaching back and yanking his shirt up over his head and throwing it to the floor. His tongue finds my neck, swirling downwards in swift movements.

“Fuck them,” I agree, letting him slide my dress up as he undresses me, toss it on the floor next to his jeans, and watch his head travel south.

He French kisses my inner-thighs, his warm tongue dancing in passionate circles around my hypersensitive flesh, only hovering over my folds, but never touching. Circling, applying pressure, then biting softly. He’s giving every valley and curve in the area special attention, and I begin to spasm, rocking myself against his face, completely possessed. Nate’s tongue hasn’t even touched my sex yet, it’s still licking my thighs, biting my flesh. . .but I’m already well on my way to a furious orgasm. I’m quaking all over, thrusting myself into his face, begging him to put me out of my misery. When he does, when his beautiful, hot mouth closes on my clit, his rough palms nail me to his bed and he doesn’t let me move.

“Fuck Sebastian.” He pulls my clit between his perfectly straight teeth and I actually throw my fists on his shoulders because the orgasm is too much. I’m losing control over my body, my muscles, my skin, even my bones. My hips move erratically to the rhythm of his mouth. Every time he speaks, his charged breath tickles me from the inside, making every inch of me tingle with pleasure. “And fuck the Aryan Brotherhood and fuck San Dimas and fuck this world. We’re getting outta here.”

I explode in pleasure and jerk back and forth on a scream. He finds out just how hard I come by pushing his tongue deep into my channel, meeting the warmth trickling out of me in a wave of satisfaction. He swirls his tongue inside me, licking up every drop of my want for him.

Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, he starts fucking me with his tongue, completely disregarding my current physical state as a human pond of hormones.

I’m a goner. I’m on fire. I’m done. No, wait. I want more. So much more.

“Hand me my wallet,” he says, signaling in the general direction of his jeans next to the bed. I lean down, fumbling with the back pockets, until I find it. I hand it to him and he flicks it open with one hand and pulls out a condom.

“How many condoms do you have in your wallet at any given moment?” Jealousy leaks into my tone.

“One. Which I never use.” He leans down for a demanding kiss, pulling up on his knees above my opened legs and sliding the condom over his cock. I forgot to ask him if they even make them for his size. What is he? XXL?

“Women bore me,” he croaks.

“I’m pretty sure that I’m a woman,” I reply.

“You’re not a woman.” He guides his cock to my entrance, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. “You’re a storm.”

He thrusts into me and I arch my back in pleasure. It’s not as painful as it was the first time, probably because I knew what to expect this time. He’s riding me like the devil’s inside him. I’m holding on to him like he is a hurricane I have to survive, and the bed creaks so loud, I’m afraid its frame is going to break. When he comes, sprawled out on top of me, our foreheads sticking together, both dripping wet in the tiny, windowless room, I actually let out a laugh, my lips searching for his again.

“Can I ask you for a favor?” I murmur.

“Ask away.”

“When I finally get my hands on Camden, I want you to fuck me in front of him with his eyes propped open by toothpicks, like in Clockwork Orange. It’d drive him crazy. Think you can do that for me?”

He chuckles, a laugh that fizzes out from the pit of his stomach and makes his abs shake against my stomach.

“It’s on.”

We fuck.

On his bed.

On his floor.

Against every surface in this grimy, horrid house.

In the tiny bathroom where we stole so many small, hauntingly painful and blissful moments.

Against the tiles.

Under the rusty showerhead.

My sex is burning with the relentless friction and my insides feel numb. The majority of my muscles—abs, quads, even glutes—shake under the strain of working his body so hard. But we keep at it.

On the kitchen counter, the shelves behind us shaking, their contents spilling onto the floor.

We’re an earthquake, and we destroy everything we bump into.

The last time we do it, we’re back in his bed. My whole body throbbing and my muscles shaking like I spent the last couple of years working the fields under the sun. But Nate? He has all of his early twenties to make up for, sex-wise. It takes him exactly twenty minutes to get back up again and the minute Nate Junior is ready, so am I.

Because injured or not—it is still Nate Vela.

I’m not supposed to know his last name. . .but I wonder if he trusts me just a little now?

“What’s your last name?” I pant above him. I’m riding him reverse cowgirl-style, his hands on my hips, bouncing me up and down. Reverse, because I can’t chance him having access to my throbbing nipples anymore. He just spent twenty minutes sucking and biting on them until they turned from pink to red, the flesh around them bruised and cracked. At one point, he dragged them so slowly and painfully through his teeth, they pulled like an elastic rubber for about five seconds too long before he let them free.

He halts only for a second before grunting, “No offense, Baby-Cakes, but I don’t trust you with a fucking plastic spoon. No way in hell am I telling you my last name.”

“No,” I pant. “No.” My voice matches the rhythm he thrusts into me with. “If we’re going to do this, we need to trust each other.”

A reluctant grumble leaves his mouth.

“Vela. Nate Vela.”

“I’m Prescott Burlington-Smyth.” I snake my palm behind me for a handshake and peek at him. He cocks one thick eyebrow, shaking my hand while still using the other one to hold my waist and drive my body onto his cock.

“Nice to fuck you, Nate Vela.”

“My pleasure.”

He is just about to show me exactly how much pleasure he is in—I can feel him expanding inside me—when we hear the front door open, then bang shut.

Irvin.

He was supposed to be on a family visit for the next two days. What happened?

I stop moving on top of Nate and swivel my head. Our eyes lock. Wordlessly, Nate jerks his hips forward in one go and squeezes my waist, his fingers digging into my flesh, and comes inside me. He opens his mouth in a mute moan, rolls me over so that my back hits the wall by his bed and stands, pulling on his briefs and black, ripped jeans. I lie on his bed, watching his every move. For all I know, he could throw me back into the basement any minute now. Just because we fucked for the past three hours doesn’t mean he really is on my team.

But this time, I’m not going into the basement, even if it means shedding blood. No matter whose.

We hear his roommate moving around the house. His Crocs squeaking in the hallway while he mumbles to himself. He’s taking a leak with the bathroom door open, then moves to the kitchen, raiding the fridge.

“What are we going to do?” I mouth, my head propped on my hand. Nate throws me a calm look.

“Stay here. Don’t move.”

Don’t count on it, buddy.

I watch his shirtless figure walking out of the room, shutting the door behind him. As soon as he does, I jump out of the bed and yank open the drawer to his bedside table.

Perfect. Thank you, Nate. Lying there and waiting for me to embrace it is an old- school dagger. I slip into my underwear, pick up the weapon and slide it into my waistband. I pull my dress on to hide my new best friend. After I’m done, I press my ear to the door. I hear their muffled voices and my heart picks up speed.

Please don’t betray me like everyone else.

I hear furniture creaking and the sound of Irvin getting pissed off.

“You want me to take care of the bitch? That ain’t fair! I wasn’t even supposed to be here. Not my fault my fucking mom came down with the flu.”

My pulse thickens against my throat. Take care of me?What?

“Do it,” Nate prompts.

“No.” I hear Irvin’s voice approaching Nate’s room, the thuds of two sets of feet on the carpet. Shit. They’re both going to come for me. I can maybe take one of them, though even that’s farfetched, but both? With just the dagger? That’d be damn near impossible.

I stumble back until my knees hit the edge of Nate’s bed.

“You better do it,” I hear Nate’s baritone. This is a nightmare. I let the guy into me—again—and now he’s going to have his roommate throw me into the basement?

I pull out the dagger and wait in a southpaw stance in front of the door. I hear their footfalls going back and forth, some more shuffling, and after a while—who knows how much time’s passed—the door swings open, and I run straight to the body in front of me and stab the dagger into his flesh.

Nate.

“Fuck!” he growls, stumbling away, his back hitting the wall. I rush out, about to stab him a few more times as he nurses his bleeding bicep by squeezing the wound. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I heard you.” I point the bloody dagger at his face, seething. “You sent Irvin to deal with me.”

“I sent him to the fucking basement so I can lock him in there. What in the actual fuck? You talk about trust, but you give me none.”

“Of course I don’t trust you,” I shriek, hysteria closing in on my throat. Which part of our encounter together so far would have made me trust him? The part where he took me in as a hostage, or the part where he fucked me and then disappeared for a few days until showing back up to the gates of my own, personal hell? It’s been a long time since I trusted a man, and just because he said he switched teams, doesn’t mean that I fully believe him.

“Well, that’ll have to change.” He makes a tsking sound, looking down to his right bicep and slowly peeling his hand away to assess the damage. I managed to cut deep. Well, at least I have that going for me in case I find myself engaged in a knife fight.

Only now I feel bad about doing this to him. Not overly bad, he deserves some kind of punishment for my captivity. But it was probably not the best idea to injure the guy who is about to help me run away and take down three of the most dangerous men I’ve ever come across.

“Fine. I’m willing to admit that there may have been a bit of an overreaction on my end.” I fold my arms around my midsection.

“Ya’ think? Wow, it takes a big woman to admit that.” He bites every word, pushing his healthy hand through his hair.

“Hey, Pea, are you going to stand in the hallway with the knife pointing at me for much longer or are you ready to hit the fucking road?” he nearly barks. “Go get the first aid kit. It’s in Irv’s room.” Nate nods his chin to the door right in front of his. “On his desk.”

I quickly grab the kit and sit my sexy partner-in-crime on the kitchen counter while I take care of his wound, bandaging it up tight. The orange of the iodine leaks around the white fabric and his arm looks like crap, but I think he’s stopped bleeding. I’m standing between his thighs as I tend to his wound, grateful for every second that I touch him but knowing that this is exactly why I should get rid of him as soon as possible.

“Are we all set? Should we run over our plan one more time?” I ask quietly as I roll another clean white cloth over his muscular arm. I can hear Irvin banging on the basement door, screaming and shouting and swearing like a madman.

“We pack our shit, get the money and fake IDs and disappear to different places and time zones.” He shrugs, his husky voice tickling my hairline. “Simple plan.”

“We need to kill them first.” I’m hoarse, yet determined. “They’ll follow us anywhere, down to the pits of hell.”

His eyes meet mine, and for a brief moment, I want us to be something else. Something normal. A boy and a girl who live in neighboring cities and met somewhere neutral, somewhere safe, a club or a park or a flipping Starbucks. Our options are unlimited. I’m not broken by previous, awful men. He’s not broken by a previous, awful life. It’s just us, and the scent of opportunity, of first dates and picnics and rolling on lush summer grass, laughing into each other’s mouths.

For one brief moment, I imagine that he walked into my world without tearing it apart, bloodily and messily, and that I stormed into his without making him face the dilemma of his life.

I shake my head when I realize where I let my mind drift off to.

“It’s either us or them.” My pulse quickens with urgency.

“You know, Prescott, if you wanna mend your soul, killing people is not the way to do it.”

“Of course it is.” I kiss his wrapped arm without breaking eye contact. “Because each of these men still hold a part of my soul. I need to take it back, don’t I?”

A hint of a smirk finds Nate’s face, but it disappears just as quickly as it came.

Our heads snap in unison at the deafening sound of shattered wood, and it takes us less than a second to realize that Irvin has managed to kick the door down. Nate shoots up from the table, sidestepping and shielding me behind his back, charging out of the small kitchen and toward the hallway. The gesture doesn’t escape me, but I don’t allow myself dwell on it.

You’re safe, he said before we had sex tonight. Maybe I am.

I follow his steps as he stalks to the hallway, where Irvin already scrambled for his cell phone, which Nate must have tossed across the room before he threw him in the basement. He’s clutching the phone and the discarded Guy Fawkes mask Nate had left on the floor, a dirty Crocs footprint flattened the plastic and disfigured the smiling face. This is the first time I’ve see Irvin without his ski mask, and he’s got the face of an albino eel.

“I’m calling Godfrey.” He averts his eyes from my face and back to Nate’s, his jaw quivering wildly. I’ve never seen someone so manic in my life. “You guys are done, you hear me? Fucking done!”

Forget the packing. We have to run away now.

“Nate,” I say, touching the massive back that shields me from his roommate. “It’s time.”

Nate is still staring at Irv and I wish he’d stop. We haven’t got time to dwell on betrayal.

I slide into my boots, yank the keys from the fruit bowl and grab Nate by the hand.

“Come on. He’s deadweight. Godfrey will never keep him alive after our escape,” I bite, happy to see Irv’s face behind Nate’s shoulder twisting in surprised horror. It’s the truth, and he knows that.

Nate grabs his mask from Irv’s hand and we storm out. He shuts the driver’s door to his Tacoma and punches the wheel three times, honking loudly in the process. I watch him wordlessly, knowing that it’s not only Irvin he is mad at, but also himself. He’s running away from his only chance at normalcy. From a parole officer. From the real world, and from his real identity. He can never undo what he’s doing right now. Me? I haven’t been a part of the real world in such a long time, I barely miss it anymore. It doesn’t miss me, either. Case in point: I was locked in a basement for two weeks, and other than a few crackheads who are probably wondering why I haven’t shown up with their supply, nobody gave a damn.

Other than him.

“Do you want me to drive?” I try not to sound too panicked.

His face is buried between his arms against the steering wheel, and I see him shaking his head.

“Where to?”

“West. We need to stop by my place, get a credit card, go to the ATM and drive to Concord to get a new ride. Your license plate will be easy to detect.”

He starts the car and throws it into drive, heading for the Stop sign at the end of the street and passing through it unblinking, speeding forward as the highway and darkness swallows the truck. I buckle up, treating myself to a glance at his profile. Magnificent in his beauty and peaceful in expression. Whatever got into him—he overrode it.

He is a switcher, I think. I bet that’s exactly how he looked when he killed his father all those years ago.

“You sure heading home is a good idea? One of Godfrey’s wise guys might be waiting with a fucking Magnum for us.” He leans down, opens the glove compartment and retrieves a pack of gum. He throws a peachy-flavored one into his mouth and chews, offering me the pack with a silent gesture. I put it back in its place without taking one.

“He has no clue where I live. Trust me, if he did, he wouldn’t have targeted me in the middle of Oakland. He would have done it quietly and professionally, plucking me out of my apartment in the middle of the night. My lease is under someone else’s name. I paid her well for it. I don’t leave footprints.”

Nate gives a sharp nod.

“Fake Passports Guy needs to know that we’re on our way,” he reminds me.

“I’ll call him when I get to the apartment. I saved his contact on each and every one of my SIM cards. He owes me big time.” I sit back, trying to let some of the tension roll off my shoulders. I’m out in the open. On a highway. With a beautiful, larger than life man who wants to stick around until we’re both out of the woods. Silk black sky above me, golden sandy hills engulfing the road, I suck a deep breath.

Freedom.

I keep throwing glances over my shoulder, making sure no one is after us. The road is empty. The only witnesses to our deed are the stars, glaring at us like pairs of shimmering eyes, waiting to see how we’ll get out of this mess. Otherwise, it’s just me and him. I like it. What’s scarier is that I could actually get used to this, to being around him.

“Should’ve done it when I first got out,” Nate ponders aloud, sinking his teeth into his lip like I so desperately want to do right now. We’ve spent the last few hours touching and licking and sucking and biting every single piece of flesh on each other’s bodies, and it’s still not enough.

“Everything happened for a reason. You’ll help me finish the Archers and Seb, and I’ll give you money and everything else you need to start fresh. This life has nothing to offer you. You need to start fresh. Under a new name. Under the pretense of someone innocent. You are innocent,” I stretch. “Go to Mexico. Live the life. Get a house by the beach. Start every morning with a margarita. Get a nice tan.”

He offers me one of his gorgeous smirks, looking at me briefly before turning his attention back to the dusky road.

“I’m going to live somewhere the sun’s always shining,” he announces in a voice that’s almost child-like. This is new. And so flipping adorable. “Just like Cali, but less fucking expensive.”

“You deserve it,” I reassure, squeezing his hand that’s resting on the console.

“Hey, Prescott?” he says, after a minute. “Tell me something beautiful.” He squeezes my hand back. “I like your words. You got some solid brain between those slightly big ears.”

I chuckle. My ears are a little bigger than the rest of my head. That’s why my hair is so long.

“’You wanna fly? You got to give up the shit that weighs you down.’ Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon.”

“Good stuff, Pea.”

“I try.”

“No, you don’t. That’s what I fucking like about you.”

I like him too. Not just because he gave me freedom. But because he treats my body more roughly than any of the men who raped me did, yet makes me feel incredibly cherished.

We get to my apartment when it’s still pitch black. It’s weird to be here, in a neighborhood I never thought I’d see again. It looks so normal and oblivious to everything I’ve been through over the past couple of weeks. Nate grabs my hand and rests my knuckles against his lips, willing me to look back at him. I do, and his honey-yellow-greenish-freakish eyes tell me that we’re on the same page.

About everything.

“This is going to be one hell of a ride.”

“That’s okay, we’ll get a faster car.” I smile, then proceed to explain myself. “I can’t let them get away with what they did to me. For me, it’s personal. I’ll go down with them if I have to. If it ever comes to it, if I need to go with them, kill me if it means they’re dead too. Promise me, Nate.”

He shakes his head, but doesn’t answer.

“Move your hot ass, Baby-Cakes. We’ve got some baddies chasing after us.”