9. Ivan

9

IVAN

T he sound of Charlotte crying feels like it tears something out of my chest, but I can't think about it right now. I have to get us away. Lev will be chasing us, with Ani and Niki, and he'll run me off the road if he can catch up. He's not going to stop. I have to get us far enough away, off the beaten path, that he won't follow.

I had planned to cut a straight line across to Nevada. Four states lay between us and a new identity, and I was going to go there as fast as I could manage it. But I see now that the only chance we have is by zigzagging in a way that won't make sense, and will hopefully throw Lev off long enough for us to get to Vegas well before he does.

I also have to hope he hasn't figured out my contact yet. This man is my contact, not one that I've gotten through my father's connections, and that gives me hope. But only a small amount.

Using the map on my phone was a rookie mistake, one that I only did because I thought I'd thrown them off enough with fake leads that I could get a good distance away, and then stop using it. I turn the phone off, using one hand and my teeth to pry open the side that has the SIM card. I yank it out, dropping it on the floorboard and grinding it under my heel. The phone is next, and I slam my foot against it as I drive, cracking the case until the phone is in pieces.

The shattered SIM card goes out the window. The phone is next, a piece at a time. All the while, Charlotte is still in a ball next to me, shaking in the passenger's seat.

"You need to put your seatbelt on." It's far from the first thing I want to say to her—far from the only thing I want to say to her, but right now, it feels like the most important one. If Lev catches up to me and tries to run the car off the road, I need her to be protected.

"What?" Her voice is cracked, and I reach over, grabbing the seat belt and yanking it over her.

"Your seatbelt. Lev is coming after us. He might try to get us into a wreck."

"This is insane," she whispers. "This is all insane."

"I know." I let out a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

"Why didn't they shoot us?" Her voice is tiny, small, muffled from where she's still curled in the seat, and I hate hearing her like this. I hate that it's because of me.

"He doesn't want us dead. And he wants us hurt, but not like that." I let out another heavy breath. "My brother is cocky. Arrogant. He doesn't think I can get away from him. He's just as happy to keep chasing because, in his mind, the more of a pain in the ass I make this, the more I justify every terrible thing he wants to do. And the more freedom my father will give him to do those things, if I keep making this harder."

Charlotte nods slowly. I see it out of the corner of my eye as she slowly pushes herself up, swallowing hard as she tugs on the seatbelt, adjusting it. "He's not going to stop, is he?" she says softly, and I shake my head. "You were telling the truth about that."

"And some other things." I glance in the rearview mirror, speeding up. Right now, getting pulled over is the least of my worries. "As soon as I think it's safe enough to stop for even a minute, or when we need gas next—whichever comes first—I'm going to get a road map. We're going to go up, through Wisconsin and go north, the longer way around. It'll be longer before we get to Vegas, so more dangerous in terms of time. But if we take a straight shot, and don't try to confuse Lev at all, he's just going to come after us. Same for Bradley and the feds. And we have to stop sometime. We'll need food and sleep. We can't run on empty, or we'll start making mistakes."

Charlotte is silent. It's a heavier silence than her angry one before, because I think she's coming to terms with some of this, like it or not.

I grit my teeth as I focus on the road. I didn't want to be this person for her. I didn't want to be the one to rip her rudely into the truth of a world where no one is kind and death waits around every corner. I told myself I could have her, and keep her separate from it all, and it was the stupidest thing I've ever done.

I was selfish, and now she's going to pay the price for it. The well of self-hatred in my gut is bitter, bleeding through my veins and burning in my chest. I grip the steering wheel hard as I drive, unable to look at her again.

Her silence is worse than anything she could scream at me.

I realize with a start, twenty or so minutes into the drive, that her silence is also because she's fallen asleep. The fear and adrenaline must have wrung every last bit of energy she had out of her, and I can hardly blame her. I'm exhausted, too, staying awake on sheer willpower at this point. Even the floor of that shitty hotel room is something I'm starting to look back on with a feeling of longing.

I slow to a more reasonable pace, now that there's been no headlights behind me for some time. Getting pulled over isn't the greatest of my concerns, but it is one of them, and it's something I'd rather not have to deal with. Being on the run from the feds is bad enough, and if they pick up our trail, they'll start alerting the local police. The last thing I want is to be on the run from the regular cops, too. That will make any kind of stops even more difficult, if they're trailing us as well.

Ironically, the only way for me to keep Charlotte from becoming an accessory to all of this, if we're caught, is to admit to kidnapping her—one of the sins I'm only technically guilty of, and only at first. She said so herself, to Bradley, that she doesn't feel that I did. But if the police catch us, it'll be the only way to keep her from going down with me.

Just another reason to try to keep them from ending up on our tail, too.

As the lights of another small town start to break through the night, I slow down, pulling into the first gas station I see that looks decent enough to have a road atlas. In the seat next to me, Charlotte stirs, and I hear the soft growl of her stomach. She's barely eaten today—she has to be starving, and even if she's too stressed or stubborn to admit it, her body recognizes that she needs to eat.

I'm hesitant to leave her in the car alone. Not because I think she'll run—I feel confident that, at this point, she realizes that running is fruitless. She needs me, whether she likes it or not. Whether I like it or not—because the truth is that if Charlotte was ever going to need me, I didn't want it to be like this.

I didn't want it to be forced on her. But that's exactly what ended up happening.

I'm honestly afraid that if I leave her out here, someone will snatch her while I'm gone, even though there hasn't been any sign of a possible tail for miles. It's irrational, but once again, I'm having a hard time being rational when it comes to Charlotte.

I don't want to wake her up, though. I watch her for a moment, before I shake myself and open the car door carefully, stepping out into the chilly night and locking it behind me. I parked right in front of the store, so I'll at least be able to keep one eye on the car while I grab what we need.

A road atlas is the first thing. I pick up one of those, glancing out towards the car every other second as I pick up some snacks and an energy drink for myself, one of those caffeine bombs that will have me buzzing all the way into tomorrow. I'll feel like shit, but it'll be worth it to put some distance between us and anyone chasing.

Beef jerky and chips for me, a couple of candy bars, and I grab a bag of air-popped crispy green beans tossed in some kind of spice for Charlotte. After her comment about the fast food, I want to give her something that she might actually want to eat. Or at least make sure she knows that I do give a shit. I add a couple of bottles of water, still obsessively checking to make sure that no one has approached the car as the cashier rings it all up.

She's still asleep when I walk back out. The sound of me setting the bag in the backseat is what finally makes her stir, and she blinks, slowly waking up for a brief second before she jolts, pushing herself up as she shoves her hair out of her face like she's just come back online and remembered what happened earlier.

"Are we—" Charlotte looks around frantically for a second, as if she's still a little bit asleep and trying to get her bearings. I know the feeling. There's a sort of liminal sensation about waking up after sleeping on the road, a feeling of being half out of reality before you come back into it. Especially out here, where there's not much civilization.

"We're fine for now," I tell her calmly. "If Lev was tailing us, he's lost us and dropped off. Not to say we won't run into trouble again, but for the moment, anyway, things are alright."

Charlotte looks at me with a slightly disbelieving expression on her face, as if she can't quite comprehend that I just said that. "Nothing is alright," she says slowly. "I'm on the run. I can't even call Jaz and let her know I'm alive. My best friend is definitely worried sick about me, and there's nothing I can do about it. My entire life has been upended, and I've been told that I'm never going to get it back, on a day that just ended with me being threatened and chased twice , and it isn't even over yet."

"Okay." I hold up my hands, letting out a sharp breath. "I get it. I'm sorry. I just meant—we're not in immediate danger of that happening again." I reach over the back of the seat, rummaging around in the plastic bag sitting back there. "I got snacks. Some bottled water. We're going to need to drive through the night, so?—"

"Are you going to be okay doing that?" she interrupts me, then stops, seemingly as shocked as I am that she might care about my well-being. "I mean—if you run us off of the road because you fell asleep, that's not good for either of us."

I let out a dry laugh at that. I can't help it. "You're right. But I'll keep driving for as long as I can, at least."

She nods, reaching into the plastic bag. "Alright. Do we need to get gas?" She glances at the speedometer, which thankfully is off, since I haven't started the car back up yet. We don't need to get fuel, but I don't want to tell her why. I don't want to break what feels like a momentary truce between us. And I know she's not going to be happy with the answer.

"No. But we do need to get on the road." I start the car, watching out of the corner of my eye as she grabs a bottle of water and the bag of green beans. Her mouth parts slightly as she looks at them, and then at me.

"This was…thoughtful." She sounds startled, which hurts a little. "Thank you."

"Contrary to what Agent Bradley wants the FBI to believe, and contrary to what you might feel right now, I'm not actually abducting you." I glance sideways at her as I pull back out onto the road. "You can leave if you want. I tried to leave you with Bradley, for fuck's sake, before he showed his true colors. I've just told you what the consequences will likely be if you do. I'm not tying you up in the backseat and shoving fast-food cheeseburgers down your throat."

Charlotte grimaces, opening the bag. "That's not what I said."

"The point still stands." I can hear the edge in my tone, but I'm having a hard time softening it just now. I'm exhausted, vigilant to the point of feeling like my nerves are rubbed raw, and Charlotte's startlement that I bought her a healthy snack makes me feel like that knife is being twisted one time too many.

She goes quiet, except for the crunching as she slowly eats her food. I'm just glad that she's eating at all. I drive the speed limit through the small town, slowing down as I see what I am looking for.

On my left is one of those shitty buy-here-pay-here car lots. The kind that doesn't keep good records and probably has enough shady dealings of their own to not want the cops poking around too closely in their business. I pull into the dark lot, and Charlotte sits up a little straighter, dropping the bag of green beans into her lap as she looks over at me suspiciously.

"What are we doing here?"

I think she already knows the answer to that, but she wants to hear me say it out loud. "Lev's seen this car. So has Bradley. And it's fucking orange, which makes it a lot easier to pick out than, say, your run-of-the-mill silver car. So we're going to swap it out for something else."

"We're going to steal a car." Her tone is so disbelieving that it makes me laugh, because stealing a car is very far down the list of the worst things I've ever done.

"I wasn't going to use those words." I turn off our car, killing the headlights immediately. "Mostly because I knew how you'd feel about them. But yes."

Charlotte goes very still. The only sound is the crinkling of the bag between her hands as she freezes, and I let out a slow breath, searching for patience.

"We don't have a lot of time, Charlotte. I need to get this done before anyone driving around out here sees us parked here and decides to call it in, or notices and says something tomorrow when the owners open up and find a car that wasn't here before, and one gone. The idea is for it to take as long as possible for them to catch on. I can't sit here and argue with you about this. This is what we have to do."'

Her tongue darts out, wetting her lips nervously, and I feel a jolt of unwanted arousal. This isn't the time or the place for distractions, but my body doesn't seem to be on the same page, because just that swipe of her tongue over her lower lip has me throbbing.

"Just—sit here," I tell her, forcing back my frustration with a heavy hand. "I'll handle everything. Just get in the car I tell you to when I'm done, okay?"

The space between her eyes wrinkles, an irritated line that tells me that she doesn't like me telling her what to do. Not in this context, anyway.

"Fine." She crumples the bag between her hands. "Just tell me how high to jump, Ivan."

The sarcasm in her voice is thick, but I don't have time to deal with it or evaluate it. I don't have time to make her feel better, which is what I desperately want to do.

But I also need to keep her safe. And even if that means driving a deeper wedge between us, that's what I have to do. Losing what there might have been between us is my penance for what I've done, and I'm just going to have to live with it.

I pulled into the back of the lot, as far from the office building near the front as possible. I look for the most nondescript vehicle I can—a Toyota, Honda, or Nissan in a bland color, something that there could be hundreds of on the road. When I find one—a late nineties Corolla in a beige green that makes me cringe, I quickly go about swapping out the plates. This will get us to the Dakotas, probably, at which point I'll steal something better suited to snow, in case we get a mid-autumn snowfall. And then, closer to Vegas, I'll swap back to something like this.

To her credit, Charlotte doesn't get out and try to argue with me, or run, or do anything at all. She sits stock still in the passenger's seat, statue-silent, as if by checking out of the situation entirely, she can simply not be complicit in it. She's in denial, I know that, but I'd rather deal with denial than her spitfire fury in this particular moment when time is of the essence.

The spitfire fury will come later, I'm sure, and I can't say that I hate it. The memory of her fighting with me earlier today is a strange mix of hurt, regret, and arousal that makes me feel sick and turned on all at once, a jumble of emotions that I've never experienced before. It's unique to her, and I have a feeling that it's because I feel things for her that I've never felt for any woman I've ever fucked before.

Of all the women in the world, I had to fall in love with this one. But just looking at her is enough to tell me that if I haven't fallen all the way, I'm close to the edge. My heart does a strange twist in my chest when I look at her stony face, and I have to look away quickly, refocusing on the process of hotwiring the car we're going to steal.

Once I get it to start, I back it out of the spot, getting back into our current car and pulling it into where the Corolla was parked. I grab the keys, our bag of road snacks, and do a quick sweep to make sure that there's nothing identifying left in the car —this one was mine. I hate leaving it behind, but it's yet another reason I'm glad I didn't bring the Mustang.

"I need you to follow me in this," I tell Charlotte calmly. "We're going to dump it somewhere where there's plenty of trees and it will take a while for anyone to find. By the time one of the idiots on the town police force figures out how to add, and puts this car and the stolen one together and gets us, we'll be long gone.

She looks at me like I'm the idiot. "What?" I try not to snap, but a little of the tired exasperation I'm feeling slides into my tone.

"I can't drive a stick, Ivan."

"Shit. Of course not." I run one hand through my hair. "Okay, fine. Drive the Corolla and follow me. Just drive it like normal, I'll have to detach the battery wires to turn it off."

Charlotte stares at me for another long second, and I realize what I've just asked her to do—drive a stolen vehicle, as if I were asking her to pick up milk from the grocery store. "Charlotte, I?—"

"Don't say you're sorry." She holds up a hand, shaking her head. "Fine."

She slides out of the car, grabbing her bottle of water as she goes, and stomps over to the Corolla. She seems intent on letting me see just how displeased she is, but I can't exactly blame her. I'm just relieved that she's doing it.

Guilt slithers through me. The only way she's getting out of this without catching a charge herself if we get caught is by me admitting to all kinds of things I haven't actually done—like threatening her if she didn't go along with it.

That's a problem for the future, if it happens, I tell myself, starting up the Acura and putting it in gear. I see Charlotte getting into the driver's seat of the Corolla, a grim expression on her face, and I let out another sigh.

Another wedge. Another thing for her to not forgive me for. The tally is adding up, and every day that goes by is probably going to only make it worse.

There's nothing I can do about it except focus on what I can change.

And that's whether or not she gets out of this safely.