Blood to Dust (22 page)

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.”

Don’t judge a book by its cover. Remember
The Catcher in The Rye
cover? Ugly as the darkest sin committed on earth, but once you jump inside, something beautiful and raw awaits.

Prescott.

On the outside, she’s a generic, attractive shell. Busty and blonde, not unlike that chick from
Legally Blonde
. Flippant and wrapped up in an expensive dress. Then you dig deep, and you discover a scarred, scared, bold, frightened warrior. A survivor who will not let her enemies get away with what they did to her. A caring sister, a loving woman who’s been betrayed. Angry but still cute, like a fucking Pink song. She’s so much.
She’s too much
. But I understand why she wants them dead.

Godfrey.

Sebastian.

Camden.

I’d happily assist with the first two, because I have beef with them that runs just as deep. Camden, on the other hand, is not my problem. I’ll help however I can, but that one’s on her.

I follow Prescott up the stairs to her apartment, watching her calves swelling as she climbs. We didn’t take the elevator to make sure the stairway is clear. She reaches a black wooden door, one of a few in the clean, casually lit hallway, and takes out my dagger from the waist of her underwear. She fucking kept the dagger she stabbed me with. And she’s about to use it to break into her own apartment. I watch in awe and ignore my twitching dick. This girl has managed to get me hard the way no one else could for a reason.

Prescott is a storm, and she’s sweeping up my ass faster than a tornado, ripping apart shit in her wake without even giving me the opportunity to take a step back and examine the mess she leaves behind.

I’m not going to give a name to what I feel toward her, but there’s one narrative that’s always hanging above my head like a guillotine when she’s around.

Crashing.

Not falling. Falling takes time. I’m thrown into whatever this is, crashing fast, hitting every goddamn branch of the Feelings Tree on my way down before hitting rock bottom with a chilling sound. Landing so hard, I leave a fucking dent in the shape of my heart.

She pops the door by crushing the dagger against the handle at a perfect angle, pushing it open and signaling me with a head tilt to follow her.

Shorty got moves.

Pea ambles into her bedroom and opens her drawers as I take in her apartment. It’s a simple one bedroom, beige carpets, black couch, flat screen TV, zero pictures, zero furniture, zero personality. She didn’t get comfortable here—she got by. Pea zips open a backpack on her naked mattress and throws a thick batch of credit cards tied together with a rubber band into it. Then she proceeds to throw in some underwear, a bra, approximately five hundred stress balls, cash she’d apparently been hiding under her bed and a fossil tin covered with pictures of Paris and London.

“What’s in the box?” I enquire behind her back, feeling like a tool. I’m just standing here doing nothing, helpful as a fucking doormat.

“Heroine, crack, rat poison,” she answers flatly, still packing. “We might need to get creative when we strike them. It’s nice to have a few tricks up our sleeves. I’m going into the shower.” Her drawer snaps shut with a bang. I want to come with her. Hell, I want to come
in
her. But rationally, I know that in order for her to trust me, I need to keep my dick in my pants until she’s ready for more. She’s been sexually abused, and I’m not going to pretend like it never happened. We’re chasing down the motherfuckers who did this to her and won’t rest until our fingers are smeared with their blood. Besides, this journey is not about pussy. It’s about wonderful, twisted, dark paths, all of them leading to one destination:
Freedom
.

On a more practical note, somebody needs to watch out in case Godfrey and his lap dogs show up downstairs with enough ammo to wipe out North America.

“Make it count. I’ll watch.” I finger a slit in her black Venetian blinds and peek through it.

She hesitates for a moment before touching her cheek, like she’s just been offered a compliment. Which makes me feel like even more of a douchebag. She’s touched because I don’t force myself into both her bathroom and her pussy.

“Thanks. I’ll be right back.”

Prescott likes me, but she still doesn’t trust me. She locks her bathroom door twice and I know my dagger is still tucked inside her delicious underwear. She asked me for my full name but probably lied to me about having a kid when I asked her about it. I need to remember that she’s keeping some secrets from me. She’s not to be trusted, in any way or form.

When Pea comes out, looking fresh and prettier than I’ve ever seen her before, the scent of heaven drifting from her body, she joins me near the window. I haven’t left it since we walked in. I’m staring down her sleepy Danville street, counting cars, joggers and dogs on fancy leashes. This place, it doesn’t suit her. She was born for something less restrained. More. . .
chaotic
.

She puts on a blood red dress, which looks like a huge shirt but somehow hugs her body like it’s a fucking condom, and a tailored leather jacket.

“Are we good to go?” I ask. She nods and throws her backpack over her shoulder. “Yeah, I texted Hussein. He’s waiting for us.”

I nod to the door.

“Let’s wrap this shit up.”

“Don’t you want to have a quick shower first?” She’s still rooted in place. I walk straight for the door and mumble a definite “No” before I stop dead in my tracks.

“Why, do I need one?”

“Well,” she says with a shrug. “You reek of sex.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” I test, cocking a brow.

“It’s a distracting thing.” There’s a private grin on her lips. I haven’t seen it before and immediately decide that it belongs to me. Glancing at the door and back to her, I’m trying to figure out if she’s buying time before getting down to the dirty stuff. To say I ain’t happy about leaving her to watch for Godfrey and Seb on her own is an understatement, but if I smell like a stale fart, I wanna get it out of the way. Especially seeing as I’m waiting for her to make the next move, and it’d be in my favor if I didn’t smell like a five-day-old rotten fish.

“Watch the street and holler at me if something’s wrong. I’ll be quick.”

“You always are.” She wiggles her brows, resting one shoulder against the wall by her window.

“Fuck you.” I smack her ass hard enough for it to be considered a warning before I disappear through her bathroom door, throwing my clothes off on my way to my point of destination.

“Been there, done that,” she shouts from the living room. “Five times tonight, actually.”

My cock twitches, but I keep my cool. I can mess around, smack her here and there. She loves that shit, but full-blown sex? That’s for her to decide the ifs and whens.

I shower with her fancy coconut-vanilla products, and by the time I saunter into the living room, I smell so good I have to check if I still got my balls intact. Pea is squeezing on a stress ball, her hazels never leaving the window.

“You ready? Hussein is probably wondering where we are. We need to make a move.”

“Yeah.” I yank the backpack from her hand and swing it over my shoulder. “Where to?” I ask, already out the door. Prescott stops, her hand on the doorknob as she inspects her darkened apartment one last time. Sorrow pings through me. I didn’t look back when I left Irv, because I never cared for that house, or for the little shit I lived with.

But this was the place where she learned it was okay to be broken.

Grief is thick in the air, making it harder to draw a deep breath, and I find myself wrapping a hand over her shoulder, planting a cautious kiss on top of her head. “They’re just walls.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” her voice is hollow. “So many walls to break, so little time.”

Our first stop is the ATM across the street. I wait in the car. Prescott borrows my black hoodie and pulls it all the way down her face. Jogging to the machine, I watch as the deep black sky swallows her figure whole. The white light pouring from the ATM screen highlights the arcs of her face. I see the outline of the dagger—
my
fucking dagger—under her dress. She doesn’t trust me.