Page 89 of Hot Intent

She stared at his tense profile. What the heck?

They bumped along on country roads for several hours. The sun rose, and other vehicles, both motorized and horse-drawn, began to share the road with them. A small town came into sight through the slit in the window covering, and Alex found some sort of farmer’s market.

As he’d predicted, he was able to barter the horse and carriage for an ancient, black land yacht of a car, all of whose chrome trim had been painted a flat, ugly black. But it ran. Even better, the car’s owner threw in a tank of gas and a paper bag full of the most delicious pastry-wrapped sausages that Katie had ever tasted.

They made Wilmington, Delaware by noon, where ditched the car. It would look out of place if they strayed too much farther from Amish country. They took an entirely modern rideshare to the nearest train station and caught a train from there bound for New York.

As Philadelphia and then New Jersey sped by outside, Katie finally breathed a sigh of relief. They’d escaped yet again. She had no idea how much luck Alex had left, but she was starting to feel like she’d burned through most of hers.

“Are we safe?” she murmured as Alex leaned back in his seat and seemed to relax.

“There’s no such thing as safe in this world. The sooner you accept that, the better a chance you have of surviving it.”

She stared at him. “Do you really mean that?”

“Safety is an illusion. Bad guys are all around us all the time. Be they petty criminals who want your purse to terrorists who want your life, they’re everywhere. I’ve seen the shadow world, that other place where dark forces lurk, and it’s closer to this world than you know.”

“You sound like an advertisement for a horror movie.”

He shrugged. “My world is the real one. It’s where life and death are decided.” He gestured to the suburban sprawl speeding by outside the train. “This happy, shiny world of strip malls and middle-class America is the false narrative. It’s carefully crafted by media, big business, and the government.”

“Well, that’s…cynical.”

He lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “When have I ever been anything else?”

“So my whole life to date has been what? A lie? A dream?”

He shrugged. “You’ve asked me more than once to strip away your innocence. That’s what I’m doing, now. If you want to run in my world, you have to grow up and let go of childish ideas, Katie.”

In other words, agree with him that the world was a deadly place populated with unseen threats, or walk away from him and never look back. She looked over at him, and he was staring back expectantly.

“I need to think about this,” she mumbled, staggered. She didn’t know whether to be overjoyed that he was opening a tiny window for her to stay with him or horrified that he wanted her to step into the shadows with him and his madness.

“Think fast, Katie. My world will come calling, soon. And then your time will be up.”

Or more likely, he would reconsider his offer and withdraw it. She subsided against the worn seat cushions, terrified like she’d never been terrified before. She was worried about him when he doubted himself and his view of the world. But when he was like this, so sure that his perceptions were absolute fact, she had to believe he was slipping into some sort of delusional insanity.

It probably had a fancy Latin name—that he would know, of course. Did she love him enough to abandon her reality and live in his delusion with him?

Man. How had he messed with her head enough for her to even consider that?

His paranoia was getting the best of him. She was losing him.

18

The train stopped somewhere in northern New Jersey, and Alex startled Katie by murmuring, “Let’s go.”

“We’re not going into New York City?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Way too much surveillance and security, there. We’re more anonymous, here.”

Alarmed, she slid out of her seat and followed him off the train. In short order, he’d obtained a crappy motel room for them. She noted that he’d used a fake I.D. and its matching credit card.

When he’d inspected their room and declared it free of surveillance, he announced, “I need to find a computer. Do you want to stay here or come with me?”

“You seriously have to ask?” she retorted.

He smiled a little, sardonically. “I’m not going to disappear until I figure this out. I don’t want it pursuing me into my new life.”

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