Page 90 of Run Away With Me

‘Thank you,’ she said softly. ‘That doesn’t sound like enough. But I don’t know what else to say.’

‘I did what I had to do,’ I replied. I couldn’t accept the weight of her gratitude when she’d done so much for me since we’d left Seattle. Maybe now we were almost even.

‘What do you think will happen to Chris?’ Brooke asked, letting go of my hand.

‘Well, he’s definitely going to have to go to the hospital to get his hand fixed. Hopefully while he’s there, they’ll run his details and the FBI can come in and stick him in a hole of a jail in the middle of nowhere.’

‘That’s a nice thought,’ Brooke murmured. ‘Would you really have shot him in the face?’

I’d forgotten that particular threat.

‘I’m glad I didn’t have to,’ I said, which wasn’t really an answer. I’d seen enough gore and death in the past couple of weeks, I didn’t need to witness any more. And God knows what kind of trauma flashback that would have triggered. ‘It would’ve made things much more complicated, so it’s better that I didn’t.’

‘I’m sad you didn’t.’

I snorted, then turned to look at her again. ‘Are you okay, Brooke?’

She seemed to recognize that I didn’t mean in the immediate, physical way.

‘I’m scared,’ she murmured, and my heart clenched.

‘Of them coming back?’

‘Yeah. I know they’re probably in a hospital somewhere right now getting Chris’s hand un-stabbed, but they could still follow us.’

I was glad Brooke had been the first one to say it out loud. The thought of being followed by them again was a persistent, nagging voice in my head. ‘Do you want to check the car?’

She slumped a little. ‘Yes. I know there’s probably nothing there, but …’

‘You’ll feel better if you check,’ I finished for her. ‘We can do that.’

I borrowed a flashlight from the guy at the front desk so Brooke could check for another tracker and watched as she almost pulled the car to pieces, surveying every last inch of it before emerging, dirty and sweaty.

She tossed the flashlight in the air and caught it, flicking the light off neatly.

‘There’s nothing on it, Jessie.’

‘Good.’ I took her hand and squeezed it. ‘Let’s go out. Look around a bit.’

‘Ugh. I need to change first. I’m filthy.’

I didn’t want to go on a hike – we weren’t going to venture out onto one of the trails – but I liked the idea of wandering around the motel and the diner. I’d seen signs for a stables that offered horseback treks, and I wanted to go see the horses.

At noon it was hot outside. While I was waiting for Brooke to clean herself up, I swapped my jeans for shorts. I didn’t want to get sweatier than was strictly necessary. We detoured to the front desk to return the flashlight, then headed out around the back of the parking lot.

‘Okay, it is nice out here,’ Brooke said as we stepped onto one of the wide dirt paths.

‘I told you,’ I said mildly.

We walked for a few minutes in silence, following the path to the edge of the trees, then around another block of motel rooms.

‘You know I said before about my parents deciding on where I’m going to college?’ Brooke asked.

‘Yeah?’

She didn’t say anything for a long time, but I didn’t want to push.

‘I’m not going to fucking college,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll fail the entrance exams on purpose.’

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