Page 52 of Sweet Doe
Her breath catches. “Asher?—”
“I mean it.” My heart’s a war drum in my chest. “I’d rather burn alive with you than live a second without you. Don’t fucking test me on that.”
She goes still.
We stare at each other across the room, the fire casting shadows across her face, flickering like judgment, likefate. And I see it—right there, behind her eyes—the war she’s fighting. The girl she used to be versus the girl I’ve turned her into. And for a terrifying heartbeat, I don’t know who’s going to win.
But then…
She steps closer toward me.
One step.Two.
She drops her bag at my feet and places a trembling hand over my chest, right above the steady thrum of my heart.
“You’re all I have,” she whispers. “Without you… I don’t want to go back. There’s nothing there for me. Nothing real.”
It knocks the air out of my lungs.
I reach up, catch her wrist, and press a kiss to her knuckles. “I’d burn the world for you,” I say, dead fucking serious. “But I need to know you’d do the same.”
Her eyes don’t leave mine. “I already did.”
Silence falls like snow.
Thick. Heavy. Sacred.
I gather her up in my arms, lips brushing her temple, and breathe her in. She smells like smoke and cold and the barest trace of blood. The scent of loyalty. Of love.
“Help me finish packing,” I say, forcing myself to let go. “We don’t have long.”
We move like a machine after that. Efficient. Quiet. Two killers on the run. I load the gas canisters, the spare fuel for the generator, water, jerky, dried fruit. Ammunition. Blankets. Firestarter. I throw in the notebook with my journal entries—everything I’ve tracked about her since before I took her. Maybe she’ll read through it one day and understand the truth of it all.
That none of this was an accident.
And that from the moment I saw her, I knew I was never letting her go.
The clouds above are low and grey as I load up the SUV, the sky pressing down on us. The snow’s stopped for now, but it won’t stay that way for long.
Inside, Sloan stands near the front door, bag slung over one shoulder, the other hand wrapped around the hem of her hoodie like she’s anchoring herself. She looks like she wants to say something but can’t.
I step inside and close the distance between us.
“What?” I ask.
She looks up. “What if they find us anyway?”
“Then we go further.”
“Where?”
“Alaska. Canada. Anywhere no one’s stupid enough to follow.”
Her lips twitch at that. Almost a smile. “You’ve thought about this?”
“Every fucking day since I found you.” I swipe my thumb along her cheek. “The only thing I didn’t plan for was how hard I’d fall.”
She doesn’t flinch when I lean in and press my mouth to hers. Instead, her lips part, and for a moment, everything else vanishes. The blood. The fear. The consequences. It’s just us.
