“No,” I said suddenly, rising from the bed to stand before them as my brain still struggled to figure this out. “If we call them they’ll realise we’re on to them and whatever the fuck they’re doing. If we give away the fact that we know where they are, they’ll realise I can trace them and they’ll switch their phones off.”
“So what are we going to do?” Kyan demanded.
“Get dressed,” I said, the only option clear to me before I even had to run over all of the possibilities. “Coats, boots, everything. We’ll take my car. We’re going after them.”
Kyan and Blake exchanged a heated look before turning and racing back downstairs to do as I’d said. I hurried to my closet to follow my own advice.
I didn’t know what the hell Tatum and Monroe were up to, but we were going to find out.
Run, run, as fast as you can. When I catch you, you’ll be sorry you ran.
Three hours was a long time to be trapped in a small space with a beautiful girl. Especially one who made me laugh so easily and somehow got me to open up about all kinds of things I hadn’t even thought about in years, much less discussed.
We’d told each other stories of our childhoods when our families had been alive and we’d been happy. When neither of us had been forced to live every day with the burden of grief weighing us down. And it was, nice to think about those days. To smile about them and let myself remember that I’d been happy once. Loved.
After hours on the freeway, we’d pulled off and Tatum had directed me through small towns and out into the wilderness of a thick forest. We’d followed smaller and smaller roads before finally ending up driving down a dirt track all the way to the end where the trees closed in too much to allow us to go on. She’d put her boots back on as we approached, ready to get out the moment we arrived.
“It’s just through those trees,” Tatum said quietly as I cut the engine and looked at her in the darkness. It was just gone five am but the sun wasn’t due to rise for hours yet and even though the night was clear, the moon was low, so there wasn’t much light to see her by.
“What time is your dad getting here?” I asked as I squinted in the direction she’d pointed and just about made out the shape of a cabin hiding there between the towering trunks.
“He just said today. I don’t know if he’ll be there yet or if I’ll have to wait…”
“Why do you keep saying I like this is the bit where I fuck off?” I asked, trying to keep any resentment I felt about that out of my tone.
Tatum bit her lip and looked at me in the darkness. “Dad told me to come alone…”
“You think it’ll spook him if I’m still hanging about?” I asked.
“Maybe.” She looked away from me as she tugged her coat off of the back seat and wriggled into it.
“Can I wait here or do I need to move further away then?” I asked.
“Wait?” she asked, her eyes flashing my way for a moment then away again quickly.
My stomach tightened as my suspicions were confirmed in that one word. Even though she’d said she was coming back to Everlake after this meeting, now that she was here the doubts were creeping in.
“You’re thinking about going with him, aren’t you?” I asked in a low voice.
“No,” she said instantly then frowned like she’d heard the lie in her own voice. “I mean, he never said anything about that. He just wants to speak with me. But…he’s on the run, so I don’t know if there’s a chance that I could possibly stay with him anyway and-”
“But what if there is?” I asked, my heart pounding as I fought against the selfish desire in me to beg her not to go with him even if he asked her to.
“I…”
“I get it,” I said, turning away from the sadness in her big blue eyes to look out into the trees. “He’s your dad. If my mom showed up, asking me to run off into the night with her, I’d do it too. No question.”
“No question?” she breathed, but I didn’t have anything to say to that. My mom was long dead anyway. Her remains disposed of by the state and her ashes long since scattered to the wind along with everything I’d ever loved.
“There was a twenty four hour diner back in that last town,” I said. It was about a thirty minute drive away but better that than the whole three hours. “I can go back there and…get breakfast or whatever. I’ll wait. As long as it takes for you to decide. Just send me a message to let me know if you need me to come back for you, or…”
“Or?” she breathed and I made myself look at her again, a lump forming in my throat as I forced myself not to reach for her, to brush her hair behind her ear, skim my thumb across her full lips, lean in and taste the sweetness of her skin. Fuck.
“Or if it’s goodbye,” I finished. Because we both knew if she ran with him she wouldn’t be coming back. Ever.
“Goodbye?” she whispered and the word carved into me as it hung in the air between us.
She felt like this unfulfilled promise. This offer I took too long to accept. A form of magic I should have claimed for myself before it was too late. But now it was too late.
“I’ll wait in the diner,” I said roughly, my throat thick with unspoken words.
“Nash…” she
