Page 59

Noah

"There's supposed to be a small gas station off this exit—one without cameras. It's on the list," Tate says.

I don't know how long it's been—I don't know how long I've been asleep, but it's still dark, and from what I can tell, we're the only car on this mountain highway, wherever it is.

And since I don't want to be awake, I close my eyes again.

"How's her arm?" Silas asks.

"It's fine. The bullet really did just graze her. It looks like a deep scratch."

"We should have left her at the house. I wasn't thinking about it at the time. I was…high on the kill."

"Yeah, you killed her mom and made her eat her dad," Tate says. "Maybe she'll finally hate you as much as she hates me now."

"Probably not," Silas says.

Tate laughs. "Yeah, you're right. Probably not. I couldn't leave her, though."

"Well, if we're taking her with us, that changes things. We'll have to make new arrangements."

"We're not taking her. I'm killing her—you know that."

"She's a part of us. We can't—"

"You're right. She can't come with us, and she's a part of us, so I have to. How are we supposed to start a new life if there's a part of us, like an arm or a leg, in Oregon?" Tate asks.

"You're making this worse for me," Silas says. "You realize that, right? Why don't I just pull over, and you can do it right now?"

"I'm not going to do that," Tate says. He pulls me tighter, resting his chin on top of my head and stroking my hair. "Her own mother just tried to kill her; I don't want her to be scared anymore. I'll do it when we get to the first house—nicely, while she's sleeping. I'll dig a hole in the backyard, in the woods. It'll be respectful, not like what we did with the others at the house."

"Damn it, Tate! I—"

"Shhh! She's sleeping. If you wake her up, she's just going to hurt again."

I am. I am hurting again.

"I love her.Iwould have had no problem loving her out loud."

"Well, you didn't, did you? How many times did you sit in your car outside that house at night without ever going to the door? You didn't even try."

"You followed me?"

I feel Tate shrug. "I thought you were still seeing each other and lying to me about it. But you were just sitting there—you never went in."

"I thought that was what she wanted, and Ithoughtshe was going to be happy."

"Are we really going to spend another two months fighting about Noah again? Huh? You agreed to this. She didn't have to be at that house with them. We can't take her with us, and we can't let her go. At this point, they'll arrest her as an accomplice, anyway. She doesn't have a life to go back to. She's the fox, Silas; I'm only putting her out of her misery."

Silas relents, like I did a while ago. Tate is right about that, too, though. I was Mia's friend. We have a past, and I was seen with them at the carnival; I let them into my house on camera. I left with them on camera, too, willingly.

I do look like an accomplice.

I cut off Paul's hand. If Silas hadn't sliced him open, he still would have bled out and died from that injury. Maybe I am an accomplice.

If I live long enough for the shock to wear off, I'm going to have a nervous fucking breakdown.

Silas pulls up into the parking lot of a small mountain gas station, parking next to one of only two pumps, and turns off the car.