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His arm is trashed, blown veins and bruises giving me some idea of what’s happened. Jo mentioned that her mom had some addiction issues when she was younger, and would use drugs to take the edge off when stress took over. It’s something she passed along to Jo too; bad coping habits. The sleeping pills she became addicted to were given to her by the hospital, but she fell into a pattern she learned from her mom and struggled to break.
“Maybe we can bribe Jonathan to go get help,” Jo continues, starting to pace again. “He’s bound to be somewhere nearby, right? I doubt he lost track of us if your brother threatened him to keep his eye on us. Maybe he can go get supplies.”
I glance at Alastair again. He’s in a deep sleep, and I wonder if he’s going to wake up anytime soon. His skin was icy from the weather, so we started a fire but each time I touch his head he’s still kind of clammy. He could have a cold, or worse.
But my mind travels to Xeno’s concerns with his guards, and I don’t miss their lingering presence outside the cabin. I took the long way here, losing them in traffic, and if they had a tracker on the car it isn’t working out here. That, or somethingelse delayed them. Dante is supposed to be with Xeno, but we didn’t pause long enough to check if there were one or two of them in the car when we left the house.
For now, it’s just the three of us.
“Do you have more supplies here?” she goes on. “Maybe we should turn on the water heater so he can have a shower. He needs a shower after this right? And then we can work on our story for Sterling-”
“Jo,” I interrupt carefully, meeting her gaze when she turns. “We both know that isn’t how this is going to go.”
She makes a pained noise in her throat, looking at him again. I agreed to drive out here after hours passed and no one found Alastair. She kept panicking, and I was concerned about what that meant. The authorities hadn’t found a body yet, which was a good sign, and sitting around waiting for news drove both of us stir crazy.
I’ve played this game before, thinking someone I cared for was missing or dead. I never expected that Alastair could pull on my heartstrings like that after all these years, but he managed to. Now we’re biding our time when there’s no way we all get out of this together. Too many people are looking, and we will be at the top of the list when Sterling realizes we’re gone.
She stops walking long enough to brush the fringe off of his forehead before she starts moving again, unable to sit still. “You’re being a pessimist. We don’t know the full story. When he wakes up he can tell us his side without any lies-”
“Jo-”
“And then Sterling can compare that to the old story and my mother’s story and they can determine who is the guiltiest of the two-”
“Jo-”
“But we can’t do any of that if he doesn’t wake up!” she screams, slamming her hands down against the back of thecouch. Her eyes are shiny, and she speaks through gritted teeth when she continues. “We can work this out if he just wakes the fuck up and talks to us.”
I hold out a hand, sitting on the arm couch. She hesitates before marching over to me, her arms crossed beneath her chest. She wore layers this time when we went out, and her top is still a little damp when she presses her hands to my chest and leans in, eyes briefly dipping to the gun resting at my hip before she meets my eyes again.
Her breath lingers on my lips when she speaks. “This can’t be how our story ends. He doesn’t deserve to go back.”
“We can’t be the judge and jury,” I tell her, but it hurts to say the words. “Even if we kept driving, took him across state lines into Georgia, this doesn’t just end because we want it to. There’s no safe word, no end game, nothing to stop this. Alastair Constantine is known as a murderer, and that’s what he will always be in the eyes of the law.”
She shoves me and turns away again, moving to kneel at his side. “I don’t accept it. That’s notfair. What is the point of having laws if it fucks over the innocent?”
“We don’t know if he’s innocent,” I remind her, and she shoots me another glare. “We just know he’s not the only one at fault.”
Jo shakes her head again, continuing to stare down at him. “It’s not good enough.”
Sighing, I don’t know what else to say. We argued on the rest of the drive to the cabin after I dragged Alastair into the car. At least there aren’t many people out here. Citrus Grove is small, but this area is rural. The houses around here are spread far enough apart that no one could see us and I’m positive the dreary weather helped. That doesn’t excuse the fact that the lights in the cabin are on and there’s a fire. We could’ve avoided those two things, but the priority is ensuring Alastair gets warm.His bandage on his leg is changed, but that’s all we could do. Even if he wakes up, I don’t think we’re getting out of here.
“He doesn’t look like a killer now,” she says quietly, her voice slicing through the quiet room. “He just… he looks like I remember him. He looks loving. Handsome.”
I smile at her words. The Alastair from our past would complain if Jo said something like that and would make jokes about how tough he is. I don’t know if he still has that sense of humor though. As much as I’ve missed him, and doubt some of the evidence against him, he’s still dangerous. He could wake up and turn on us.
So I keep watching his chest, his face, looking for signs that he’s waking up. I’ve missed him, and I know this opportunity won’t last long, but I don’t fully trust him. Hedoeslive in Jo’s memories as a monster, even if she’s drawn to the side she fell in love with instead.
“Do you think they’ll find us here?” Jo says, dragging me from my thoughts.
“Not as quickly as they would if we had our phones,” I say. We left them back at Emeric’s. I know the drive to the old cabin by heart, and these aren’t the types of roads getting redone and upgraded unless the rich who own the properties are paying for custom driveways. Fifteen years later and the route was exactly the same. “But if they get suspicious, they can probably figure it out. We’re going to get in trouble for assisting a criminal.”
“I don’t care about that part,” she says, her eyes remaining on him. “I’ll take the fall.”
I just shake my head, staying quiet. I’m not going to let Jo do that, even if it was her idea. She can argue with me about it, but I’ll tell the FBI I did this. I searched for Alastair, I decided to bring him here and not tell the authorities. I don’t want her to be punished for still loving him.
The minutes tick by, and I look between Alastair and the windows as time moves on. The sooner Alastair wakes up, the sooner we can all talk, but I’m beginning to worry he’ll remain unconscious. If that happens, we might miss the only opportunity we have to talk without being watched. I don’t see how we could ever be together again with the charges against him. We’re only delaying what comes next.
Jo gasps, leaping backward, and I’m on my feet in an instant as my gaze snaps back to them again. Alastair woke up while I was glaring out the window, so I’m slightly delayed when he suddenly bolts up on the couch, glaring at the two of us with a wild look in his eyes.