Page 120 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

Again.

Jane tried not to think about the baby growing inside of her.

“Darling,” Nick said. “Tell me it’s okay. We’re okay. Tell me, please.”

Jane reluctantly nodded. She lacked the energy to argue otherwise.

“My love.”

He kissed her on the mouth with a surprising passion. She found herself unable to summon any desire as their tongues touched. Still, she wrapped her arms around him because she desperately needed to feel normal. They hadn’t made love in Oslo, even after three months of separation. They’d both been too anxious, then the shooting had happened and they were terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing, then they were back in San Francisco and he had left her alone until this morning. Jane hadn’t wanted him then, either, but she remembered keenly craving the after. To be held in his arms. To press her ear to his chest and listen to the steady, content beat of his heart. To tell him about the baby. To see the happiness in his expression.

He hadn’t been happy the first time.

“Come on, love.” Nick gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Jane let him pull her down to the futon mattress. His mouth went to her ear again, but only to brush his lips against her skin. He wrapped his body around hers. Legs intertwined, arms holding her close. He made a pillow for her head out of the crook of his elbow. Instead of feeling the usual sense of peace, Jane felt like she was trapped in place by an octopus.

She stared up at the ceiling of the van. She had no thoughts in her mind. She was too exhausted. Her body felt numb, but in a different way from before. She wasn’t being shot at or fretting about Danberry’s interrogation or mourning Martin or worrying that they would all get caught. She was looking at her future and realizing that she was never going to get out of this. Even if every facet of Nick’s plan worked, even if they managed to escape to Switzerland, Jane was always going to be living inside of a cartwheel.

Nick’s breathing started to slow. She could feel his body relax. Jane thought to slide out from his grasp, but she hadn’t the strength. Her eyelids began to flutter. She could almost taste every beat of her heart. She let herself give in to it, falling asleep for what she thought was just a moment, but they both woke up when Paula stopped at a gas station just inside the Nevada state line.

They were the only customers. The attendant inside barely glanced up from the television when they all climbed out of the van.

“Snacks?” Paula asked. No one answered, so she loped off to the store with her hands stuck into the pockets of the brown jacket.

Andrew worked the gas pump. He closed his eyes and leaned against the van as the tank started to fill.

Nick didn’t speak to anyone. He didn’t clap together his hands and try to rally the troops. He walked a few yards away from them. His hands were in his back pockets. He stared out at the road. Jane watched him look up at the sky, then out at the vast, brown landscape.

Everyone was subdued. Jane couldn’t tell if it was from shellshock or debilitating fatigue. There was an almost tangible feel among them that they had reached a point of no return. The giddy high they had foolishly experienced when they’d talked about being on the lam from the law, as if they were gangsters in a James Cagney movie, had been eviscerated by reality.

Nick was the only one who could reliably pull them out of free fall. Jane had seen it happen so many times before. Nick could walk into a room and instantly make everything better. She had witnessed it this morning at the shed. Andrew and Jane were quarreling with Paula, who was about to kill them all, then Nick had somehow turned them all into a single, working group again. Everyone looked to him for his strength, his surety of purpose.

His charisma.

Nick turned away from the road. His eyes skipped over Jane as he walked toward the bathrooms on the side of the building. His shoulders were slumped. His feet dragged across the asphalt. Her heart broke at the sight of him. Jane had only seen him like this a handful of times before, so stuck in a fugue of depression that he could barely lift his head.

It was her fault.

She had doubted him, the one betrayal that Nick could not abide. He was a man, not an all-seeing god. Yes, what had happened in the shed was terrible, but they were still alive. Nick had made that happen. He had designed drills and made sketches to map out their escape. He had insisted they practice until their arms and legs felt weak. To keep them safe. To keep them on track. To keep their spirits up and their minds focused and their hearts motivated. No one else had the ability to do all of those things.

And no one, especially Jane, had stopped to think what a toll these responsibilities were taking on him.

She followed Nick’s path to the men’s bathroom. She didn’t think about what she would find when she pushed open the door, but she felt sick with her own complicity when she saw Nick.

His hands were braced on the sink. His head was bent. When he looked up at Jane, tears were streaming from his eyes.

“I’ll be out in a minute.” He turned away, grabbing a handful of paper towels. “Maybe you could help Penny with—”

Jane wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her face to his back.

He laughed, but only at himself. “I seem to be falling apart.”

Jane squeezed him as tight as she dared.

His chest heaved as he took a shuddered breath. His arms covered hers. He shifted his weight into her and Jane held him up because that was what she did best.

“I love you,” she told him, kissing the back of his neck.