Rue still argues with me. “It’s too risky to stay. We should walk tonight.”
Irritation burns through my body. “Walk where?” I challenge her, dropping my voice. “I have a bullet hole in my arm that feels like it’s infected, and Bullet can barely walk a mile without needing to be carried. We willdieout there, Rue. If the law doesn’t get us, the exposure will.”
She stares up at me, her green eyes brimming with exhausted, terrified tears.
“We stay,” I reiterate, my tone leaving no room for debate. “We bunker down. We keep the lights off at night, we scope this area out, andthenwe make a plan.”
She sighs, running her fingers through her hair. “For a week?”
“For as long as we need to, but no longer than a week. The house has running water. It has food in the pantry. It’s the safest place we could possibly be right now because no one on earth expects us to be here. This is just…Bill’shouse.” I reach out, my good hand gently gripping her forearm. “We’re going to be okay.”
“We need to probably sleep,” she chokes out, her gaze dropping to the linoleum floor.
“Go ahead. Take a shower, too,” I instruct softly, giving her shoulder a reassuring squeeze before letting go. “I’m going to take inventory of the food and see if he left a first-aid kit in the bathrooms. I also need to deal with my arm.”
She nods numbly, turning and shuffling down the hallway, Bullet trotting faithfully behind her.
I watch her go, the heavy weight of our reality settling on my chest like an anvil. I told her we would be fine, but the truth is, staying here is amassivegamble. I don’t know for sure that Bill doesn’t have a wife or kids coming home.
But as my left arm throbs with a sickening, rhythmic pulse, and my head swims, I know it’s a gamble we have to take. If we don’t stop and heal, neither of us is making it to Maricopa.
I turn back to the kitchen cabinets, pulling open the pantry doors to see what Bill left us to survive on, while letting out a deep breath.
We are officially playing house in the middle of a manhunt.
This is going to be…fun.
34
RUE
There aretwo bathrooms in this disgusting house. Thankfully, the guest bathroom is probably the cleanest spot in the house.
It smells like some sort of cleaner and stale potpourri, completely untouched by whatever bachelor filth Bill has going on in the kitchen and the master suite. I lock the door behind me and lean my forehead against the cool, faux-wood paneling, letting out a breath that rattles all the way down to my ribs.
We are hiding in a stranger’s house.The entire state of Texas is looking for us, and we are quite literally playing house.
We’re insane. We’re absolutely insane.
I peel myself away from the door and catch sight of my reflection in the vanity mirror. I look like a ghost. There are dark, bruised bags under my eyes, a nasty scrape along my temple from the crash, and my hair is a tangled, matted bird’s nest of alfalfa, sweat, and dirt.
I don’t even look like me.When was the last time I even ate?
My hands shake as I strip off my jeans and shirt. They’re soiled, stained with bar ditch mud and the grime of the RV’s underbelly. I leave them in a pathetic heap on the linoleum floorand step into the shower, turning the water on as hot as I can stand.
The moment the spray hits my shoulders, a choked sob rips out of my throat.
It stings. The hot water bites into the cuts on my shins, the bruises on my ribs, and the scrape on my head. But underneath the pain is a blinding, overwhelming relief.
I grab a generic bar of Ivory soap from the wire rack and scrub until my skin is raw. I watch the water swirl down the drain, taking with it the dirt of the desert, the smell of the diesel fumes, and the physical remnants of everything Noah and I did in the rafters of that barn.
I stand under the spray until the water runs lukewarm, my muscles turning to absolute jelly.
Holy shit. This feels good.
When I finally step out, I dry off with a slightly stiff towel from the rack and dig through my backpack. I pull on a pair of clean black leggings and an oversized, faded band tee. It’s not much, but putting on clean clothes makes me feel a fraction more human.
Just a fraction, though.
