The hours crawled by in floorboard creaks, refrigerator hum, and pine branches dragging softly against the siding. Dex moved through quiet circuits from window to door to back window and then the road side again. He kept his body between the outside world and my sister without making a speech out of it.
Sometimes he caught my attention across the room.
Every time, I remembered his thumb moving over my wrist after the cuff opened. I remembered his mouth at my throat. I remembered my name still locked behind my teeth while his was allowed out.
Every time, I turned away first.
We didn’t sleep much.
Dex dozed for twenty minutes in a chair angled toward the door, arms folded, boots planted. I pretended not to watch him. Crystal pretended not to watch me watching him.
Nobody believed anybody.
Before dawn, we packed the cabin without turning on the main lights.
The food went back in the grocery bag. Crystal changed into jeans and a soft green sweater from the duffel she’d brought, then tucked the key chain back under the collar. I laced my boots properly for the first time since the motel. Dex checked the road from the porch, came back inside, and picked up the cuffs from the table.
I saw the metal in his hand.
Dex saw me see.
He didn’t hide them. He didn’t offer them. He carried them because he was still Dex.
I could live with that.
The sky was dark when we stepped outside. The mountain air bit cooler before sunrise, sharp with pine and damp dirt. Crystal locked the cabin and slipped the key under the loose porch board where the rental instructions had said to leave it. Her hand shook once.
I caught it and squeezed.
She squeezed back.
Dex opened the rear passenger door of his pickup for Crystal. “Stay low until we’re off the rental road.”
She met his eyes. “Thank you.”
“Thank me when the records are in your attorney’s hands.”
“That seems fair.”
Crystal climbed in and ducked down behind the front seat.
I stood beside the truck, arms folded. “You’re putting me in front?”
Dex shut Crystal’s door and came around to the passenger side. “You want to watch the road?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re in front.”
He opened the passenger door.
Neither of us moved.
The last time I’d sat there, I’d been wearing Crystal’s name and his cuffs. The seat belt had crossed my chest. The console had held his water bottle. His hand had been close enough to stop me from doing something stupid, and I’d done several stupid things anyway.
Now the cab smelled the same, full of leather, dust, pine, and Dex.
He held the door open.
