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“Did you lose your other car?”
“Nah. I returned it to the priest I borrowed it from.” Avery purses her lips and I get a flicker of the woman she used to be, and not just before all this started—before she put me in jail.ThatAvery. “I gave a hundred grand to the church for their troubles. Think that’s a good enough tip?”
“I think in churches they call it a tithe. And no, I don’t. A hundred thousand is nothing to a Capulet.”
“This city is nothing to a Capulet right now.” Avery tips her head back and drinks in the sun. “That’s why I’m skipping town. And one other reason.”
“What’s that?”
She opens her eyes again and I’m swallowed up in all that they contain. I could have survived a long time in captivity with those eyes. I did survive a long time in captivity with only her eyes to remind me of the outside world, of better things. I did. We both did.
“You promised me a trip to Joshua Tree to see the closest thing to heaven.”
I told her about that place when she was delirious. When she was hallucinating. When we were both skating the sharp edge of madness.She remembers that?
It breaks my heart that she remembers, stomps on it, but there’s nothing for it but to climb into the car. Avery gets in next to me in a waft of shampoo and some kind of perfume that makes me think of linen and honeysuckle. She smells like hope, and I refuse to entertain the possibility that there is none.
“Hate to break it to you, but I doubt we’ll get further than the freeway entrance. I’m surprised the alarm hasn’t sounded already.”
“Alarm?”
I hoist my foot onto the dash, rolling up my jeans. I tap the monitor cutting into my ankle. "In case you hadn't noticed, I'm wearing an ankle monitor, Aves. I can't piss off the side of that balcony without it going off, let alone join you on a road trip. Much as I'd love to."
Avery smiles smugly. "In caseyouhadn't noticed, that ankle monitor stopped working about ten minutes ago. At least, it should have, for the amount of money I just used to bribe a federal judge to disarm it."
She pulls out a pair of scissors and a fuck-off knife. “I didn’t know what would be strong enough to get it off,” she says breezily, handing me the weapons. “Have at it.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded. “For real?”
She grins. “For real. That thing is dead. And your bail conditions have been changed. Judge Rosenbaum has a nice new car, a trip to the Bahamas, and you have no more restrictions on your bail. Except that you can’t leave the state of California. He wouldn’t budge on that, but I think we can work with it.”
“He got rid of all the conditions? The ankle monitor? Being a mile away from you at all times?”
“All of those.” Her grin fades slightly as she looks at the road ahead. “The major problem we have now is my family. They won’t stop until they find me. So we have to go somewhere off-grid. A commune in Joshua Tree sounds pretty far off the grid.”
Hope and caffeine make my heart pound. Is this real? After everything being so impossible, could it really be this easy? “Yeah,” I say slowly. “No cell reception, no roads, and no cops who can access the federal land. It’s pretty much perfect.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Avery says, sounding relieved. “Because believe me, they won’t stop looking.”
I believe her. And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure we aren’t separated ever again.
“You want me to help you with that thing?” Avery asks, gesturing to the monitor. I shake my head. “Nah. I got it. “
Surprisingly, the scissors do the trick. They’re sharp, and the plastic eventually buckles when I hack through it with them. I laugh, my bare ankle almost scandalous.
“Shit. Let’s get out of here before I wake up from this dream.”
I reach for my seat belt, and the buckle slides home with a scrape and a click. Avery reaches for my hand and squeezes.
“Where to?” She flips her sunglasses back down over her eyes and peers at the traffic, the car roaring to life.
“Get on the freeway.” I toss the ankle monitor out of my window, hearing it drop heavily onto the road below, and let myself relax for the first time in what feels like ten years. “Head south.”
CHAPTER FORTY
AVERY
The farther we get from San Francisco, the easier it is to relax. Is it too easy? Probably. I should assume that enemies are everywhere. But with my hands on the wheel and Rome in the passenger seat, I can’t help myself. This vehicle was built for rough roads. I might not have been born that way, but I’ve been forged into it now.
