126

I sat there, my back against the rough pavement, my knees pulled tight to my chest, arms wrapped around myself like that would somehow hold me together. My head felt like it was splitting in two, the dull throb pulsing behind my eyes making everything hazy, everything slow. My body ached, my feet were sore, and every breath scraped against my throat like I’d swallowed sand. I hummed to myself, low, barely a whisper, the sound of it more in my head than out of my lips—Not a lot, just forever, Adrienne Lenker. The song Dominic and I had claimed as ours, the only thing I could think of now that didn’t make me want to scream.

And then, something else cut through the fog in my head. A low hum in the distance. I stopped humming, held my breath, and listened. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe it was just the wind playing tricks on me. But then it grew louder, rolling towards me from somewhere far down the road. My heart jumped into my throat, and before I could stop myself, I scrambled up to my feet so fast my legs almost gave out beneath me. My head snapped toward the direction of the sound, and I waited, my eyes burning from how wide I was forcing them to stay open, willing a car to appear. Please, please, please, let it be real.

And then it was. A blur at first. Headlights just barely cutting through the early morning light. It took a few seconds for the shape to form, for me to make out the sleek build of a sedan rolling toward me, its speed steady, its presence almost too good to be true. I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I threw my arms in the air and started waving like a lunatic, stepping onto the road, my voice breaking as I screamed, "Hey! Hey! Please, stop!" My legs moved on their own, jumping up and down, my entire body flailing like I was losing my mind. I probably looked like it too, but I didn’t care.

The car got closer, and for a split second, I caught a glimpse of the driver and passenger through the windshield—two college kids, maybe a couple, maybe siblings, their faces blurred by the motion, but I knew they saw me. I knew it. But they didn’t slow down. If anything, they sped up, the rush of wind as they passed sending me stumbling back, my shirt hiking up just enough for the cold air to bite at my exposed stomach. I spun around, my chest heaving, my hands shaking as I clenched them into fists. "You motherfuckers!" I screamed after them, my voice cracking, my throat burning. "Fucking assholes!" My voice broke off into something that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a growl, just something raw and ugly and hopeless. They never looked back. The taillights disappeared, just like that, gone.

I stood there for a second, my legs trembling, my breath coming out in ragged gasps. And then I walked. One foot in front of the other, my limbs feeling like lead. More minutes passed, each one dragging longer than the last. The silence was unbearable, pressing in from all sides, the only sound coming from my own footsteps scraping against the road.

Then another one. A Jeep this time. I saw it from a distance, my body already preparing to throw myself in front of it if that’s what it took. I waved again, screamed, pleaded, did everything but drop to my knees. And just like the first car, they didn’t even slow down. If anything, they veered slightly away, like even being near me was some kind of risk.

The third had been a couple. A small, beat-up Honda Civic, the kind college kids drove when they had nothing but dreams and student loans. I had caught a glimpse of them through the windshield….young, maybe early twenties, the girl laughing at something the guy said, her head tilting toward him, fingers brushing his arm. I had thrown myself forward, nearly stumbling into the road, my hands slamming against the hood as they braked hard. For a second, just a split second, I thought they would help. But then I saw it. The flicker of fear in the girl’s eyes. The way the guy’s knuckles went white around the steering wheel. And then, just like that, the car swerved around me, tires screeching as they peeled away. The gust of wind from their speed knocked me back a step, my shirt riding up, exposing my belly to the cool morning air. My breath hitched, my fingers curling into fists. “Fuck you!” I had screamed, my voice cracking, my throat raw. But they were already gone.

The fourth and fifth weren’t even worth remembering. A black SUV, its tinted windows making it impossible to see inside, and a minivan with a woman behind the wheel who barely glanced at me before shaking her head. I hadn’t even bothered to wave for the last one. I just stood there, feet planted, watching as they disappeared down the endless stretch of road like the others before them.

Minutes stretched into what felt like an hour, my legs carrying me further, my hope draining with every passing second. Five cars had gone by. Five fucking cars. None of them had stopped. None of them had even given me a second glance. My voice had gone hoarse, my throat raw from shouting, and my arms ached from all the desperate waving. I was done. I was so fucking done.

The sound hit me first. The deep, guttural roar of an engine pushed to its limits, the unmistakable pounding of music vibrating through the air. It wasn’t just any music. It was Deftones, loud and heavy, the kind of shit that made your bones shake if you stood too close to the speakers. The kind of music a lunatic would blast at full volume while speeding down an empty road in the middle of nowhere. If I hadn’t been so fucking desperate, I would have questioned what kind of maniac was behind the wheel. But I was desperate, and desperation didn’t give a fuck about logic.

The car was coming fast. Too fast. I could see it now, the sleek, low body hugging the road like it belonged to it, the gleaming deep blue paint reflecting what little light the sky had left. A Ferrari LaFerrari. I recognized it immediately. A goddamn hybrid hypercar, worth well over a million, and built to eat asphalt. Dominic had driven one once, back when we lived in that smelly shoe-box apartment in New York, where the walls were so thin you could hear the neighbor snoring through them. Where the ceiling leaked when it rained, and the heater worked when it wanted to. He never had enough to get us a decent place, but he somehow always had enough to rent the most expensive cars for the weekend. Priorities. He fucking had them. And this car—this exact model—was one of them.

I didn’t think. I just acted. My legs moved before my brain could catch up, and suddenly I was in the middle of the road, my arms flailing, my voice breaking as I screamed at the top of my lungs, using every ounce of strength I had left to flag the car down. I wasn’t subtle. I wasn’t careful. I was a fucking lunatic myself, waving, jumping, yelling. The engine roared louder, the car didn’t slow. If anything, it felt like it was coming even faster, eating up the distance between us in seconds, the headlights glaring like twin white-hot suns.

That was when I realized it. This guy wasn’t stopping.

Panic hit like a hammer to the chest, but it was too late. I barely had a second to react before I threw myself to the side, my body hitting the rough asphalt with a sickening thud. Pain exploded through me, my elbow scraping against the road, my ribs slamming hard enough to send a sharp burst of agony through my torso. I gasped, a broken sound that barely made it past my lips, my breath catching as I curled in on myself. My cheek was pressed to the filthy ground, the taste of dust and sweat thick on my tongue. Tears burned down my face, hot and angry, blurring my vision as I sucked in ragged, uneven breaths.

I was done.

I couldn’t do this anymore.

I lay there, shaking, hating myself, hating the driver, hating Dominic for not being here when I needed him most. My chest heaved, my nails digging into my palms as I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe I should have stayed back. Maybe Sophia had lied. Maybe I was running toward nothing, chasing a fucking illusion, and all of this was for nothing.

And then I heard it.

The deep growl of the engine shifting. The screech of tires spinning against the road.

I forced my eyes open, lifting my head just enough to see the impossible.

The car was reversing.

I didn’t get up.

Didn’t move.

Didn’t even fucking breathe for a second, my body sprawled on the asphalt, chest heaving, ribs aching like they’d been split open with a crowbar. The cold bite of the road was seeping through my clothes, into my skin, into my bones, but I didn’t care. I just lay there, eyes burning, throat raw, hands scraped up from the gravel, waiting. Because if I moved too fast—if I let myself hope for even a second—that car might just take off again, and I couldn’t take that kind of rejection anymore.

The music was still pounding, bass rattling so hard it felt like it was vibrating against my skull, shaking my ribs from the inside. The unmistakable, dragging wail of Chino Moreno’s voice bleeding through the speakers like it was pouring right out of my own damn soul.

"I watched you change… into a fly…"

I closed my eyes.

"I looked away… you were on fire…"

Of fucking course.

If there was ever a song to soundtrack my entire goddamn life, it was Change (In the House of Flies) playing at full fucking volume from whatever lunatic had almost turned me into roadkill.

I should’ve known better than to think this meant anything.

I should’ve just stayed down.

And then, over the music, cutting through the thick, distorted guitars and Chino’s agonized crooning like a blade, came the voice.

“What the fuck, you crazy bitch?! Are you trying to make me kill someone with my car for the third time?!”

The accent was thick, words snapping together, rolling in a way that made it hard to tell if she was actually mad or just like this all the time.

I opened my eyes, blinking against the glare of the headlights, and lifted my head just enough to see her.

She was hanging halfway out the driver’s side window, platinum blonde hair falling into her face, a thick, healthy strand of fringe slipping over one eye. Her skin was pale, smooth, glowing even in the dim, flickering street lights, and her eyes—blue, bored, half-lidded like she’d just woken up from a nap she didn’t give a shit about—fixed on me with a look that was more annoyed than anything else.

She was stunning. In the kind of way that made you certain she’d been on the run since birth.

And she was looking at me like I’d just pissed on her windshield.

She sighed, shaking her head as she slammed the car into park, the music still blasting so hard I could feel it in my teeth.

“Merda,” she muttered, rubbing a hand down her face before jabbing a finger toward me. “You are insane, you know that? You could be dead, capisci? Dead! And then who’s gotta clean up the mess? Me!”

I pushed myself up on my elbows, wincing as my ribs protested, but before I could say a single word, she suddenly narrowed her eyes at me, squinting like she was trying to place me. And then—

"Wait a second," she called, pointing again. “You’re her, aren’t you? You’re the crazy bitch all over the news! The most wanted in New York right now for—what was it?—breaking out of the police station? Killing cops?”

My breath stalled in my throat.

But she didn’t look horrified.

Didn’t look scared or pissed or like she was about to throw the car into drive and speed the fuck away.

No.

She looked impressed.

Actually, genuinely, impressed.

Like she’d just run into her favorite underground boxer in the middle of the street and not a goddamn fugitive.

A slow smirk pulled at her mouth as she leaned further out the window, voice still raised over the music.

“Damn,” she muttered, shaking her head, looking me up and down like she’d just stumbled on a fucking unicorn. “You got balls, tesoro.”

And then she jerked her chin toward the passenger side door.

“Well? Get in.”

No questions asked. No hesitation. She just offered me, a fucking fugitive, into her fucking car.

I should’ve said no. Should’ve at least hesitated. Should’ve taken a second to process that this woman, this lunatic with a race car and a mouth like she’d been raised in a bar fight, had just invited me into her world without a single thought. It was too easy. Too fucking easy.

People didn’t do that.

Not unless they wanted something. Not unless they were worse than whatever the hell they were picking up off the street.

I hesitated.