Blood to Dust(89)

We stand in customs for forty minutes before they let us out, but when they do—when we walk through those sliding glass doors, pass the Duty Free shops, pass the meeting point where dozens of people wait behind barriers, clutching balloons and flowers and signs with names we don’t know—we laugh. Happy, joyous laughter. We made it. Hand in hand, our chests rattle. A symphony of bliss. We’re free.

No longer on US soil.

No more Aryan Brotherhood.

No more FBI.

No more Sebastian Goddard.

No more Godfrey Archer.

My fingers dig their way into his back for another grateful hug. Amid all the chaos of the airport happening all around us, he stops, faces me, pulls my hands into his, and levels those honey browns on mine.

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control over them,” he says, repeating the words from his diary. The words to his first ever tattoo. The words he so badly wanted to relate to. “Thank you for helping me find my passion, Cockburn. My passion, as it turns out, is you.”





Camden Archer wasn’t difficult to find.

He’s been all over the news, giving interviews about the death of his father. He said he died in his sleep, probably because he didn’t want to tell the world the horrid, revolting truth. Camden’s now officially the heir to his father’s businesses, and the last thing he wants is for people to find out just what happened at his father’s place the night Pea took his life.

Archer’s long awaited wedding to Lady Hilary Thompson (can you believe that shit? The guy who raped my girlfriend continuously is marrying a lady) is off. I’d say I feel sorry for him, but the truth is, I can’t wait to meet him so he can get to know my fist.

One thing’s for sure—Camden Archer knows that we killed his old man, and that we’re coming for him. His death won’t be as easy as Sebastian’s, or as lucky as Godfrey’s. We’ll need more. More resources, more planning, more luck. More f*cking everything.

According to the news, Camden flew to California to deal with his father’s funeral arrangements, and will be back next Friday. We’ve got a plan mapped out for him. He’ll go back to his father’s house in Kent, thinking we’ll be waiting on him near his Marble Arch apartment in London.

But he’ll be wrong. We’ll be waiting in Kent. This time, with actual weapons and a detailed strategy of how to take him down.

As we wait for him to arrive back in England, we get some down time. The last four days have been nothing short of f*cking heaven.

The minute we landed in London, Pea and I checked into Piccadilly Backpackers, a hostel in the center of the English capital. We’ve been sharing communal showers and toilets with high school graduates from all over Europe and Australia and sleeping on the same level in a bunk bed, curled into one another like sardines. We eat Kettle chips for breakfast, lunch and dinner and drink pints of Guinness at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town. At one point, we even decide to splurge and spend a few pounds to get into the Music Room and listen to a local indie band perform.

The band is shit but we don’t care. We make out on a wooden bench the whole time. My hands slide into her new Primark skirt (she made us go all the way to Tooting Broadway because she didn’t want to visit the Primark in Marble Arch. It reminds her too much of Camden.) I finger her through soaked panties in front of a bunch of drunk people we don’t know. Stifling her moans against my lips. Making her come against my whole f*cking fist.

We go to Madame Tussauds and I take a picture of her cupping David Beckham’s balls, and she takes a picture of me pretending to plow into Kylie Minogue from behind.

Subsequently, we get kicked out of Madame Tussauds, but we’re laughing so hard while stumbling out, our abs hurt. It’s definitely worth the slap on the wrist.

We sneak into buses and stand for two f*cking hours in a London Eye capsule next to a Japanese couple who are fighting furiously and their kid, who smears snot all over the glass.

At night, I hold her so close my heart expands, filling every inch of my body. I make love to her and make hate to her, because sometimes, the best kind of sex is the angry shit you just want to screw out of your system.

But in London, Prescott doesn’t ask for Beat. She asks for Nate. For the first time in my life, I dig inside myself, trying to find who he is. How he’d act in bed with the woman he loves.

Turns out I can be a gentle little shit. Not vanilla, I still like to bite and pinch and pull at her nipples and her clit until she swats my shoulder and twists away, but Prescott introduces me to something called ‘relationship sex’.

“It’s basically a lazy f*ck,” she grinds herself on top of me cowgirl style, placing her fingers on her lips, kissing them and then brushing them against mine. She moves leisurely, and I enjoy my view, a relaxed smirk on my lips. “It’s how people f*ck when they’re not being chased by the whole goddamned world,” she winks.

“Hmm,” I slide my hands up and down her body, rubbing her nipples with my thumbs before moving down to flick my finger over her swollen clit. “I ain’t familiar with this concept, and frankly, don’t care for it. What the f*ck am I supposed to do with my life if no one’s after my ass?”

“Live it,” she pants, relishing my touch on her skin. I pinch her clit and bite her wrist. “Enjoy it.”