Lies You Never Told Me(74)

“You’re not going anywhere,” says Mr. Barstow.





FORTY-TWO


    Elyse




“Aiden, please,” I whisper. “Please, just let us leave.”

His eyes are sharp and shining. The gun is steady, but his chest heaves with his quickened breath.

“I already told you,” he says softly. “No one’s going anywhere.”

That’s when I realize that his eyes aren’t glinting with rage; they’re bright with tears. And somehow, that scares me even more.

The fight at the motel started small, like they always did. It’d been simmering for weeks, roiling behind every sullen glance, every passive-aggressive snarl. We’d been cooped up together all that time, both of us wondering how long we had before the police figured out who we were.

This time, it got physical. He grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me back and forth. When he let go, the momentum took me forward. I tumbled off the bed. My head hit the corner of the dresser with a sickening crack. My field of vision went white, then sickly green, the pain shuddering along my bones.

Something sticky and wet poured over my face. Blood. I couldn’t believe how much of it. Next to me I could sense more than see Aiden go very still, just a few feet from me.

“Elyse . . . I didn’t mean . . .”

I didn’t let him finish.

The world spun around me as I shot to my feet, but I managed not to fall. I shoved him in the chest with all the strength I could muster.

Then I ran.

Now, he stands in front of us on the path, holding the gun with a taut, practiced posture. Next to me, Gabe’s heart bumps heavily against my hand. His T-shirt is damp with sweat, his curls matted against his head from the run through the woods. I can tell from the way he’s poised that he’s ready to push himself in front of me.

I can’t let him do that. I can’t let this go any further.

Slowly, gently, I disentangle myself from Gabe’s limbs. I hold my hands up above my shoulders. I fight to calm my breathing, to break out of the whirl of mud and blood and terror I’ve been tumbling through.

“I just want a normal life,” I say. I fight to keep my voice calm. I have practice by now; I’ve been soothing and comforting him for months. “I won’t turn you in. I won’t tell anyone. I just . . . I don’t want to run anymore.”

His face looks so pale without the beard. Back at the motel, when he’d first shaved it off, I’d felt a thin little pulse of attraction for the first time in a long time. Seeing his face uncovered was, for just a split second, like seeing him as he’d been when we first met, before everything went wrong. Before my mom died; before I lost Aiden to the paranoia and the possessiveness.

“I threw everything away for you,” he says. “Everything. And this is how you’re going to pay me back? No. No, this isn’t how this ends.” He paces, two steps one way, two steps back, the gun still trained on me. “You told me we’d do this together.”

I bite back the retort that springs to my mouth. How can we do this together when you won’t let me decide anything? How can we be together when you treat me like a child? Instead I take a halting step toward him. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“You said you loved me.” His voice breaks. Once upon a time that would have destroyed me. Now I just feel numb.

“I do. I always will,” I say. “But we can’t keep going like this.”

His face crumples into raw, naked sobs, a child frightened in the night. “You’re right,” he says. And I think, It’s working; I’m getting through to him. He’s going to let us go.

Then, before I have a chance to move, two loud pops tear through the night.

Smoke drifts lazily from the end of the gun. My body goes rigid. For a second I wait for the pain to come. Then I realize that’s wrong—that I’d already feel it. I look down at my body. I’m a mess—clothes torn and dirty from hiding—but there’s no sign of fresh blood.

From behind me, there’s a soft, strangled whimper.

I turn to see Gabe, on his knees in the dirt. His mouth is a strained line. His eyes are wide and round. A small, dark stain is blooming across his shoulder, getting bigger and bigger.

“No!” I turn to go to him, but Aiden stops me short with a little hiss.

“Next one’s to his head,” he says.

I draw in my breath hard.

“Leave him alone,” I say. “Please, Aiden, I’m begging you.”

Aiden bares his teeth. “This little bastard ruined everything. He took everything from me.”

“No, Aiden. I’m still here. I’m still yours, if you want me. Just . . . please. Don’t do this.” His hands are shaking now, the gun unsteady. I take a tiny step forward, and my toe hits against something hard. I glance down. It’s Gabe’s tire iron; he dropped it when he came into the clearing. I look up quickly, fight to keep the discovery out of my face.

He shakes his head, still staring at Gabe. “I can’t trust you anymore. He ruined that.”

I fall to the ground, covering the tire iron with my body and pushing my forehead into the dirt so it looks like I’m begging. “Please,” I whimper. “Please, I’ll do anything.” Like all good acting it’s a little bit true. My fingers close around the cold, hard metal, and I think it again to myself. I’ll do anything. Anything I have to.