Page 36 of Dreamers Often Lie

“What’s the point? They either believe what they saw, or their guys find us. I’m just going to live my life and let the chips fall where they may. We’ll know what happens in the next few weeks, I guess. But no matter what – we can’t go back and look at that video. No links to that from any of us, understand? Younever know who’s watching or searching.” I scrubbed my torso hard.

“Yes, I understand.” Roam nodded.

“What now?” Merc stared at me and started scrubbing harder at his stomach. The blood was smeared, and his frustration was evident.

“This is working a lot better,” I laughed as I wiped the remaining blood off my chest with the wet naps. “I’m almost clean.”

“Hurry, we don’t know how much time we have. They’ll try to find us – our bodies – to see if it’s real. This place can’t be found.” Jules started scrubbing the floor where our blood had trickled down. “We should destroy these chairs too. That red shit has soaked into them.

“The phone is gone. We should be ok,” Roam said quickly before bending down and helping Jules clean the syrup off the floor as best he could.

“Never trust technology.” Merc grinned all of a sudden.

“Are we clean enough?” Jules didn’t even look up from his task. He was scrubbing the shit out of the floors.

We all nodded. I think we were still in shock.

“Come here, Merc,” I held out my hand, and he took it. “Let me help.” I bent down and used the wet naps to clean the rest of the mess off of him. I did my best to get it out of his groomed pubes and cock where some had dribbled. “That’s better. We’ll get the rest of it off when we shower.”

“When’s that gonna be?” He looked down at me, and I rose up from my kneeling position and wrapped my arms around him.

“It’s gonna be ok. Trust me, Merc.”

“I… Ok.” He sighed.

“The floor is clean. Roam, you need to destroy the chairs and break them up into as small pieces as you can. Everyone, throwyour towels and wet naps in this trash bag. We’ll drop it off somewhere far away.”

Roam and I demolished the chairs and put all the wooden shards in one of the large industrial trash bags that Jules had brought. When everything was as clean as it could get, we left that nasty room behind us and walked out onto the empty downtown street.

“Keep the hats on for a while, and remember to change your appearance for a bit. We can’t have people saying that they saw us. So, there are no gay clubs. Got it?” Jules glances around, and Roam popped the trunk open in the old car he had bought. “We’ll throw that shit away when we get to Arizona. Here.” Jules handed me a cell phone. “Here’s your burner. No text messages for now. But call me when you get to wherever you decide to go, ok?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

We glanced over at Roam and Merc hugging and waited for them to finish talking. They turned and glanced over at us. Roam patted Merc on the back and walked over to us.

“Take care of him,” Roam whispered to me.

“I plan on it.”

“I guess this is it.” Jules wiped at his eyes.

“Wait. I couldn’t do much because if I robbed Cappie’s safe completely, he would know. But I did take a small stipend for each of us.” I handed them the envelope I had kept hidden. It contained a hundred thousand dollars. “It will help get you settled until you find jobs or whatever.”

“I love you even more now. We emptied our bank accounts, too, and closed them down, as we all agreed. We’ll be fine.” Jules smiled sadly. “Talk soon?”

“Always.” I nodded.

“See you both in another life,” Roam opened his car door. The two of them got in and waved as they drove away into the night.

“What now?” Merc whispered.

“We leave in my very beat-up but beautiful Honda and get the fuck out of here.” I shrugged.

“I’m going with you?” Merc looked confused. “I mean, I know I was riding with you, but am I going with you?”

“Do you want to?” I smirked. I knew we would have to have this conversation, but I had hoped it would be after we both showered.

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