Page 14 of Endless Love

“I suppose I should be glad for that,” I mutter, and she looks over at me, her face still bloodless and mouth set in a hard line.

“He’s a snake,” she says flatly. “He felt—wrong. And he betrayed you, so clearly, he’s not someone to be trusted.”

“I’m a criminal, and he’s a fed.” I chuckle darkly. “Isn’t that just what he’s supposed to do?”

Charlotte seems to consider this for a moment. “Not if you had an agreement,” she says finally, folding her hands together in her lap. “He should have kept his word.”

It’s a naive view of the world, but I don’t tell her that. “He’s going to be after us, too,” I tell her quietly. “We’ll have the FBI and the Bratva on our asses now. We’re going to have to be careful, and you’re going to have to listen to me, Charlotte.”

“Then maybe you should tell me what we need to do.” Her voice is icy, and it hurts to hear her like that. I want to hear her soft again, breathy, her voice pleading for more. I want to hear her laugh. I want her happy, and the hardest thing to accept by far is that it’s almost certainly never going to be me that gives that to her.

All I can do now is focus on getting hersafe.

“I’ll tell you when we stop for the night,” I say finally, unwilling to have this argument right now, in the car. “We can talk about it then.”

We drive in silence on the surface roads for a long time, until the sun starts to set. I see Charlotte lean against the door, looking out at the bright oranges and yellows streaking across the sky, and the expression on her face makes my chest ache. Her face has softened, her eyes almost dreamy as she watches it, and it’s as if she’s managed to forget for a moment what’s happening. As if she’s her old self, just for these few seconds as the sun sinks beyond the horizon.

I can’t help but wonder if that’s what she wants to be—her old self. When Charlotte and I went out on our first date, she told me that she thought she was boring. That she’d lived a predictable, unexciting life. It seemed as if she wanted to break free from it. That’s what she was doing, after all, playing in the dark corners of the internet with Venom. That’s what she was doing that night at Masquerade. But now that reality has hit her, I can’t help but think that she likely wants to retreat back into the safety of that boring, ordinary life.

A life that I’ve taken away from her.

Guilt churns in my stomach as the sky starts to darken, and I pull off of the road into the drive-through of a fast food place. Charlotte looks over at it, and her nose wrinkles.

“I’m not hungry,” she says flatly, and I let out a slow breath, trying to keep my patience. She seems determined to try it, and I deserve that. But I’m exhausted, too, and I wish she wouldn’t fight me on every little thing.

“You haven’t eaten all day, because we couldn’t spend the time to stop. Not until we put a good distance between us and them. But you have to eat something.”

Charlotte sets her jaw stubbornly, and I sigh, rolling down my window. I order a burger for myself and chicken tenders for her, figuring that she’ll pick at them when she gets hungry enough. Fries, too. I set the greasy bag of takeout on the floor next to her feet, and look at my map on my phone for a nearby cheap motel.

I could afford nicer, of course. But those places usually look sideways at anyone trying to pay with cash, and without using real names. The shadier the motel, the more likely that I can keep our stay as anonymous as possible.

Charlotte doesn’t touch the bag, moving her feet away from it as if it might burn her. I chuckle darkly, pulling back out onto the road. “I thought you liked simpler things.” I can’t resist the urgeto rib her, just a little. She’s behaving like a diva all of a sudden, and I know that’s not her. She’s trying to get under my skin.

“I like casual places,” she says stiffly. “I don’t usually poison myself with that garbage.”

“Well, unfortunately, restaurants are a little too visible. And they put others in danger. My brothers or the feds get wind of someone fitting our description having been seen—and the feds will put out pictures of us, soon enough—and they’ll start questioning other guests. Waitresses. Hotel clerks. Anyone who might have seen us. So we need to lay low, and keep out of sight as much as possible. That means drive-throughs and cheap motels, and getting back on the road as early as we can.”

“Sounds like you’ve done this before. Gone on the run.” She still won’t look at me, and I sigh heavily as I pull into the motel parking lot.

“No. But I’ve always been prepared. Comes with the territory.” I turn the car off, looking over at her. “Are you going to try to run again? Or are you going to accept that we’re going to have to stick together for the time being.”

Charlotte’s mouth tightens. “I barely even know where we are right now,” she says, her voice still stiff and cold. “I don’t think Icantry to run. There doesn’t seem to be a police station for miles.”

“And if you called them, you’d end up with Bradley,” I tell her flatly. “And Nate, right by him, waiting to pay you back for what happened to him.”

Her head whips around at that. “He wouldn’t hurt me,” she says sharply, clearly startled by that insinuation. “He’s a cheating piece of shit, but he’d never?—”

“He would.” I look at her, fighting the urge to reach out and touch her, as if by holding her in my hands, I can drive my point home somehow. “Look, Charlotte, I get that all of this is strange to you. That you’re seeing sides of human nature you’ve neverhad to see before, and never thought about outside of television and maybe some books. But what I need you to understand is that you have no idea what some men are capable of.”

She looks at me evenly, unflinching. “Men like you?”

I choose to ignore that, and the jab of pain in my chest. “Nate might’ve never laid a hand on you before this. I’ll agree with that. But now he’s been hurt in ways he couldn’t have imagined either, before. Hurt by a man you slept with. Humiliated by him, too. If he gets half a chance, he’ll take that out on you. I promise you that.”

For once, Charlotte doesn’t look away. “Then that’ll be your fault, too,” she says coolly. And before I can respond, she shoves her door open, stepping out into the chilly night.

I want to offer her my jacket, but I already know she’ll refuse. I can see the prickling of her skin as she wraps her arms around herself, but I just grab my duffel bag out of the back of the car, locking it as I lead the way to the clerk’s window.

Fifteen minutes later, I have a key and a room. Charlotte follows me in silence, and I grab the bag of our food out of the car, unlocking the room and letting us in. We’re on the upper floor, which I’m glad about—we’ll be able to get some warning, most likely, if anyone is coming after us. I plan on keeping an eye out as much as I can.

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