Page 20 of Endless Love

I was selfish, and now she’s going to pay the price for it. The well of self-hatred in my gut is bitter, bleeding through my veins and burning in my chest. I grip the steering wheel hard as I drive, unable to look at her again.

Her silence is worse than anything she could scream at me.

I realize with a start, twenty or so minutes into the drive, that her silence is also because she’s fallen asleep. The fear and adrenaline must have wrung every last bit of energy she had out of her, and I can hardly blame her. I’m exhausted, too, staying awake on sheer willpower at this point. Even the floor of that shitty hotel room is something I’m starting to look back on with a feeling of longing.

I slow to a more reasonable pace, now that there’s been no headlights behind me for some time. Getting pulled over isn’tthe greatest of my concerns, but itisone of them, and it’s something I’d rather not have to deal with. Being on the run from the feds is bad enough, and if they pick up our trail, they’ll start alerting the local police. The last thing I want is to be on the run from the regular cops, too. That will make any kind of stops even more difficult, if they’re trailing us as well.

Ironically, the only way for me to keep Charlotte from becoming an accessory to all of this, if we’re caught, is to admit to kidnapping her—one of the sins I’m onlytechnicallyguilty of, and only at first. She said so herself, to Bradley, that she doesn’t feel that I did. But if the police catch us, it’ll be the only way to keep her from going down with me.

Just another reason to try to keep them from ending up on our tail, too.

As the lights of another small town start to break through the night, I slow down, pulling into the first gas station I see that looks decent enough to have a road atlas. In the seat next to me, Charlotte stirs, and I hear the soft growl of her stomach. She’s barely eaten today—she has to be starving, and even if she’s too stressed or stubborn to admit it, her body recognizes that she needs to eat.

I’m hesitant to leave her in the car alone. Not because I think she’ll run—I feel confident that, at this point, she realizes that running is fruitless. She needs me, whether she likes it or not. WhetherIlike it or not—because the truth is that if Charlotte was ever going to need me, I didn’t want it to be like this.

I didn’t want it to be forced on her. But that’s exactly what ended up happening.

I’m honestly afraid that if I leave her out here, someone will snatch her while I’m gone, even though there hasn’t been any sign of a possible tail for miles. It’s irrational, but once again, I’m having a hard time being rational when it comes to Charlotte.

I don’t want to wake her up, though. I watch her for a moment, before I shake myself and open the car door carefully, stepping out into the chilly night and locking it behind me. I parked right in front of the store, so I’ll at least be able to keep one eye on the car while I grab what we need.

A road atlas is the first thing. I pick up one of those, glancing out towards the car every other second as I pick up some snacks and an energy drink for myself, one of those caffeine bombs that will have me buzzing all the way into tomorrow. I’ll feel like shit, but it’ll be worth it to put some distance between us and anyone chasing.

Beef jerky and chips for me, a couple of candy bars, and I grab a bag of air-popped crispy green beans tossed in some kind of spice for Charlotte. After her comment about the fast food, I want to give her something that she might actually want to eat. Or at least make sure she knows that I do give a shit. I add a couple of bottles of water, still obsessively checking to make sure that no one has approached the car as the cashier rings it all up.

She’s still asleep when I walk back out. The sound of me setting the bag in the backseat is what finally makes her stir, and she blinks, slowly waking up for a brief second before she jolts, pushing herself up as she shoves her hair out of her face like she’s just come back online and remembered what happened earlier.

“Are we—” Charlotte looks around frantically for a second, as if she’s still a little bit asleep and trying to get her bearings. I know the feeling. There’s a sort of liminal sensation about waking up after sleeping on the road, a feeling of being half out of reality before you come back into it. Especially out here, where there’s not much civilization.

“We’re fine for now,” I tell her calmly. “If Lev was tailing us, he’s lost us and dropped off. Not to say we won’t run into trouble again, but for the moment, anyway, things are alright.”

Charlotte looks at me with a slightly disbelieving expression on her face, as if she can’t quite comprehend that I just said that. “Nothing is alright,” she says slowly. “I’m on the run. I can’t even call Jaz and let her know I’m alive. My best friend is definitely worried sick about me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. My entire life has been upended, and I’ve been told that I’m never going to get it back, on a day that just ended with me being threatened and chasedtwice, and it isn’t even over yet.”

“Okay.” I hold up my hands, letting out a sharp breath. “I get it. I’m sorry. I just meant—we’re not in immediate danger of that happening again.” I reach over the back of the seat, rummaging around in the plastic bag sitting back there. “I got snacks. Some bottled water. We’re going to need to drive through the night, so?—”

“Are you going to be okay doing that?” she interrupts me, then stops, seemingly as shocked as I am that she might care about my well-being. “I mean—if you run us off of the road because you fell asleep, that’s not good for either of us.”

I let out a dry laugh at that. I can’t help it. “You’re right. But I’ll keep driving for as long as I can, at least.”

She nods, reaching into the plastic bag. “Alright. Do we need to get gas?” She glances at the speedometer, which thankfully is off, since I haven’t started the car back up yet. We don’t need to get fuel, but I don’t want to tell her why. I don’t want to break what feels like a momentary truce between us. And I know she’s not going to be happy with the answer.

“No. But we do need to get on the road.” I start the car, watching out of the corner of my eye as she grabs a bottle of water and the bag of green beans. Her mouth parts slightly as she looks at them, and then at me.

“This was…thoughtful.” She sounds startled, which hurts a little. “Thank you.”

“Contrary to what Agent Bradley wants the FBI to believe, and contrary to what you might feel right now, I’m notactuallyabducting you.” I glance sideways at her as I pull back out onto the road. “You can leave if you want. Itriedto leave you with Bradley, for fuck’s sake, before he showed his true colors. I’ve just told you what the consequences will likely be if you do. I’m not tying you up in the backseat and shoving fast-food cheeseburgers down your throat.”

Charlotte grimaces, opening the bag. “That’s not what I said.”

“The point still stands.” I can hear the edge in my tone, but I’m having a hard time softening it just now. I’m exhausted, vigilant to the point of feeling like my nerves are rubbed raw, and Charlotte’s startlement that I bought her a healthy snack makes me feel like that knife is being twisted one time too many.

She goes quiet, except for the crunching as she slowly eats her food. I’m just glad that she’s eating at all. I drive the speed limit through the small town, slowing down as I see what I am looking for.

On my left is one of those shitty buy-here-pay-here car lots. The kind that doesn’t keep good records and probably has enough shady dealings of their own to not want the cops poking around too closely in their business. I pull into the dark lot, and Charlotte sits up a little straighter, dropping the bag of green beans into her lap as she looks over at me suspiciously.

“What are we doing here?”

I think she already knows the answer to that, but she wants to hear me say it out loud. “Lev’s seen this car. So has Bradley. And it’s fucking orange, which makes it a lot easier to pick out than, say, your run-of-the-mill silver car. So we’re going to swap it out for something else.”

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