Page 140 of Inked Adonis

One foot in front of the other.

I walk as far as I can, putting the maximum amount of distance between me and the dealership. I move until I physically can’t. Until the sky is dark and my feet are bloody and it takes the last of my energy to crumple to the ground.

I land next to a shrub, so I pull myself hand over hand until I’m nestled beneath it. The branches scrape against my skin, but I burrow deep, out of sight, and lean my head against the trunk of a tree.

Then, for the first time in too long, I sleep.

I open my eyes.Pale morning light cuts through the branches above me. Grimacing at my stiff joints, I push to my feet and start moving again before I’ve even processed what’s happening.

It’s animalistic, this instinct to push forward, to run. I focus only on putting one foot in front of the other until, finally, I hear cars.

I angle towards the sound of traffic until I can see a road through the trees. Then, sticking to the treeline, I follow the road to a tiny, decrepit gas station.

At first, I think the place is abandoned, too. Thick tufts of grass shoot up between cracks in the pavement and the brick is covered in layers of graffiti.

But before I can lose hope, a woman steps out of the bathroom in the back of the store, phone clutched in her hand. Her Grateful Dead t-shirt is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Without stopping to think, I hurl myself through the trees. “Hey!”

She turns to me, eyes already narrowed in suspicion.

“I’m sorry,” I pant. “I-I’m lost. I need help.”

I don’t even want to imagine what I look like after sleeping on the ground all night, but the way her eyes snag on my face tells me it can’t be pretty.

“Can I borrow your phone?” I ask. “Just… just for a second. I only need to make one call. Please. I’ll stand right here. One call is all I need.”

I’m seconds away from dropping to my knees and crawling to her when she hesitantly holds her phone out to me. “One quick call.”

Hallelujah.

Maybe I’ll live to see another day, after all.

49

SAMUIL

I screech to a halt behind Myles’s car and leap out.

“Goddamn,” he says, “you got here fast.”

Did I? Time has taken on an unknowable quality in the last twenty-four hours. It’s been weeks since I saw that video of Nova. Months since I’ve seen her. Years since I’ve trusted her. Centuries since fear wasn’t choking me from the inside out.

Every step forward is a slushy, hazy slog. I turn towards the rundown car dealership in front of me. Even for Ilya, this feels low.

“FuckingWisconsin?” I spit on the pavement.

“Intel says it went out of business a year ago and Ilya scooped it up for pennies on the dollar right afterward,” Myles supplies. “He’s been using it as a safehouse for the last six months or so.”

I scan the boarded-over windows and the caved-in roof. The place should be demolished. No—dismantled, burned, and salt should be sown into the ground it stands in.

The thought of Nova trapped inside this concrete coffin makes me fucking sick.

“Is he in there?”

Myles shakes his head. “But there are six men inside. Whether they know we’re here, I have no fucking idea.”

I don’t give a fuck if they know. Let them prepare. Let them arm themselves to the teeth. I’ll still paint these walls with their blood.

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