Page 153 of Runaways

"I'm sorry," I tell her as I drag her backward through the door. She digs her heels in, still struggling against me, and headbutts me pretty good in the nose. "Fuck! We don't have any other options, Noah. This is the only way we'll get out of here."

"No, it's not," she cries, gripping the doorframe as I attempt to pull her back outside. "Tate, please. Please don't do this. Please don't let him. I won't forgive you.Ever.Not for this."

"Letgo,Noah."

"You don't love me!" she yells. "I fucking knew it. If you loved me—even a little bit—you wouldn't do this. You wouldn't kill the only personon Earthwho's shown me kindness. You fuckingdespiseme." As Silas kneels over her with the knife in his hand, Noah finally gives up, sobbing as she releases the doorframe. "I can't wait until the day comes when you finally let me go."

Even Silas freezes.

"And you! You killed my mom, Silas."

"I only did that to save you," he says. "I'm doing this becauseI have to do thisto save you."

"This isn't saving me!" she shouts. "This is killing me!"

"Fuck!" he yells back. "What the fuck are we supposed to do, Noah? Huh? We're kind of fucked here."

"We'll…tie her up," I suggest. "We could tie her up really tight and leave her here. Someone would find her eventually, right? But it would be a while; she lives alone. We'll be long gone by the time someone comes around."

Noah nods. "Yeah, she has a boyfriend, but he works nights. He'd probably find her tomorrow."

"Okay, so…I'll check the garage for some rope, and…you stay here in case she wakes up. Silas?"

"Yeah." Silas pauses, scratching the back of his head with the knife hand. "Yeah, fine."

"There are zip ties in the kitchen," Noah says weakly.

"Okay," I say. "That'll help. You go get some zip ties."

"Thank you," she says. But it's painful for her; I can tell. She hates thanking me, she hates that she has to be nice to me for this.

She just fucking hates my ass.

"See?" Desperate to touch her, I thread my fingers through her hair, rubbing that spot of smooth skin behind her ear with my thumb. Maybe it's manipulative; maybe I'm taking advantage of the fact that I know she wouldn't risk snapping at me right now for touching her, but I think she used to like that. I lean in and kiss her on the mouth, not really concerned with whether or not she hates it. "I do love you, Noah. I'm doing this for you, baby."

She says nothing, looking at Silas instead.

I could make her crawl for this. Would that be too much, given the gravity of the situation, or would she find it cute in the end? If nothing else, it'd be on-brand.

"We might get caught over this, sweetheart," Silas says. "We could go to prison for the rest of our lives. You realize that, right?"

"No," Noah says. "Not me. I won't go."

But she says it like a threat.

twenty-four

Out of the Woods

Noah

"You should grab one of those chairs, too," Silas says as I dig through the kitchen drawers for zip ties.

I know they were here. She asked me to run over and grab them once for the café.

Because she trusted me with a key to her house. She gave me a home and her dead daughter's clothes.

She called me sweetheart and darling, and I let a couple of murderers rob her house, and then one of them beat her with a shovel, and now I'm going to help them tie her to a chair.

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