Page 5 of Can't Stop
“Let me go!” she screams, and I strain to hold the flailing woman in my grasp.
Her feet fly, and she lands a kick to my nuts. Unable to stay upright, I drop to the ground and lose my grip. Rayna dives onto the tracks and grips her squirrel and beloved butt plug. Then she’s lost in a rush of wind and metal.
“Rayna, no!”
I can’t take a breath. I’m literally suffocating on nothing more than incomprehensible anguish. I cannot survive without Rayna, and I don’t think she got out of the way in time. If she’s on the other side of that train, I can’t hear her. Even if she’s screaming in pain, the roar of the train is too loud for any other sound to filter through.
The train is short, but hours seem to pass as I wait for the graffiti-laden cars to end. When the last one clears my line of sight, I finally breathe a sigh of relief. Rayna is seated on the other side, her squirrel and butt plug clutched firmly to her bare chest.
“I’m okay!” she says with a smile and a wave of her hand.
I rush to her side and check her over, but the only wound I find is the one she made herself on her tongue.
“I said I’m okay,” she huffs.
“Don’t you ever do that again, Rayna. I was about to sit on these tracks until the next train barreled through here and took me with it. There’s no life for me without you.”
“I’m sorry.” She stands on tiptoes and places a soft kiss on my cheek.
“You aren’t, though. You’d do it all over again for that fucking squirrel.”
“Aw, are you jealous?”
“Jealous?” My eyes widen. “More like incredibly fucking concerned. You can’t throw your life away for a squirrel, bones. And a dead squirrel, at that!”
“You’re not as cute as Van Gogh, but . . . I guess I would save you too.” She skips over the tracks, grabs our clothes, and tosses them to me.
“Brat,” I whisper. “Now get dressed before I have to kill someone for looking at your naked body.”
Her eyes light up. “Does that mean we can kill again?”
I sigh and begin dressing. She really is having a hard time with this patience thing.
“Just a few more days until we’re in Florida. Let that be enough for now,” I say.
She groans and pulls her shirt over her head. “I guess it’s nice to have something to look forward to. Like playing with Raul.” She wiggles the butt plug toward my face.
Yeah. I’m kind of looking forward to what happens next with Rayna, too. It’s always something with her.
Chapter Three
Dalton
We take a detour when we hit North Carolina, choosing to cut along the coast so that Van Gogh can smell the sea air. It’s really for Rayna, but I play along and pretend we’re doing this for our ailing Victorian child. He certainly looks the part as she holds him against the window.
“Are there squirrels on the beach?” she asks as she watches the ocean pass by.
I shrug. “Seagulls would probably be the squirrels of the beach.”
“Maybe I can find a taxidermy seagull when we get to Oak Hollow,” she says with a beaming smile. She looks down at Van Gogh. “We can get you a cousin.”
If the Reddit thread is to be believed, she’ll find damn near anything she wants in that town. They’ve draped every shop, café, and home in death. I wish I could share Rayna’s excitement, but I’m thoroughly creeped the fuck out.
She pulls out her phone and types something in. Seconds later, a frown replaces her smile. “Fuck, we’ll miss the funeral celebration at this rate.”
“Funeral . . . celebration?”
“Yeah, right before Halloween, they display their dead for the year before burying them.”
