Page 79 of Crawl
“Fuck you,” she growls.
“You think I’m afraid that you mean something to me?” My tone is cold, every word delivered with perfect precision. I want to hurt her. I want her to feel everything. “I was using you, Remedy. Just like everyone else in your life. You mean nothing to me.”
It kills me to say those words, but Ineedto lie. I need her to leave me.
She huffs through her teeth, still reading through me. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie about this?” I toss my head to the side. “You passed the time. You were a decent fuck. And you almost got me off the hook for some murders.” I snicker and she bares her teeth. “If you don’t want to end up in jail, then leave. Go to your detective. Tell him everything and see what happens. I’m sure he’ll protect you from me.” I press my lips together. “Or maybe I’ll kill him too.”
With that, she pulls down the hem of her dress until she’s covered again.
“Get your things from the estate. Tell the agency,” I say. “Consider yourself officially fired.”
She refuses to look at me. The blood speckles her face like fingerpaints, her eyes angled up at the empty sky, holding back angry tears.
“Run fast now,” I say.
And she does. Soon, her car peels out of the parking lot, the tires screeching. I watch her leave. That emptiness fills me again like I’m nothing but a half-eaten carcass, not even good enough for a vulture. I’m trying to prove to myself that she means nothing to me. That I don’t deserve her.
Except this time, Remedy isn’t a foster parent or a breeder who doesn’t give a shit about me. She’s someone who’s screwed up like me. A person who sees inside of me, even when she doesn’t want to. And somehow, she isn’t afraid of me. She didn’t even leave until I forced her to.
And letting her leave like this isn’t good enough.
In my truck, I shift the gear into drive, then head to the estate. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I can’t let her leave yet. I have to tell her how to survive without getting caught.
If I drive fast enough, she’ll still be there.
CHAPTER 20
Remedy
The estate looms like a dark shadow swallowing up Key West. I slam on the brakes and my chest crashes into the seatbelt. I’m the only one out. No one goes outside anymore, not when the Crawler is stalking Key West. I unlock the white gate, then drag myself to the front door.
The door creaks open, and I glance around, making sure that I’m the only one here. Without Cash, it’s cavernous. Cash acted like he would have been okay with killing me off when he knows that I’ve stayed by his side, even after he told me his secrets. And thathurts.If he doesn’t want to accept that we have something real, then I’m done. I’m not going to wait for him to figure it out.
I grab my surveillance camera from the downstairs office. Everything is straight and orderly, as if Cash is always like this, but that’s a lie too. He’s not this kind of man, and I want to destroy that image.
I tear everything out of his desk. Rip the coats and jackets from the hangers in the back closet. Throw the paperweight and globe at the closed windows until they break. I want him to know that I see the real him and that I know what he’s doing. I do the same in the upstairs office. I want him to see me there, no matter where he looks.
Suddenly, Cash is behind me, leaning against the wall across the hallway. There are swollen cuts on his hands and strikes of blood across his face. But his face is smooth, uninterrupted by emotion. There’s something fascinating about a dangerous man with blood marking his body. I suck in a breath. If I didn’t hate him so much, I would want him.
But I want nothing to do with him now.
“Having fun?” he asks.
I hiss through my teeth. None of this means anything to him, but damn it, it feels good to destroy it, like it’s giving me strength over my memories.
“You followed me,” I say. “Surprise, surprise.”
I go past him, marching down the stairs, and he bounds down after me, our steps in sync, rocking through the house.
“Are you ever going to stop following me?” I ask.
“There’s a guy in the Panhandle. Manny Littleton. He owns a car wash. Manny’s Sparkling Cars, or something like that.”
I scoff. Why is he telling me this? “So?”
“He can get you a new identity.”
