Page 86 of Crawl
I blink, trying to focus on his words.Touch me?
Tears fill my eyes. The only time Peter touched me was when I resisted arrest. Peter was a good man, and I killed him. The pain tightens my throat then stretches behind my eyes, threatening to explode.
“Are you okay, little cure?” Cash asks, his voice quiet. His mouth is slack, like he’s confused about how to help me.
I can’t answer. I shake my head, and then it happens: the sobs rake through my body, tearing me apart, and I can’t control it anymore. My breathing rasps in and out of my chest and no matter how hard I try, I can’t calm down.
Cash has done so much for me. I had to kill Peter, or Cash would have died.I had to do it.
Didn’t I?
“If the bastard wasn’t dead already, I’d kill him for making you cry like this,” Cash says. His voice is low and full of vibrations. Snot stuffs my nose, but I snort and try to catch my breath. He strokes the top of my head, trying to comfort me, and I want to laugh. It’s such a sweet thing to say, and yet it’s completely demonic. Guilt seeps into me everywhere.
I killed an innocent man to protect a serial killer. There’s no way anyone in this world can forgive me for that.
But I’m so damn relieved.
“He was just like your stepdad,” Cash says. “Another predator who needs to be erased.”
A laugh escapes from my mouth, because I know Cash is just saying that. He’s trying to make me feel better, but even if those rumors that he drugged that girl in high school are true, Peter always respected my boundaries, even if he didn’t keep his promise to take care of my stepdad. I want to focus on the horrible things Peter has done, but I can’t.
He’s gone, and I’m not sure if I did the right thing.
But it’s what I wanted.
“Wayne Cash,” Cash says in a loud voice, breaking through the pounding rain. I look up at him, drops spattering my face. A gleam of moonlight flashes in his dark eyes. “But call me ‘Cash.’”
He lifts me off of his lap, then he goes to his truck and digs around. For a minute, the rain pours, and my heartbeat rocks in my ears. Then old licenses and fake IDs land at my feet. Each of the plastic cards has a picture of Cash at various ages and styles. Shaggy hair. A shaved head. A thick beard reaching three inches past his chin. Always with those same dark eyes, freckled with a black cloud and a line.
And in the last ID, he looks the youngest. A cropped haircut. A scar from a zit on his cheek. Even though he’s barely an adult, his eyes are the cruelest in that picture. Dark and full of menace.
Wayne Cash,the ID says. His birthday is on October thirteenth. He’s over ten years older than me.
“Wayne Cash,” I repeat. He blinks his eyes lazily in a show of disinterest. I raise my voice over the rain: “You don’t like going by ‘Wayne’?”
“One of the breeder’s names,” he says. That’s why he doesn’t use it, then.
“It’s lucky you missed the ‘junior’ part,” I say.
“Junkies don’t remember suffixes.”
I’m sure this isn’t easy to talk about. I bite my lip, but a warmth fills my stomach. He’s opening up to me about his past. I didn’t expect that.
“Was Cash your dad’s last name?” I ask.
“Neither of theirs. They just gave it to me. I was told they were big fans of Johnny Cash.” He shakes his head. “Fucking addicts.”
I gather the plastic cards into a pile, then wipe each of them off on my dress before stacking them for Cash. They’re still wet, but he throws them in his glove box, then we both climb into his truck. We close the doors and it’s quiet. The rain patters the metal exterior, and the bodies look like piles of rocks in the darkness. Cash stares out at the dark ocean, and I follow his gaze.
“What do you want to do now?” he asks.
“You’re the pro at this,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me?”
“Us,” he says. “What do we do about us?”
My chest tingles and I smile to myself.Us. We.He’s acknowledging that I mean something to him.
He’s acknowledging thatwemean something to him.
