GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 69: BITTER-SWEET

'And run, like you'd run from the law

Darling, let's run

Run from it all

We can go where our eyes can take us

Go where no one else is, run'

"Don't worry. As much as I still have trouble trusting him, I don't think Blade would ever betray you." Spencer pulled me out of my stare at the rearview mirror, the corners of his lips lifting into a small, reassuring smile as his sideways glance passed from my face to the fidget toy spinning in my hand, before going back to the road.

"That's not what I'm worried about..." I replied in a whisper, catching the wooden beads tightly in my palm while my gaze went back to the rearview mirror, although the green Ford was already long gone from the horizon line, and I had no idea when I would see it again.

I had no idea when I would see Blade again. In two days? Four days? A week? More?

It was a one-day ride to reach his destination already, and since it was too risky and expensive to do many round trips, he would only be back once – and if – his mission was accomplished, which could take more than a week...

That was the reason why we'd driven him to a nearby town so he could steal a new car and leave us the red Cadillac, in case we needed it during his absence, even if we'd gone longer periods of time without using it, and I didn't like that.

It was like the worst was already an eventuality, and it felt too much like a farewell... the way his gaze had lingered all over my freckles like to memorize their trail one last time, the emptiness growing in my chest every meter he was away – and he hadn't even reached his destination yet – and the pull in all my muscles to run back to him, a lot like the first times I'd met him, and I'd thought I would never see him again. Every time he'd come back when I'd wished it.

So maybe Spencer was right; I had no reason to worry. Blade was my evil genie after all, and if someone could succeed in this impossible mission, it was him.

I should have been looking forward to his return, to the answers he would bring us, to the hope for a brighter and safer future, to the road–

"Wait, it's not the road to the cabin?" My wide gaze finally pulled away from the rearview mirror to take in what was appearing through the windshield: woods all around, which could have resembled the one leading to the cabin, yet the trees were scarcer, the road a little less bumpy, as I'd only made two jumps in my seat – one at this realization – and the crossroad we'd just passed wasn't in my memories.

"I thought you would never notice."

"Spencer Colt, where are you taking me?" I narrowed my eyes at his lips, which stayed sealed in an enigmatic smile, only telling me I wouldn't have any clue and that he loved this too much.

He loved making surprises and taking me to beautiful places. Although at nightfall, in deepest Montana, when we'd been supposed to go back to the warm cabin and work on Grandpa's investigation, it could have looked like he was kidnapping me. Could it count as such when you were yourself a wanted criminal? Technically, in the eyes of the police, I was the most dangerous one, and Spencer wasn't doing anything bad.

Yet I suspected he had something in mind, and illegal or not, it had been planned carefully because my eyes hadn't trailed back to the rearview mirror, and although the knots in my stomach were still as tight, tickles of curiosity were arising in the middle, and soon, something else too.