Whatever the roller coaster ride was for him, he's blown off enough steam, for now. As he comes down from the adrenaline high, the pressure in the car decompresses, and lightheaded, I fall along with him.
Glean him.
Collect and dissect him.
Track each powerful breath he takes. Study the way the light angles along his jaw, touches his throat, and reflects on beads of rain on his skin. Watch him reach up, laggardly, and turn dials on the center dashboard. Blessed heat blasts through the vents. He glances up at the wipers swatting backandforth-backandforth in a panic, switches them off, and he props his arm on the armrest between us with an airy sigh. His hand rests on the gearshift.
The car is in park.
Quiet, a surprisingly comfortable silence, given the circumstances: I'm stuck in a car with the dark figure again. In the middle of the woods, in a storm. Déjà vu. Feels like I've been here before, lost in the dark, trees, wind, and rain with him. In a sense, I think I have. And I don't want to break the silence yet. I want to keep falling, settle into my warming leather seat, and listen to our breathing slow and sync.
Rain smacks and weaves in jagged rivers down glass, down the windshield, down the windows, tumbles on the dirt road, shines in the beams of the headlights. Lightning flares on bare branches—two quick flashes—and the trees are dark again. Four seconds later, thunder rolls over us, shuddering the car.
"We will be going back," I murmur, "right?"
"Right."
"Dax is most likely freaking out. He probably thinks we left him."
"I hope so."
"You can't be angry with him."
"I'm just angry."
My gaze wanders back to him. He watches the rain. His shoulders are slack. Each blink is heavier than the last. He could, seemingly, fall asleep this very moment, so I don't know if it's a good time to ask. I feel like I should.
"Trip, do you want to talk about it?"
"Do you want to hear it?"
"I'll listen."
"I used to be great," he says, with no reluctance. The message hovers in the heat and the noise, and he lets it sink in—to him, not me. Rolling his tongue against the inside of his cheek, he loses focus and sees nothing. "I was good at following orders."
"I can't imagine you following orders."
He only glances at me.
"Is there a connection," I ask, "between your nightmare and BlackWall?"
The pressure in the car fluctuates. A hiccup of stress. He raises his hand to rub his eyes. "Maybe. I don't know, Ashford. It's not that one." He stays still, thumb and index finger pressed to his eyelids, and I wait for him to come back from wherever he's gone. His face tightens.
Maybe I shouldn't have asked.
"It's a lot." He gives a quick shake of his head, dragging his hand over his mouth and dropping it back down. "Dax should have told me. I would have rather known."
"You don't like surprises."
"No, not usually."
"He wanted you to feel comfortable here."
"Worked great."
"You should be thanking him—wait, let me finish." As Trip readies himself to disagree on this point entirely, I raise my palm. "Firstly, you need him. You should be thanking him for the program alone. Secondly, Dax talked you up to Malcolm and Aubrey. He didn't tell them the whole truth either. They let us stay. They made you a steak dinner, for goodness' sake, tried to make you feel welcome. I'm sure that was all for you. And you're the one who started asking questions in the first place."
An exhausted, irritated sigh escapes him. He turns to his window and raps his thumb against the gearshift a few times.
"You could have eaten your food," I say, quietly, "made small talk, listened to their small talk. That's usually how dinners go."
"I thought the guy worked for an independent news agency, or something. I wasn't sure. I didn't realize it was a lot more than that."
"You could have left it alone, Trip."
"I needed to know."
"You don't need to know everything."
"I've been told that before." He still has a reservoir of energy stored away somewhere. The solar flare of frustration that whips out of him causes me to draw back in my seat, purse my lips, and as if a sensor goes off in his mind, catching the shift in my mood, he swings back around to zero in on me. Suddenly close.
I don't want to argue.
Time to change the subject. I take a breath.
And so does he, frustration ebbing away as quick as it rose. He drops his eyes, inclines his head. Subdued. Before I can speak, his voice moves through the dark, tame and hushed. "Go ahead. Tell me you told me so."
I give him a look. "Tell me I was right."
"You were right. I caused a scene."
"Well." An involuntary smile tugs my lips. "It wasn't as bad as I expected. I thought at least you'd flip over the table."
"I might have."
I quiet down.
And he averts his attention to the rain again. "How's your wrist?"
"Fine."
"Did I hurt you?"
"No, but keep groveling, Trip."
Both of us freeze. My heart gives a dull knock against my chest, flushing heat to my cheeks. I replay my tone in my head a few times, replay how whispery, how playful I sounded, how I leaned into those words.
He doesn't look at me. He opens his mouth to respond, inhaling. Stops himself. And instead, a rush of air jumps out of him—shutting his eyes, quirking the corner of his mouth, a flash of teeth. He zaps me, jars me, and his light, fleeting smile fades in no time. He finally looks at me, spotlights me, eyes glowing.
Snow white, white hot.
I'm bare under his focus.
Would Dax believe me if I told him Trip can smile? I can't believe it myself, and I'm seeing it. It lingers, only vaguely, hidden in shadows, but it's there. I can't unsee it.
Long, agonizing seconds pass while I try to think of something to say. My jaw hangs on its hinges. I twitch in my seat, too warm, flying through slides of emotions. Stunned, amused, embarrassed. My first instinct is to scurry away, lie, lie, lie—say I'm drunk.
Neither of us are.
I'm just too much of a coward to acknowledge something is different between us tonight, since last night. Some sort of shift in him has shifted me. Or vice versa. Or both. And I know what I'm about to say now. The thought is already shaping my lips. I can't stop it—I don't want to stop it anymore—from spilling out.
"I keep dreaming about you."
Silence. Only the rain, the engine, the hot air. In apprehension, I watch the last remains of his smile die.
He blinks at me, clouding. His chin snaps down, and one word escapes him as a rough gust. "What?"
"Nightmares." I swallow hard. "I keep helping them kill you."
He tenses, causes me to tense. He tries to register.
"Like a duplicate, Trip."
A disruption strikes over his face, similar to the lightening, flashes, on a highway of neurons in his mind—anxiety, twisting into absolute fear. And he snaps around to scope the downpour, attempting to gather and reorganize himself.
I've thrown us both into a whirlwind.
It's not killing if it's not even alive. It's out now. I can't take it back. You don't want to hear the truth. You'd rather hate me. Ripples of guilt claw up my throat once more, and there's no wine here to try to wash it down. Does it look alive enough for you? Let it up. I need to say it. I didn't mean you.
Say it, he knows it, just say it.
It could have been me. Look at me.
"You were right." And I spill more. "You were right, everything you said. At the motel, on the way here, last night, you were right, and I haven't wanted to talk about it or even think about any of it. And I haven't. I just keep pushing it away. I should have listened, but I couldn't. I should have tried to understand what you're going through. I don't know how you feel about it now, or how you really feel about me. But I want—"
"Enough."
A tick in my chest. The switch in him flips.
He shuts down. The light goes out in his eyes. He's dark again. Callous. Cold. Pressure sinks over the car, and my pulse climbs with the weight. I stare at him, astonished.
He refuses to look at me. "It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter?" That stings, and like acid, it takes a while to burn through flesh, down to bone. If he doesn't matter to him, it's not worth the torment of admitting to it. What was the point?
What did I expect?
My vision blurs. I sweep aside a string of wet hair tangled in my lashes and try to rear up any sort of anger in me. There's none to be found. I'm just hurt. "I know this wasn't the best time to spring this on you. I'm sorry. I should have—"
"I should have left you."
Another sting. Tears slip. Is he angry with me? Is he toying with me? I nearly choke on grief. "Then why didn't you, Trip? Why did you want me to follow you out here? I don't understand you."
"I should have hot-wired a car."
In the middle of wiping my cheek, I stop.
"I should have thought it through."
I turn to him, confused.
He is angry. He works his jaw and stares dead ahead through the windshield. And he's spilling, too. "They track my car while I'm out of the facility, on assignments. They track my phone. They tracked me. All of me. My location, my heart rate, even my fucking blood sugar. I cut it out"—he gestures at his hip—"and I left everything to do with them. I didn't know how I was going to do this."
I try to absorb this all. It's too much to handle at once. Facility? A microchip? He had his own car?
"They alerted local law enforcement. Two cops tried to stop me. You saw how that turned out."
"Trip?"
"I had to get out of there. I had to figure out a way to get into Emulation. I was going to hot-wire a car in that parking lot." He rolls his pale eyes up at the roof, and my diaphragm jumps into my lungs, shoving a weak breath out of me. "You came out of nowhere, Ashford. You walked right by me. You didn't even see me. If you or I had been just one minute sooner or later, I would have missed you."
And none of this would have happened. That realization smashes to the forefront of my mind like a freight train, and a wreckage of thoughts and emotions follows after it.
Dax. I never would have met Dax, a Government-employed hacker. I never would have seen this place or this family, who is in hiding. I never would have seen behind the scenes. I would be home, working for Emulation, catching glimpses on the news of a dangerous terrorist wreaking havoc wherever he went, without ever knowing why or what he's fighting for or where he came from. I would have never experienced Trip.
I would be living a complete lie.
"I wish," he says, "I never saw you."
My vision blurs more.
His eyes dart all around the car now, searching. "I wish I hadn't reacted so quickly. I wish I hadn't been so rash. I should have hot-wired a fucking car. I should have left you when I knew they found out about you. I should have let them kill you then. Forget everything—"
"Trip."
"—I've ever said. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't think any of it through. I take it back. All of it. Don't listen to me. Don't trust me. Don't pity me. Hate me. You have nothing to do with this."
"I know," I say, breathless. "It just feels like I do."
He detonates.
In a blur, he slams both hands down on the steering wheel and gives a violent jerk—"Trip!"—grips the wheel so hard I can see his knuckles turn white in the dark, rises up in his seat, rage soaring, pressure dropping more, crushing me. He jerks on the steering wheel again, jostling the whole car, and again and again and again. "Stop, stop! Trip! What is wrong with you?!"
He collapses back in his seat, leans away from me, and sets his elbow up on his door, covering his face. He breathes heavy through his nose. Fuming.
Wide-eyed, I strain to see the wild, crazed animal next to me, muddled through tears. He still has a ton of energy stored away. And he's trying to thrash me off, trying to wheel himself around in a complete one-eighty.
Don't trust him now? Don't pity him?
"Trip, who the hell have you been talking to?"
His mouth sets in a hard line.
"Talk to me. Tell me."
"I called Braxton." He hisses the name.
Spine quivering, I can only see that clever smile, those wolfish jade eyes. I really wish you'd stay a while longer. I'm sure we have much to talk about, Miss Ashford. "Today?"
"I shouldn't have."
"Why? Why did you call him?"
A long, drawn out growl rises from him.
"What happened?"
"You!" His voice bounds off glass, knocks me back. His hand flies away from his face. Flaming, roaring, he bares and gnashes his teeth. "I helped you escape the club, too, Evette. I didn't think twice about coming for you, and I risked everything. By trying to keep you alive, I made this worse. That's all I do is make things worse. I didn't realize what I was doing. Everything I said—it's my fault. I keep dragging you into the mess I've made, and I can't stop. I can't fix this."
Jumbling, I freeze. My tears come easier, falling in my lap like raindrops. "Okay, it's okay. Calm down. Tell me what he said."
"Ashford." His nerves fizz, shiver him and the air. He throws his head back. "I can't tell you," he says, hoarse, barely able to speak, "the things he said they'll do to you, because of me, if I don't give up, if I don't stop, if I make anymore of a mess, if I fuck up and Braxton gets his fucking hands—" Voice ringing in my ears again, he pitches forward, closer in a blink, bracing himself, as if he's going to be sick, or he's going to explode again.
This is too much. He's too much.
I don't know what to say to stop this storm. My hands flutter towards him, dart away when he snatches the steering wheel, wrenching, shuddering the car like thunder. He's lost in himself, mind going a million miles an hour, quaking, trying to find his way out. Compressed, teeming, his electricity raps desperately against the growing pressure, against the chaos of the rain, tugging me, towing me in all over again. My heart gallops in my rib cage with it.
"Oh God, fuck." The pressure snaps in on him, an implosion. I feel the shock-wave, and nothing else. He releases a sharp breath, pained and panicked. His body bows. Airless, strangled, he whispers, "Tell me what to do, Evette. I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm doing. Just tell me what to do. Tell me what to do."
I close in on him. My lips smash against his.
And I kiss a statue. He petrifies.
Snaking my arm around his neck, over his soaked shirt, locking myself around him, I lift in my seat and crush harder. Compel him. Kiss. Me. Drag him in closer, closer by his tense shoulders. I hear him slam down on the steering wheel. Hot fingers seize my neck, thumb at my throat.
His mouth reacts, opens. Brushing, parting my lips.
Electrifying. He infects me.
Stops my heart. Restarts it.
I breathe him in.
I lurch closer. The seat belt locks on my chest. In a rush, I unbuckle it. The armrest between us digs into my waist. I strain against it, start to push him back. He fusses, a low gruff, grip tightening on me, holding my lips to his.
His impatience is a factor that never seems to disappear.
Blindly, I climb over the armrest, slither over him, straddle him. Mold my body against his chest, his warmth. The pace of our breathing kicks up a few notches. His fingers snarl in my hair. His kiss deepens. Ravenous. Latching both arms around his neck, I follow his aggressive cadence, match it, twisting and turning my mouth, learning his at every angle. Welcome his tongue with my own. Taste him—his ice, his sparks.
He releases a pant against my mouth, and my body sets aflame, volts rattling through every cell. Wiring into me again, throttling my heart rate, taking up the entire car, he floods everything, all the space in mind. Drowning in him. I'm drowning in him. His hand finds it's way under my sweater, burning my waist, around my back. I gasp between microsecond pauses. Teeth catch my lip. His arm constricts around me, squeezes me to him, pinches a hum out of my lungs, and the chemical reaction, the rumble that rises from him causes my heart skip a beat.
I have to breathe. Hauling myself from the depth and pressure of an ocean, I surface. His mouth trails down my chin, down my throat. He hears and listens to every tingle in me. He must. Because he narrows his focus on each sweet spot he crosses. He discovers—generates—new ones I didn't even know I had. The heat blasting through the vents is blistering now. My bottom lip still pulses from his bite.
I'll tell you what to do, Triple Threat. Keep dragging me closer. You can't stop this now. I'm encroaching new terrains in you I ache to explore. Smooth and rough, dark and light, hot and cold. Every part of you, everything you do is intense. How do you contain yourself?
My heart is pounding, but it can handle you.
I swear, I can handle you.
Even when your tongue is flicking my skin.
I can barely breathe.
Neither can he.
Abruptly, he buckles into me, weight pushing me back, nearly throwing me into the steering wheel. He catches it, catches me. Dragon breath—quick and harsh, feverish as steam—scorches my neck. His lips linger, skim aimlessly, making me shiver. His chest expands and caves like he's dying.
I'm dizzy, disoriented.
I hear sizzling. The rain?
The windows are hazy.
He dies, dies, borrows into my breastbone. His hands drop, slide, clutch my hips. Behind labored gasps, he mutters something unintelligible to himself. It sounds like a curse and a plea.
Slowly, gently, slipping an arm from around him, I take his face, tilt his head back, nudge him into—it's our seat right now. More than willingly, he lets me and falls with a sigh, a hot current of air. He opens his eyes.
Ice. Electricity. Stars.
Chest to chest, face to face, I'm straddling a wildcat. I trace his mouth with my thumb nail, feel his breath. He seems scattered, trying to unwind himself and reign himself in at the same time.
I smile down at him through a blur. "Wow, Trip."
"You're going give me a heart attack." His lips move against the pad of my thumb as he speaks. Voice gravely, intoxicating. His heart thrashes against me. His gaze roves over my nose, my cheeks, my lips.
"You'll be fine," I say. "Stop being such a chicken."
He finally locks on my eyes, seeing through me, sinking through me—feels like I'm descending over him without moving, it's staggering—and he feels even closer than he was a second ago.
He huffs. "Ashford, you breathtaking demon."