Bile sloshed back and forth up my throat as I laid the towels around Derek’s split open head, creating a barrier that the blood could no longer seep through. As I did, Derek’s lifeless eyes were stuck open, and I fucking swore he was trying to make me look at him.
I couldn’t.
“What’re you doing?”
The voice behind me was small and curious, and I turned to find the woman of the same qualities. I sighed deeply.
“We have to clean this up,” I muttered as I passed by her. The motel room somehow appeared different than it had minutes ago.
Darker. Confining.
I patted down my jeans, checking for the outline of my wallet and keys. Both were there.
My mind ran a mile a minute as I thought over what I had to do, how, and where.
“What—what do you mean?” Looking up, Scarlett had followed me out, standing just barely on two feet. She shook her head. “You have to report me.”
Her statement literally shocked my eyebrows up to my hairline.
“What the fuck did you just say?”
The steam that Scarlett’s fire had been dwindled to billowed out, heating me from across the room. “Report me. You have to. I killed a federal fucking agent.”
“It was self-defense.”
“I still did it!” she cried. “Someone is dead because of me and you have to report me.”
Images of her shackled and behind bars sped behind my eyes, and I grit my teeth together. “I don’t know what they’ll do to you if I report you.”
“I don’t care what they do to me. I deserve to go to prison. I deserve to fucking rot!”
“No, he deserves to for ever putting his fucking hands on you,” I barked back at her. Anger spilled out of me, and I knew it was directed at the wrong person, but there was no putting it back now.
It ebbed out of me, fogging the space between us and tangled with Scarlett’s heated steam. Everything was so fucked up now. The best and worst parts of ourselves got lost in the haze they created, and I couldn’t see anything but her through it all.
Just her. That sweet face, those cherry lips, and her eyes of endless green sadness.
Determination brought me closer until I towered over her, right over to those undoing eyes, looking between them both.
“I don’t know what your fascination is with going to prison, but it’s not happening tonight.”
I showed her my hand, palm up, and waited for hers.
Normally, I would have just grabbed her and dragged her along, but not tonight. Not after what almost happened in this godforsaken room that I now wanted to burn to the ground.
Scarlett dropped her eyes from mine to my hand and back up again.
The shock was back and damn near blinding.
Every line on her pretty face had softened as did her eyes. God, I hated how much I fucking loved her eyes.
Sometimes they were fresh-cut emeralds that could slice you open with one glance, and then there were times like now, where they looked like velvet fields—soft enough that I wanted to lay down and take a nap in them, wrapped in a blanket of lavender and warmth.
She hesitated for a moment, her hand lifting and stalling mid-air. Eventually, delicate fingers settled into my palm, and I folded mine around hers.
Scarlett raised her stare back up to me, and I nodded just once.
Time to bury a body.