His lips tighten, forcing back any response. The silence makes me almost certain he said what he said to get me on the road with him. To shut me up and get me in the car so he can do what he always intended to do: drop me off the first chance he gets.
I don’t truly settle in my seat until we drive by the sign for a bus station. I release a breath of relief as we pass it.
I’m confused as much as it seems he is. How can he like to be around me when he’s so willing to kill me in the same moment? I try to shake off my insecurity. He was always willing to kill me. It’s always been on the table, even when I felt the hesitation every time he threatened it. Even when I worried he’d do it, I knew there was a bigger struggle inside him. So I stayed calm, placing my fate in his hands.
Whatever that would be.
I’d rather him kill me than drop me off at the damn bus station. He’s the first person who’s gotten to know me. Not even my parents let me open up the way I have with him. They thought I had nothing more going for me than being an unhappy wife in a marriage I never wanted. But Lex saw something else in me. Something I couldn’t even see. Lex is someone I should stay far away from, but I see things in him he can’t either.
His darkness deserves some light.
“You surprised me, rabbit,” he says after a nauseating length of silence.
“When?”
“In the woods. You were so tactful. Resourceful. Almost more than me.” He lets a smirk cross his face for a moment.
“I’m not as stupid or weak as you think I am,” I tell him while forcing my gaze out the window.
“I never thought you were weak.” He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “I considered you vulnerable.”
“And?”
He clears his throat. “My trip to the border is suicide.” He refuses to look at me as my gaze snaps to his face.
“What do you mean?”
“My story either ends in a shootout at the checkpoint or I die in the goddamn desert trying to cross on foot.”
“Lex,” I whisper, shaking my head.
“This is why I needed you to go. I needed you to leave because I realized what a fucking pipe dream this was. You think this is your fairy tale, but it’s merely a horror story.”
“I’m not accepting that.”
Lex laughs. “Sure are stubborn, aren’t you? You can’t buy your way out of this one, rabbit.” He doesn’t speak for a while, letting the road noise fill the gap in our conversation. “What was your idea? How did you see this ending?” he finally asks.
“Nope, it doesn’t matter.”
“Rabbit,” he says firmly. “Tell me.”
I don’t respond, dropping my head to my hand. Lex pulls over and fists my hair, pulling me into him. “Tell me, sweet bunny,” he whispers. His words are the heat that melts me and he knows it does. He flashes those blue eyes at me, and my resolve dissolves.
“Fine. We used to have a nanny—”
Lex rolls his eyes.
“You know what? Forget it.”
“I’m sorry,” he says with a sarcastic tone. “Please, continue. You had a nanny...”
“I’m not going to help you if you’re going to make fun of how I grew up. Would you like it if I made fun of how you grew up?”
“You’re right. I had a nanny, though, for your information. He was the local drug dealer.”
I curl my lip. “Anyway, my nanny was from Arkansas, and she always talked about this forest, saying you could get lost in there and no one would ever find you. Wichita? Or something?”
“Ouachita. It’s a national forest,” he corrects me. When I cock my head at him, he shrugs. “A lot of time to study when you’re serving life.”