Chapter 7
Damon was officially in hell.
“I want to get out of the car!” Molly screamed, kicking the driver’s seat to punctuate each word. The vibration was making Damon’s teeth rattle.
“What about if we sing a song, honey?” Cain said from the backseat, his voice full of the brittle cheer of someone who was at the end of his tether.
“The one time in her life she won’t take a freakin’ nap in the car.” Chelsea’s pissed-off whisper from the passenger’s seat was pitched low, so only Damon could hear.
“No! I. Want. To. Get. Out. Of. The.Carrrrrrr,”Molly wailed. Her tone was so high-pitched and frantic that Damon’s eyes shot back to hers in the rear-view mirror.
The little dark-haired, dark-eyed minx had seemed perfectly angelic when they’d first arrived at Chelsea’s apartment, sitting primly on the ruined sofa in their living room, tapping her feet together with three-year-old abandon. While Chelsea had raced around frantically packing a few last-minute things, Cain and Damon had stood in awkward silence, while the solemn child had watched them with brown eyes so intense, Damon had fought the urge to squirm under the close scrutiny. Finally, she’d tilted her head to the side, and opened her mouth like she was about to pronounce judgment.
“I’m three years old,” she’d said importantly. “Almostfour.”
The words had been so comically similar to the way Cain had described his own age that Damon’s eyes had flown to him of their own accord. And for a moment, the smile they’d shared had loosened some of the tension that had built up between them.
Molly had attached herself to Cain immediately when they’d gotten to the car, recognizing that he was definitely the friendlier of the two strangers. Cain had endured it all with a smile and way more patience than Damon himself would ever be capable of. She’d wantedCainto sit next to her in the backseat,Cainto listen to her jokes,Cainto read her the story about a pink princess. Damon had needed to bite his lip to hold back a smile when he’d started doing voices for each of the characters.
But then Molly, in her innocent way, had turned to Cain and said, “My friend Adrianna has two uncles. Are you and him my uncles?”
Cain’s eyes had met Damon’s in the rear-view mirror. “Uh, no,” Cain had told her. “Damon is your uncle, and I’m his…” He’d hesitated, so clearly wanting Damon to finish the sentence, but Damon didn’t, and Cain couldn’t hide his disappointment.
Really, what were they to each other, though?Friends? Damon had never had a friend whose mouth he wanted to pillage, who he wanted to hold down andfuck through a mattressbefore, which was pretty much where all his wayward thoughts had headed from the second they’d left his apartment this morning, even after bearing witness to Cain’s conversation with his mother.
And he couldn’t deny that hearing Cain on the phone had seriously brought the man’s loyalty into question and made him regret his impulsive decision to let Cain come with him.
He’d recognized that Cain wanted a shot at redemption, a shot to help Damon without risking his own neck.Kid, he’d thought.He’s young and struggling to do what’s right.It would take a certain level of coldness to put his own father behind bars, and he didn’t want to fault Cain for not being a cynical asshole like Damon himself.
But then Cain had agreed with every asinine thing that came out of his mother’s mouth. She’d treated him like she owned him, and he’d let her. She’d made insane demands, and he’d agreed to them. So how was Damon supposed to trust that Cain wouldn’t just crumple like wet cardboard the second anyone questioned his whereabouts or demanded to know more about Damon and Chelsea? It wasn’t just about coldness, he’d realized, but about strength. How could he trust that Cain would be strong when he needed to be?
In the end, Damon’s hesitation over the question hadn’t mattered, because Chelsea had stepped in to deliver a killing blow.
“They’re not your uncles, sweetie. Neither of them. They’re justdrivers, taking us someplace safe.” She’d shot Damon a glare hot enough to roast a lesser man, then sat back with her arms folded over her chest. She’d been staring pointedly out the window ever since.
The tension in the car had reached stratospheric levels after that, with neither of his adult passengers meeting his eyes or speaking to anyone but Molly, and so maybe it was no surprise that now the little girl had decided to throw the world’s most epic temper tantrum.
Molly struggled against the buckles of her booster seat, demanding to be freed. Cain’s face was flushed and worn, his patience long since evaporated.
Damon made an executive decision and took the next exit off the highway.
“We’re stopping now.”
“Already?” Chelsea’s posture unlocked as she glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “We’ve only been driving for five hours. We’re not nearly far enough away yet.”
“Don’t argue with thedriver,” he snapped. When her teeth clicked shut angrily, he sighed. “We haven’t been followed, as far as I can tell. And if anyone is trying to track us, they’ll expect that we’ll keep driving as far as we can. Varying our length of time on the road is a good thing. Tomorrow, we’ll get up early and drive straight through the day. Okay?”
She shrugged, and he took it for grudging acceptance.
He pulled into the parking lot of The Stafford Motel, whose sign proclaimed,‘Best Breakfast in the Poconos!’and found a secluded spot where the car wouldn’t be visible from the road, then cut the engine. Molly’s whining cut off at exactly the same time.
“I’ll go get us a room,” he said, opening the door.
“Two rooms.”
He turned back to find Chelsea glaring at him. “One room. It’s safer if we’re all together.”
“Tworooms. I don’t know you, Damon. I’m sure as hell not sharing a room with you.” The stubborn glint in her green eyes - so similar to his own - told him she wasn’t going to back down.
