Page 30 of Into the Dark
“Nah. Spain a few times, but we drove. Ah…I’m not great on planes, honestly.”
My eyes widen at this, smile tugging at my mouth. “You’re scared of flying?”
“I’m not scared,” he says defensively, holding my eye for a few seconds. “Okay, fine, they fucking terrify me. How do they even stay up? With all those people on them. And the suitcases.”
“The suitcases?” I’m fully laughing again.
“Yeah, they must be so heavy. I just…nah, fuck it.”
“Statistically, you’ve more chance of dying in a car accident than a plane crash—you know that, don’t you?”
“Well, that’s good to know. Thanks, doctor.” He looks horrified before he laughs too. This only makes me worse. I can’t stop laughing. I’m laughing about plane crashes and car accidents and it’s the lightest I’ve felt in weeks because he’s here and I’m happy.
After the laughter tapers off, we lie there staring at each other in perfectly comfortable silence. I reach up to scratch my nails over his facial hair before sliding my fingers through it, then I gently tug the length at his chin. He watches me, faintly amused.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I saw you last night.”
“So you only wanted me back for my new sexy beard.”
“It is very sexy.” I smile.
“Girls really like beards then?”
“I only like this one.”
He grins. He looks happy. Miles away from how he looked last night, and it warms me to know I helped do that. I lever myself up and kiss him softly on the side of the mouth and then on the lips, licking my tongue delicately across his bottom lip. He wraps his arms around me, then his legs, cocooning me inside him. I don’t want to ruin the moment or darken the lightness spinning around us now, but I have to. I can’t allow my naivety and his secrets to pull everything out from under us again.
“I know we said it all last night, but I can’t lose you again, Jake. I really can’t.”
“You won’t.” He kisses my head and tightens his hold on me. “I told you, I’m not letting you go again.”
“I know, but I’m not just talking about being separated from you like before. I mean…I can’t be without you when you’re in the hospital or in prison.” I lift my head to look at him. “Or in the morgue.”
He says nothing for a long time, and then he sits up, forcing me off him so we’re sitting side by side instead. He looks…serious. Nibbling hard on the inside of his mouth. I wait for him to say something along the lines of “that isn’t going to happen, baby” like he did that day in the kitchen, but he doesn’t. I wait for his eyes to fill with that same arrogant confidence they did that day too, but they don’t. Something cold and unwelcome rattles around in the pit of my stomach and settles there. I push past it.
“You told me that day that you were going to get out of this. Whatever that meant. Is that still…I mean, was that just something you said because you thought it’s what I wanted to hear? Or did you mean it?”
He turns to look at me. “I meant it. I always meant it. I am getting out.”
I swallow. “So you’re not yet? You’re still…in?”
He tenses, and his eyes widen with a plea. “It’s not that easy, baby. I wish it fucking were, wish I could just walk away and never look back. But I can’t. There’s Caleb, and there’s…” He looks at me fervently. “But I’m working on it. I promise you, I’m working on it.”
“There’s Freddy Ward,” I say. Jake’s shoulders stiffen. “He’s not going to let you just walk away—is that what you mean?”
I think he’s going to repeat what he said in the kitchen that day, tell me not to think about him or mention him, but he doesn’t do that either. He doesn’t do any of the same things now.
“Yeah,” he says with a nod. “Fred doesn’t just let people walk away. Least of all someone who knows all his secrets. Least of all me.” There’s something heavy in Jake’s tone. Like guilt.
I’ve thought about Freddy Ward a lot in the past few weeks we’ve been apart. I searched his name one night, surprised to find next to nothing on the notorious criminal who haunts Jake’s life like a specter and whom Mark and his colleagues are obsessed with. All I found was a single BBC news article from about four years ago relaying the details of a court case involving someone called Fredrick Ward who was shot while sitting in his car at a petrol station in Mile End. He survived but was in a serious condition in hospital for weeks. The person on trial was a friend and “associate” of Fred’s for a number of years, but they’d had a “disagreement” over “some property.” It terrifies me to think that in Jake’s world people resolve disagreements with gunfire and shootouts, not chats over tea and lunch like I’m used to. At the end of the court case, someone whose name I forget was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to twelve years. The case was seemingly high-profile at the time given the nature of the victim and how it highlighted the level of “gang warfare” currently rife in London’s streets. I googled Jake’s name that night too. It returned nothing on the Jake Lawrence I know and love whatsoever. Not a single news article about criminal activity, and no court cases naming him as some victim or perpetrator of any crime.
“So what does ‘working on it’ mean?” I reach out to take his hand, linking his fingers though mine. “When will you be out? And how? How do you keep yourself safe?” The thought of him in danger causes a stab of fear so sharp and debilitating it momentarily steals the breath from my lungs.
But then I try to remember that he’s lived this life for years. Years before I came along. He knows it inside-out, and he’s managed to stay safe all this time. He’s smart and strong and more than capable of surviving it. I think. Yes. He knows what he’s doing. Getting out is the untested part. And he’s only getting out because of me. Meaning it’s my fault he’s in danger. That thought is wholly new, and wholly distressing.
Jake looks like he always does when I ask him questions about himself: uncomfortable and like he’d rather talk about anything else but this. He holds my hand tighter as he thinks hard, worrying his cheek with his teeth. “Before, when we were together, part of the reason I kept things from you was because it was safer, yeah. Do you understand that now?”
I nod. The fact I do understand it now makes a shudder wash over me.