Page 73 of When Sinners Fear

I don’t argue, and I get into the car when he opens it. He speaks to Abel, and I’m aware of conversations happening around me. My mind warps them into celebrations – is that what criminals do? Celebrate a murder?

“Urghh!” I run my hands through my hair and bury my face in my hands.

He doesn’t say anything as he takes his seat behind the wheel, and I just stare through the window as he pulls away.

When I left my mom, I thought it was closure that would balance and right my life, but doing what we did just unearthed a myriad of further questions and stumbling blocks for me to navigate. Knox is at the centre of this nucleus of pain, and maybe, in a few weeks, I’ll be able to make a rational decision with all of the information about my future in front of me. Do I want him to be part of my life, knowing what I do?

No. It’s too much. I can’t do this.

When I’m around him, I can’t see straight.

“I can’t go back with you, Knox.” I look over at him as a plan – an escape – forms.

“We'll talk tomorrow on the way home.”

Home. What an abstract concept. Is his house a home? Could it ever be?

“I need to feel some normality right now. I need to get back to what my life used to be.” It hurts to say those words, but I know they’re right. It might be hard – and terrifying – but we just killed a man. Nothing can be that terrifying. And now I have a second nightmare to accompany the first one created by Reed.

Everything’s a mess, and I need to leave.

He doesn’t answer me for a long time. “What do you want? Tell me what you want?”

“I want you to take me to Caltech. Back to where I was happy.”

“California?” He clarifies. I nod. “Your family?”

“I’ll keep in touch with them.” It’s a promise to myself more than anything.

“Good. It’s time to move on.” His voice is gruff and clipped, but his words don’t fill me with relief, and my heart aches at how easily he’s agreed. In fact, his words make my decision that much heavier. The need to leave and get a grasp of reality is calling louder and louder, though. I have to do it, for me.

The outskirts of a city I’ve never been to before pass by slowly, bright lights and energy thrumming this late at night. He grabs his phone, presses a few buttons, and holds it to his ear, as he continues driving. “Yeah, I need you to get the jet ready. Now. California, Pasadena. I don’t care, do it.” He hangs up.

My jaw locks down on the words I want to shout at him. I want to ask him to rethink, to tell me it’s going to be okay or that he’s made a mistake. There’s only silence, though. It seems as heavy as the sins on both our hands, and it continues for however long we drive.

“Do you have a cell?” he eventually asks.

“No. Not since …”

“I’ll get you one.”

“I can.”

“It’s fine. Christ, Peyton.”

We don’t say anything further. He drives to the airstrip where we landed earlier in the day. Even from this distance, I can see the jet waiting out on the tarmac, presumably fuelled and ready to take us wherever he wants to go, despite the hurried instructions. I think about how he might afford that little luxury – by selling women as slaves. His house, his suits, everything about him is built on the misery of others, of girls like me. It breaks my heart, but it doesn’t make saying goodbye at the other end of this flight any easier. That, in itself, should tell me everything I need to know.

For a fleeting moment, I think about all the places we could escape to in that jet. I’ve never been outside of the United States, and suddenly, the pull to just run away is so fierce, it feels like it’s going to crush my chest.

When the car stops, I don’t want to get out of it, even though this was my request. He’s turned it around so quickly I feel like I’ve got whiplash. He comes around and opens the door for me, offering me his hand. I reach for it, desperate for some kind of contact. The decision to run was to salvage my world that had begun to crumble with the weight of his darkness, but this feels worse.

To my relief, he doesn’t pull his hand away, as we walk to the steps of the jet. It must be a long way, a long flight time. Maybe we’ll be able to talk it through up there in the sky, away from all this.

“Goodbye, Peyton.”

“Goodbye?” I turn to look at him. “You’re not coming?”

“No.”