Ines

We drove all day, stopping only to get something to eat and to exchange our car for a new one. I fell asleep around noon, and somehow managed to sleep through the hottest part of the day.

It's the evening now and we're sitting atop a hill in the car Rook stole at the gas station where we ate. The sun is setting just to the side of a small border crossing surrounded by green hills that look hazy in the heat stirred air. In fact, they look drawn and hastily colored in, not real at all, but that's just my nerves talking.

Every time I voice my fears about crossing the border, Rook tells me not to worry, that it'll all go fine, and I think he's getting tired of me talking about it. His answers are getting shorter and more clipped each time. But it could just be that he's tired. He drove all day and will have to for the rest of the night still. I wish I could be more useful instead of being this helpless ball of nerves in the passenger seat, but I never learned how to drive and horror movies of Silvio snatching me up and taking me back to my gilded prison are playing in my head fast and loud.

"Maybe we should find a room for the night and cross the border tomorrow," I suggest, fighting not to see the horror movies in my head. Rook's skin is greyish, his eyes are blood red and that set, determined look on his face hasn't changed for hours. "You need some sleep."

He shakes his head as he peels his gaze away from the border crossing to look at me. The blue of his eyes is still as clear as the untouched parts of the ocean, and they're telling me everything will be alright. I just have to trust it, and I am trying to, I'm trying so very hard.

"I'll sleep for a couple of hours once we're across the border," he says and grins at me, since I have raised this question before and his answer was the same then as it is now. "We'll cross as soon as it gets dark."

His answer makes no sense, since we'll have to be fast once we're across so they don't catch us. He's probably just telling me what he thinks I need to hear right now. But I know how many of my countrymen attempt this crossing daily and also how very many of them get shot and killed when they fail. But I don't think he has the energy to argue with me, so I won't question him anymore. He's a patient, calm man, but I doubt he has many more of these assurances he's been giving me left in him. My life is in his hands. I trust him with it. And the last thing I want to do is make this any harder for us.

"Well, at least try to get some rest now," I say. "I'll keep watch."

He grins again and leans over to kiss me, dousing my worry and nervousness in a warm, healing liquid that flows from a place right near my heart and leaves no room for anything but happiness and hope—two things I haven't felt in so long before he reappeared in my life, that I forgot how they actually feel. Glorious, that's how.

"Maybe you're right," he says as he stops kissing me abruptly and reclines his seat. "Wake me when it gets dark if I fall asleep."

He grins at what must be a very pouty expression on my face, since I'd prefer us to keep kissing until it gets dark and beyond, or at least for a little bit longer. He gives me another peck on the lips then lies back in his seat.

A few moments later his even breathing and just a hint of snoring is filling the cab. I want him to be awake, to keep kissing me, keep telling me all will be well, because as soon as he fell asleep all my doubts returned a hundred fold. It's because he's not as strongly with me when he's asleep.

But it would be beyond selfish to wake him now.

So I settle back in my seat and watch the light fail outside, thinking about nothing but the happiness he brought back into my heart, and the hope for our future, which is just beyond those mountains that don't even look real. So they can’t be anything but an easy obstacle to overcome.

* * *

Rook

It's time. I smile at her one last time, give her hands, which she's clutching into a tight little ball in her lap, one last squeeze and start the car, keeping the lights off. The border crossing below us is only lit on one side. It's in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by hills and desert-like terrain on both sides of the border, so not very many people cross it on a daily basis.

A gravel road, more a path actually, leads down from the hill where I parked when we arrived to the border. There's a rest area of sorts behind the main border crossing building and this path leads right past it, before it veers left and out of sight behind an outcrop of boulders. It’ll take us right into the US and none of the patrol officers will be any the wiser.

My MC and most other MCs operating in the area have been using this path to cross unobserved for years. It's where I crossed ten years ago when I needed to leave the US in a hurry after that robbery that went bad. It's also where I came back in after I failed to hold onto Ines. Or at least that's how I thought it was at the time. Now I'll do anything to hold onto her.

This crossing isn't entirely without risk due to the proximity of the actual border patrol building. There are other crossings, safer ones, but they're all far away from here, and there's a safe house just over the left-most hill right ahead of us. We just have to reach it, and we'll be fine.

Ines is shaking, but trying to hide her fear as she stares into the darkness ahead of us, keeping her eyes averted from the lit up buildings. She's the bravest and strongest woman I know. I wouldn't survive ten years of captivity and torture, I know that. And I'm sure I'd look a hell of a lot more nervous, if I was facing the risk of going back to my torturer like she is right now. She's been fearing it all day, and nothing I said to try and comfort her helped. She braved her fear on her own. Her strength gives me strength. I'm very sure of myself and my skills, but with her by my side, I always felt invincible. That's how I feel right now. And I'd tell her so, but I have to concentrate on the crossing. I will tell her as soon as we're clear though.

I take her hand as we reach the crossing, squeeze it tight as I drive slowly towards the boulders. No rashness is the key with these crossings. Even if we get stopped, we'll just pretend we got lost. At least long enough to make a break for it.

I won't ever let her go back to that motherfucker. I'll stop that from happening with my own life.

She starts shaking worse and worse as I slowly drive the car into the darkness, which is now pretty much absolute. The moon is rising over the hills to our left, its pale silvery sheen visible above the peaks. When I first noticed it, my heart stopped, because it looked like searchlights, but it's just the moon. The one that will let us see better once we're out of these hills and on our way home.

But the hills in front of us, the ones we're trying to reach are just blacker masses in what is already a very black world.

"Just a little further," I say in a whisper, and I don't know why I'm whispering. Maybe it's so as not to startle her.

She squeezes my hand and makes a whimpery sort of sound, but doesn't actually say anything.

The black mass that's the hill I'm aiming for is drawing closer and closer. Soon it's all I see.

The moon is higher in the sky as we reach the top and I'm starting to worry the light will start bouncing off the car soon, making us visible from miles away.

But we reach the shelter of the trees before that becomes a problem. A silver ribbon is hanging off a tree to our right. A couple of feet deeper into the forest I already see the next one catching the light of the moon.

I let go of the steering wheel, so I don't have to let go of her hand, and point it out.

"See those ribbons?" I ask. "We just follow them to the safe house and then we're almost home."

I smile at her even though it's very dark and she probably can't see me do it.

She brings my hand to her mouth and kisses it. "Good."

It's such a small gesture, but makes me feel so big, so strong, fucking invincible.

The safe house at this crossing is just a cave obscured by tree branches and stones. And right now, I hope to hell that no one's in it, so Ines and me will get a couple of hours alone. I want to show her just how strong and powerful she makes me feel.