I walk up to the hotel. I took one of the keycards with me. I even left a note for Alex. I see his truck parked, but there’s a big dent on the back bumper.

My heart pounds. Something happened? He did something stupid?

I slide the keycard in and open the door.

When I step inside, I see him sprawled out on the bed. He’s wearing nothing but his boxers, and he’s got fresh purple and black bruises all along his sides and face. There’s dried blood on his temples. He’s lying on top of a frozen bag of vegetables.

“I guess you went to work,” he says, his voice low and icy.

“I did,” I say. “And I guess you pulled off some brilliant plan that you didn’t want to tell me about.”

“I did,” he says. “Well, you’re close. I didn’t quite pull it off. Had a bit of a hiccup on the way back.”

As mad as I am at him, I find myself by his side, my hands gently touching his sides. He winces as I touch him.

“Does it hurt when you breathe?” I ask.

He nods. “My head hurts worse. I didn’t sleep, if that’s what you’re wondering. I knew I had a concussion because I could barely remember anything when I drove back. So I made sure I didn’t fall asleep. I kept setting the alarm for every five minutes. All morning until I was too tired to even sleep anymore.”

“Jesus,” I whisper. “What happened?”

“I had it, Angel,” he says. “I had the smoking gun. Well, the spent shells at least. I had evidence proving Napier was there when he said he wasn’t.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“Bikers must have been watching the house,” he says. “I was looking for police cars, never thought to look for bikes. They can hide in tighter nooks and crannies I guess. Right after I got onto the main road they jumped me. Beat me up...though you should see them–”

“Stop it, Alex,” I say, “Don’t start with that.”

“Fine,” he says. “I did hit them a bit, but it was three on one, and I got beat up way worse. The real loss is that they took my camera and the shells. I’ve got nothing now.”

“You’ve got me,” I say.

His cool blue eyes meet mine. “Do I? I told you not to go to work, and you went as soon as–”

“I went as soon as you disappeared into the night on a near suicide mission!”

“Napier could have found you,” he says.

I look away from him. I try not to lie, but then I realize that if I lie to him, I’m doing the same thing he’s doing to me, and–

“He did find you,” Alex says.

He sits up, and winces in pain. His muscles bulge, and he gasps for breath, but he sits up. He puts a hand on my arm. “Did he?”

I nod.

“Fuck,” he hisses. “Everything is fucked. We’re fucked.”

“I didn’t mess up,” I say. “He’s suspicious of me, but he doesn’t have a warrant. He visited me at work, so it made it look like I was back to my day-to-day. He’s still going to keep poking, but I won’t give him anything. I promise.”

He stares me down for a long time, not saying a thing.

“You lied to me,” I say.

“I didn’t lie,” he says. “I just didn’t tell you a lot of stuff.”

“Sounds like something a shitty con man would say,” I hiss.

He falls back flat on his back, collapsing into the bed. “Then why don’t you leave this shitty con man alone? Go back to work, stop helping me, and when Napier asks you, you won’t even have to lie anymore.”

“I need to tend to these wounds.”

He swats a hand at me, as if I were a mosquito he didn’t want to hover around him. “I’ll be fine here. Napier doesn’t know I’m here. As long as I lay low, or run, I won’t get caught. The bikers told me to get lost, and it’s probably what I should do. It’s not a life for you, Angel. Not even close to the life you deserve.”

“I’m not going to abandon you, Alex,” I say, putting a hand on his hair. It’s matted with dried blood. “Especially not now.”

“You think I’m some good guy underneath it all,” he says. He’s not even looking at me now. “That if I could just clear my name I’d be some stand-up guy. Maybe I’d have tried it–for you I would have–but nothing like that is going to matter. Whatever potential you think I have, it’s not going to get to come out. Fate seems to have other plans for me, it seems to have decided it’s going to ride my ass and fuck me over. I thought you were a good thing for a while, but now that I know I can’t have you, it seems you were just the last glimmer of hope to get dangled in front of me before it’s all taken away.”

I get on the bed, throwing my leg over him. I straddle his stomach without actually putting pressure on his bruised ribs. I press my hands down on either side of his head, and I lean forward and close to him, so that he’s forced to look at me.

“Angel,” he whispers.

“Listen,” I say. “I’m not going to leave. I’m in it with you. If you really think you have to run, that you can’t beat Napier, I’ll run with you.”

He looks me over seriously for a moment, and his lips part as if he’s about to speak.

Then I hear a sound behind me, and Alex’s eyes widen and move away from me. His body tightens as if he’s seen a snake.

I turn around and see Napier smiling down at us.

“You’ll run with him?” Napier says. “Seems my hunch was right then.”

I roll away from Alex, instinctively putting Alex between myself and Napier.

I see Napier reach for his gun, but Alex leaps off the bed.

I see his knee slam into Napier.

I think of screaming, but stop myself when I realize Alex is beating up a cop. Any “help” that would come would eventually do us in.

I see Napier and Alex grapple in a jumble of limbs, and then Alex throws Napier down, ramming his head against the radiator coils, and Napier’s body falls down limp.

Alex falls down beside Napier, grunting in pain.

I’m by his side in an instant, holding his hand.

“Him,” Alex croaks. “Check him.”

Napier is on his back, one of arms outstretched. His eyes are closed, and he’s not moving.

I grab his outstretched hand and touch his wrist, feeling for a pulse. It’s there, and strong. “He’s alive.”

“I thought it couldn’t get worse,” Alex whispers. “It just got a lot worse.”

Alex looks grabs the radiator to pull himself up. I try to help him up, but he refuses.

He stands tall and looks down at me. “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“This is it,” he says. “Your last chance to get out of this. You can say I threatened your family if you didn’t help me. Whatever Napier thinks he overheard happened right before I slammed his head and knocked him out cold. They’ll believe you, an ER nurse, a good woman–”

“Alex,” I say, taking his hand.

“I should decide for you,” he says. “But that hasn’t been working out much, has it?”

“I’m not going to leave you,” I say.

My heart is pounding. It’s logically a terrible decision. What future am I going to have on the run with him? What about my family? But I can’t leave him. I need him. I love him, even though I haven’t said it to him yet.

“I have a plan,” he says. “I’ll tell you it this time...but we have to go. Now.”