“I’m not innocent,” I repeat, my fingers around her soft throat.

What the fuck am I doing? I could tell by the way she moved, the way she pulled at my arm, that this is where she wanted my hand. She wants me to choke her, and from the way her hips are moving and her thighs are rubbing together, I know exactly where she wants my other hand.

“We have to go,” I hiss.

I let go of her throat enough that she can speak unobstructed.

“So it’s we now?” she asks.

“I need time to think,” I say, bringing my fingers up to cradle her jaw. “To get you out of this.”

I can’t run now, not now that Napier suspects her. If I ran, he’d use her as bait to get me out.

The thought of just turning myself in does occur to me, but Napier is also the kind of man who would wait until I was in prison and unable to stop him before he started to torture Angel. He’s the kind of man that would come visit me in prison just to tell me every detail of how he’s making her life miserable.

I find my lips pressed against her ear. I hear and feel the heat of her breath as she pants against my cheek.

I whisper into her ear as I squeeze her throat once again. “As soon as it’s dark, we go.”

* * *

I drive.

“It looks like you’re driving in loops,” she says.

“Because I am,” I say.

I have to make 100% sure Napier or one of his lackeys isn’t following us.

I saw a car behind us with no headlights on, but that was almost thirty minutes ago. I’ve lost him, but I want to remove any hint of doubt before I drive where I’m going.

“Remember how I told you that I’m not innocent,” I say.

“Alex…”

I let go of her in the kitchen. As much as I wanted to have her completely then and there, we had to prepare. We raided her pantry and refrigerator, but not enough that it will look too suspicious if Napier gets a warrant. I had her pack enough clothes for several days, and she got her medical supplies packed in as well. She called into work, said something about her aunt being sick. She said it was true, and that it’d buy her a few days. By the time we finished packing, it was time to go.

We haven’t talked again about what I did or didn’t do. She decided for some reason to believe I didn’t kill those men. But I am a criminal.

I pull the car up onto the dirt road, and we drive past snowed over cornfields until the farmhouse becomes visible in the distance.

“I thought your cabin was in the forest,” she says.

“We can’t have your car found parked outside the forest. It will lead him to us. This is my buddy’s farm.”

We pull up next to his car, and I put the car into park.

I put a hand onto Angel’s hip and squeeze. It feels good to touch her again, and she looks up at me as if she’s ready to kiss me. I’m tempted to do it, but I don’t think I could stop once I tasted her on me again, and we have to get to the cabin before dawn.

“I use the term ‘buddy’ loosely,” I say. “He’s an asshole. Just let me do the talking.”

She nods.

Angel gets out of the car, and I take her by the hand as we walk up to the door. Even limping, I don’t let her help me. It’s my job to protect her now, not lean on her.

I knock on the door and wait.

Terry takes one look at me, then slams the door in my face. “Get the hell off my farm!”

“Terry!” I shout. “I just need a ride into the forest.”

“Fuck off!” He hisses back. “I saw on the TV. Don’t need you bringing the cops ‘round here!”

“I won’t leave then,” I say. “They’ll come around soon enough once someone spots me here. Maybe one of those guys you have working for you under the table will turn me in?”

The door opens back up. He looks at me with a big frown, but he perks up when he sees Angel.

“Now who is this?” He asks, smiling wide. “A partner in crime? You look too sweet to harm a fly.”

“Pretend you never saw her,” I say. “I need a ride, and you need to hold our car in your barn for a few days.”

He leans his head out the door and whistles. “That a Prius?”

* * *

“I told you to let me do the talking,” I say.

I try to get Terry’s shitty truck to shift into the next gear, and it lets out a loud creak and starts chugging after I shift it.

“You said we had to hurry,” she says. “So I hurried.”

Angel gave up her Prius for Terry’s rust bucket truck. A terrible deal by any stretch. The only plus was that Terry is a shady enough guy that he can get the registration on the Prius faked–meaning the car can’t get traced back to Angel.

“Didn’t you see how I won him over?” Angel asks, beaming like a ray of sunshine.

I laugh. “You’d win anyone over with that routine. You could have got a way better deal from him.”

I have to admit I felt a bit of jealousy when Angel put the flirting onto Terry, but I knew full well what she was doing.

“$2,000 in cash,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Not bad if you ask me.”

I do the mental math of how much more the Prius was worth than the truck, but I don’t bother. I should have stepped in and taken over, but Terry was pissed at me, and he had eyes only for Angel. If I’d tried to wedge my way into the negotiation, he might have stiffed us even harder just to spite me.

I put a hand on Angel’s leg and squeeze. “Either way. I’ll get your car back for you.”

She looks at me and smiles, as if she doesn’t quite believe me.

We pass by the spot on the road where the two of us first met last night. It already feels like ages ago. A big part of me wishes I really had just kept her away from me. I might be frozen to death somewhere in the forest right now, but at least Angel would be safe. Instead, she’s knee deep in my mess.

We drive all the way around the forest, and there’s a sign for the lake. I turn us down the dirt road toward the lake. This is why my cabin is closer on this side–the road goes a ways in to reach the lake.

I roll the truck up into the parking lot, which is empty as no one is ice fishing at 2am.

“How far is your cabin from here?” Angel asks.

When should I tell her it’s not actually my cabin? Maybe once we get there. Or maybe I’ll just never tell her.

“A ways in,” I say. “On foot.”

She looks down at my leg and frowns.

“I’ll be fine. Don’t you worry about me.”

I’m not actually so sure. It’s more than a mile through thick forest, and every time I step out into the cold, the injured leg flares up with pain.

I look into the bed of Terry’s truck for anything that might be useful for us. There’s a tackle box full of rusted fishing equipment and a crowbar. Criminals always have crowbars. I grab some of the fishing line, hooks, and some of the metal weights.

“We’re not going fishing, are we?” Angel asks, frowning at me.

“Nah,” I say. “You just never know when you’ll need this stuff.”

“Rusty hooks?” she asks.

“And a crowbar,” I say, grabbing it out of the truck.

She bites her lip as I take the crowbar out and hold it to my side like a weapon.

I lean in toward her, and with my free hand I run my fingers along the skin of her cheek. Her lips part, and the heat of her breath is plainly visible in the biting cold.

“Listen,” I say. “I don’t expect we’ll need to use this for what you’re thinking. But it’s better that I have it than if I don’t.”

She reaches up and takes hold of my wrist, pressing her warm lips against my gloved hand, and nods.