My heart churned like a cement mixer, a million competing emotions running through me. Relief he was alive. And fear because he wasn’t dead.
I climbed into the middle seat, still dazed but feeling everything sparking back to life, like I went from black and white back to Technicolor.
Javier didn’t turn around to acknowledge me. In fact, as Camden closed the door and Dom drove the Escalade down the street, no one said anything. The five of us were silent though apologies were dancing on my tongue. I wanted to tell Javier I was sorry about Violetta. I wanted to tell him it was all my fault. I wanted to beg for forgiveness.
But I didn’t. Because it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t bring her back. It wouldn’t make anyone feel better. Not even me.
Camden reached for my hand and held onto it tight. His skin was warm, firm and soft all at once. I raised my eyes to his. He was here with me, a simple fact in an unsimple world.
We stared at each other for a few beats, my thoughts lost in those baby blues, in the hardness that surrounded them, and the soulfulness deep inside. Violetta’s words from last night swirled around in my head. Her wish for love, to love and to be loved.
I couldn’t be sure I had the latter. I certainly didn’t deserve it. But I had the former. I loved this man who was sitting next me, who had been by my side, on my side, from the beginning. I had to hold onto that. I had something that Violetta died without – knowing that someone completely owns your heart. Camden owned my heart and the blood it pumped through me. He owned every atom and inch of my body, every crevice and dark shadow of my soul. From now on, he would possess it freely, easily. I was his. And if I blew up the next day, if I met my death trying to get back Gus and my mother, at least then I could die knowing my heart was put to good use. It wasn’t wasted. And if it wasn’t wasted then perhaps I wasn’t wasted either.
I squeezed his hand back, silent thanks for his comfort and devotion. Then I carefully leaned my head on his shoulder and tried to forget about the pain that the morning had brought me. The lives it had changed.
We sped south in a car full of love and death.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Hold still,” Camden instructed.
He had an alcohol soaked cloth poised at the corner of my head, ready to sting the shit out of me. The pain that came with healing.
We were in a gas station bathroom, the floor sticky with unknown fluids, the walls crawling with winged creepy crawlies that would occasionally make a go for the bare light bulb before falling to the floor. I was sitting up on the sink and Camden was trying to treat my wounds while he had the chance.
We had driven pretty much nonstop all the way from Aguascalientes until just outside of the border to Guatemala, 12 hours in one stretch. During the drive, Javier hadn’t said a single word, only stared out the window as the landscape of his country rushed past us. Dom and Este did all the talking, telling us the plan for the next few days as we went into the jungle. Apparently we were meeting another “friend” of theirs in Guatemala City who’d be joining us.
No one talked about what happened to Violetta or who was shooting at us. I assumed it was Travis and I guess from their silence the assumption was right. There was nothing to say, I suppose, except that his people wanted us dead and they were a lot more clever than I had given them credit for.
“Ow,” I moaned as Camden gently pressed the cloth to my head.
“Sorry,” he said, eyes soft as he gazed at me.
I watched him as he did this, wincing through the pain. He dabbed it on my cheekbone where I had another large gash that hurt if I smiled. Luckily, there wasn’t much to smile about.
“How are your eyes?” I asked him.
He paused, cloth in hand, and peered at me inquisitively. “What do you mean?”
“Can you see me?”
He went back to stinging the wounds. “I told you I can see you clearly from up close.”
I swallowed hard and swung my legs up and down, suddenly very aware that as I sat on the edge of the sink, I was pretty much straddling him. “Do you like what you see?” I asked quietly. My words sat in a fine haze over the room, my chest constricting from the silence.
His mouth dropped open, lower lip full and inviting, his pink tongue moving in his mouth, trying to make words that would not come.
“Am I still beautiful to you?” I whispered, feeling my heart slowly leak open. I was raw and wounded and in his hands.