“Yeah,” I said deliberately, leaning forward on the horse’s neck, “I did. I felt like I needed more. One tattoo just wasn’t doing it for me.”
I hoped that made him angry. Really angry. In a sick way I wanted him to hit me. Just so I could forever throw it in his face and make him feel like less of a man. Another part of me was afraid that it might actually happen. Because the way he was looking at me was like a snake about to strike, a face that was both ice and fire, someone that wanted blood and vengeance and to prove just how fucking powerful he was.
We were locked like that in a showdown of pin-prick pupils and venomous hearts until Raul got our attention.
“I hate to break up … whatever this is, but we have to make it to Montepio by noon, is that right?”
Finally Javier broke the staring contest, letting go of the reins with a sharp inhale. “Yes, thank you. We do. Let’s get a move on.”
He mounted his horse with ease, springing up like a gymnast and Burt led us out of the corral. I straightened up off the horse’s neck, feeling dazed, like I had been caught in some dream and looked down at my fingers, only now noticing that I had them balled up into fists. I opened my palm and saw blood where my own nails had dug in.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CAMDEN
“So, Camden,” Gus said, his hands squeezing the wheel like a stress ball. “When did Ellie first break your heart?”
We were right outside of San Antonio and heading toward the border crossing at Nuevo Laredo. Apparently the border there was pretty lax and Gus didn’t expect us to get questioned much, if at all. The Mexicans didn’t really care who came into the country, even though the border line-up on the other side promised to be a nightmare.
We couldn’t take chances, though. I was all poised to cross over as Connor Malloy, a regular Joe and not at all a wanted fugitive.
“What makes you think she broke my heart?” I asked, looking at the flat, dry scenery skirt past us. Ranches, ranches, ranches.
I saw him shrug out of the corner of my eye. “Only a hunch. Not many men turn into the tattoo artist version of Lawrence Olivier in Marathon Man. Just swap torture with a dentist drill for a tattoo needle.”
“I’ve seen the movie,” I muttered. I looked down at his watch on my wrist, feeling heavy and foreign. It was four in the afternoon and we’d been driving non-stop since we left Ocean Springs. We were lucky enough to get out of Javier’s house without anyone seeing us, taking the beach around to the car, but we didn’t want to push our luck anymore. The Mexican border seemed extremely inviting for both of us, now that Gus had killed two people.
I shook my head, trying to make sense out of what happened and as before, no sense came. I completely lost every sense of right and wrong and good and bad. I became this black, suffocating thing, everything I feared in others. I became Javier. I became my father.
That wasn’t me. I didn’t want to see that person again. He was getting locked in my head along with everything else I didn’t want to think about.
Or maybe that person was what happened when all the things I hid deep inside finally came out to play.
“Don’t want to talk about it,” Gus pondered. “I understand.”
It was true, I didn’t want to talk about it. But Gus talking and asking me shit was the first time in days he’d shown any interest in me at all. He was treating me with a bit more respect now. Maybe he was impressed. Or scared that I’d tattoo his balls in his sleep.
I sighed and sat back in my seat, hands in my lap, fidgeting. “I fell in love with Ellie in high school.”
“Sweethearts, huh?”
I smirked. “No. Just friends. And only for a short while. We were the resident freaks of the school. Ellie with her limp and scars. Me and my penchant for wearing makeup and a lot of vinyl.”
“Makeup?”
The way Gus said it, I knew what he was thinking.
“Don’t worry,” I explained. “I’m not gay. At least, that’s what everyone jumps to as a conclusion. Even my father. I was a goth, an artist. The Art Fag, as they called me. Whatever, I had a lot of names. And I was beat on often as you can imagine. Ellie was my only friend.”
“I see. A friend.”
“Yup. Isn’t that the plight of every geeky teenager out there? Always doomed to be the friend? So anyway, I was in love with her and every day I’d try to work up the nerve and the guts to tell her how I felt and to kiss her. One day, I just did it.”
“How was that?”
I chewed on my lip, trying to figure out how best to explain it. “It took something away from me.” After I first felt Ellie’s lips on mine, the warmth, sweetness, I was never the same. She took a piece of me that I was unable to get back until I was inside her, feeling her heart and her sins in my hands.
I was so afraid I’d never get to experience that again. All those years of longing, of looking for that part of me and she was the only one who could supply it. She really was the only one I truly, drowning in my passion, loved.