Phoenix's Lies

Waiting Game

River

As soon as we make it onto the freeway some of my tension relaxes since no one else seems to be following us. It's dark outside so I can't see the blood on my hands unless we pass under the occasional streetlight and it shines over the inside of the car. Next to me, Nix is strangely silent but when I look over he's not asleep. Just watching out the window with an odd expression. Detached but still here. "Hey, are you ok?"

My quiet words are eaten up by the silence and I get the sense that he's not answering me for a reason I can't reach. Maybe he's afraid. Angry. Disgusted. I have no idea since for one I can't read his expression, too much of his face clouded in shadow and turned away. I sigh when the silence stretches but don't press him to talk to me since I know from past experience that he'll do so when he's ready.

Looking back to the GPS on the dash I can see it's a long drive to wherever the others have picked for us to hide. A good few hours away from Ayrith somewhere remote. Just like they said. The silence gets too loud after a while so I switch on the music, smiling when a soft song I know comes on, filling the silence between us that seems to mean we're so far apart, even with us being close enough that I could hold his hand if I reached to the left. Loathing sits heavy on my chest when I realise just how much of a monster using those daggers must have turned me into, he'd seen it too. Maybe not all of it but he'd seen enough since I know he was the one to pass them to me. Helping me.

Giving him another look I see when he glances away from the window and down to his hands. The knuckles are split on both hands and stained with blood. Cluing me in as to what he did. How he might be feeling. Taking a hand off the wheel I reach over and take his that's closest, trying to reassure him of whatever was making him so uncharacteristically silent. Sneaking another look there's a semi-lost expression in his eyes that I've seen a few times, enough to know not to push him about whatever is happening inside his head. He takes it but does nothing, just holds it and takes a deep breath. Again and again.

Although the silence doesn't last forever. Eventually, he speaks, his tone low, so low I almost lose it under the song coming out of the dash where I'd turned it down. "What happens to us when they figure out what we did?"

"What I did," I reply, my tone firm. Nix's eyes flash to mine and he starts to shake his head before I sigh. "I did it. All they could pin on you was defending me. You didn't kill anyone. That's on me. Me, Hunt, Ari, Michael and Ash since whatever happened when we pushed the cars off the road was on the five of us. Plus whoever I took out with the daggers." I sigh, knowing he doesn't believe me. "Yeah you handed me the daggers but I would have found a way without them." I point to the glove compartment and he clicks it with a frown. Though that expression changes to fear when I see he's clocked the silver gun I'd placed back in there when we'd driven off before. I nod. "I walked out with that and would have used it if not for you giving me the daggers instead. My DNA will be all over them and if there's any footage from the speed cameras down that road it will show what happened. Nothing will happen to you. You're in the clear. It's me they could - can - put away for it."

He's quiet then, the slow sound of breathing all I can get from him where he's turned his attention back to the window. Eyes reflected in the passing lights or the moon when it comes out from behind the clouds. But when I do catch a glimpse of his face I can see the wheels turning in his head. The way he tries to analyse what happened to us tonight in a way that makes sense to him. That he can compartmentalise. Deal with.

"What about you?" His low question snaps my attention away from the road for a second as I look over to see him watching me. "What happens to you Riv?" His eyes hold tears when I find them and something inside me cracks as if waiting for something to pull us apart. To shatter the glass we've been looking through and show us what's coming. What we have to face. "What happens to you if this gets out? What you did."