AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We move faster. Artemis seems focused, but not as concerned as I’d expect about the wolves. We both seem to have arrived at the conclusion that breaking into a sprint might be counterproductive—if the wolves hear us running and sprint after us, or if we can’t hear them, it’s going to be…
Very bad.
Probably.
No. It would be very bad, no matter how much the horny, insatiable parts of me want to stay in the cover of the woods and the safety of our game. Artemis changed the rules tonight. She challenged, and I answered. I don’t know if that will hold when we’re back in the city.
The howling is uncomfortably close when we burst out of the forest and jog across the second gravel parking cutout. Artemis’s SUV waits on the other side.
We’re steps away when Artemis sucks in a breath. “What the hell is that? Did someone give me a parking ticket?”
There’s a manila envelope underneath one of the wipers. The sight of it makes a chill trip down the individual vertebrae of my spine.
“It doesn’t matter. Leave it.”
“No. What if it’s?—”
A distant part of my mind marvels at Artemis leaning across the hood of the SUV, up on tiptoe to reach the envelope like there isn’t a pack of wolves in the woods that could find us at any moment. I know Artemis meant what she said in the woods—that she’s not afraid of anything—but is her nonchalance about the wolves because she’s still high on the feel-good chemicals of her orgasm?
I might still be high on the feel-good chemicals of her orgasm. My adrenaline-fast heart has been at work pumping those chemicals all through my bloodstream with a special focus on my cock. I can’t remember ever being this hard. I can’t remember wanting anything this much.
I don’t hear the rest of what Artemis says, because I’m busy throwing our stuff into the trunk and slamming it shut. I’m busy opening the driver’s side door and starting the SUV. I’m busy putting my arms around Artemis’s waist and pulling her down from the SUV, then around to the other side. I push her into the passenger seat and fasten her seat belt.
Then I’m busy driving.
Destination: my apartment. Her apartment. Any apartment where I can lock the door.
I stop at a T-intersection. If we go right, we’re headed back toward Manhattan. If we go left, we’re headed north. A car trundles by with its brights on.
“Apollo,” Artemis says.
Her voice is so shaky and strange that my heart stops.
Artemis has the contents of the envelope in her hands. Papers. Some photos, based on the shine. She stares at me, then looks down at the photos. Back at me. Down at the photos.
I take the slim stack out of her hands gently, because I don’t want her to get a paper cut. That would be the worst possible outcome. It’s okay if I bleed. It’s okay that I’m still bleeding from the cut Artemis gave me. But I don’t want a single mark on her skin aside from the ones I put there.
The larger photos are aerial shots. My mind latches onto those first, even as I balance the smaller stack in the crook of my thumb. Even as my stomach goes cold from what little I can see in my periphery.
Don’t look, a voice whispers in my head. It sounds like a younger version of me, begging.
So. The aerial shots. There are several, taken from a drone or some other aircraft. A stretch of trees. A fence. A building. Tire tracks worn into the ground.
And a short distance off from the building, behind a line that looks like a wall: tents.
One of the photos was taken when the sun was low. Because of the angle, most of what I can see of the people in the photos is their shadows. A small shadow next to a larger one, like a mother and child holding hands. Nearby, two small shadows side by side.
I can’t look at the aerial shots forever, as much as I want to. It feels like someone else’s hand that shuffles the smaller photos into the center of the papers, right in front of my eyes.
Two of the photos are thicker, glossy, like they were printed at a shop somewhere. The others are the same size, but lower quality. Whoever printed them did it on a budget.
I can smell the room in the photos. Carpet cleaner and fear. The angle is different from what I remember. A couple of shots are taken from the door, and light coming through the window on the opposite wall washes out the boy sitting on the bed, making his features indistinct.
It doesn’t matter. I know who he is.
Because he’s me.
There’s me, sitting on the bed, waiting to do a favor.
