Deep Waters

Chapter Forty-Seven

We had left Neveah's house a few hours ago and Jayden hadn't spoken a word since. I figured I should just leave him be, assuming he was upset about leaving his sister and nephew after only staying one night. But I couldn't shake the thought of why he would be helping me under his situation. Whatever was going on with him—and why he would decide to help me rather than spend more time with his family. Now, we were on our way to his parent's house and I felt even more in the dark about them than I had his only sibling. "Why are you helping me?" I finally asked, staring at him for the first time in a while.

I decided I didn't want to be left in the dark if something was seriously wrong with Jayden. This whole time, there had been a deep emotion written on his face but I couldn't figure it out and it was always as if he was trying to disguise it.

He didn't respond after a minute, so I continued to explain myself. "No matter how this ends for me, I'm going to end up hurt...There's no happy ending for my story. So why are you helping me?"

A deep exhale left his nose before he finally opened his lips. "Because I get that."

"What?" I responded immediately with a furrow of my eyebrows.

"I get the feeling you have, of knowing that you don't have a happy ending on your own," he clarified, keeping his green eyes on the road. "I don't have one either." At this time, I decided it was better to keep my mouth shut and just let him talk, so I found myself just sitting in silence with my eyes on him. "I have cancer," Jay told me.

My breath felt caught in my lungs and I had to fight for a breath to speak. "How bad?"

"Stage four."

I had expected this, right? So, why was I feeling the emotion that I was? Why did I feel the surprise and disbelief walking slowly through my veins? Was it because I was shocked I was right and not just over analyzing everything? Or maybe because I hadn't wanted to be right in the first place?

"I never wanted treatments," he started explaining after a long moment. We both stared out of the truck windows as he spoke. "I was pretty far along when I found out anyway...I travel because I want to do good for other people before I'm more cancer than I am Jay." How could someone like him who has so much potential for a future, give in to war without a fight? "My last wish is to help you." He was so selfless.

"So, you going to see your sister, that was so you could say goodbye," I pieced together.

He bobbed his head. "I'm going to die anyway. I'd rather die while helping you than die from cancer...Why are you staring at me like that?" he questioned, making me realize my thought had been showing on my face this whole time. "I don't want pity. I know you don't like it either." I mean, I couldn't deny it.

"I just think I finally understood you," I said, looking back out the window, at the world passing by.

"How?"

"You want your death to be meaningful instead of from something you can't control." I had finally been able to hear the words he was unable to express. "Like how I don't want to die just because Charles decided he wants me dead. If I die soon, I want it to at least mean that my brother is safe. My friends are safe. Everyone is safe from Charles."

My educated guess must have been pretty spot on because he didn't say another word after that. The silence between us was more of a mutual understanding of one another. I think that's why it was a comfortable ride in just the sound of the wind flying by and the roar of the engine. Without even the hum of the radio to add a song to the air.

"Why aren't you scared of Charles killing you?" he asked me. "I mean obviously you don't want to die, but I know you aren't as scared as you probably should be."

I found myself shrugging, not really knowing how to answer such a question at first. "I guess I just know that he could do a lot worse than killing me."

After a while longer on the road, we decided to stop at a gas station for some snacks and gas. Jay handed me his wallet to get food and water while he pumped the truck full of fuel. This way, we wouldn't have to stop for another while.

The two we were passing through seemed quiet as it was. There weren't very many vehicles on the road at all and I hadn't seen a single person walking around or outside of a house. When I walked inside of the gas station, I was greeted with the same silence with the exception of the bell ringing on the door when it closed behind me. There wasn't even a cashier there at the front to welcome me with an annoyed grunt and head nod. Weird. I went ahead and started wandering through the unfamiliar isles, grabbing the things I could use. Wound ointment, pain killers, and snacks were on the top of my mental list. You know, the necessities.

My foot slipped out from under me but I was able to catch myself before I fell and hit the ground. The deep red liquid on the ground immediately caught my attention. My heart dropped. It looked a whole lot like blood. I just prayed to God that it wasn't. Instead, maybe it was some kind of juice. Yeah, it was definitely just juice. I wondered around the rack that the suspicious liquid was coming from. There was a body of a middle-aged woman lying in the puddle of her own blood with an all-too-familiar hole in her chest.

Gasping, I dropped everything that I was carrying in my arms. The ointment and painkillers fell right into the puddle. I started backing up, leaving a trail of bloody footprints. I passed the next aisle, spotting another dead body in a puddle of red there also. A thousand drums were pounding in my chest as a thousand thoughts ran a marathon in my head. Before I could create a story about a robbery gone wrong, I started running toward the front door, careful not to slip again. On my way, I saw the cashier dead behind the register.

In the reflection of the glass door, I saw a man emerging from the back behind me. Stumbling over my feet, I spun around to face him as my back collided with the front door. I stopped. Same green eyes. Same tall, thin frame. Same mischievous expression written on his face. Heck, he was even wearing the same clothes. It was the guy who framed me for murder. The guy who also crashed into Kason's Charger, nearly killing us both. Within a split second, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol. Without a single hesitation, the barrel was raised to my skull, and he pulled the trigger.

An empty click spat in my ear. He was out of ammo. Thank you, God. With the grit of his teeth, he reached into his back pocket. But I didn't find out what he grabbed because I took off running out of that glass door. "Jay! Get in the car!" I screamed, making a beeline toward him.

"I'm not done—."

"Now!"

He must have caught on to my urgency because he yanked the nozzle out of the gas tank and jumped in the driver's seat just as I reached him. Slamming both of our doors, he twisted the key in the ignition. "Delilah!" the man's voice screamed after me as he sprinted toward us, out of the building. Fortunately, before he could even get close, Jay slammed on the gas and we were zooming out of there.

Gunshots sounded behind us and deep pings filled our ears as some connected with my passenger door and the trunk. I ducked down just in time for my window's glass to shatter. "Go! Go! Go!" I screamed as if Jay wasn't already going as fast as the truck would let him. And that's how our afternoon went.