Silver Stilettos

EPILOGUE | I will always love you [4]

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FENRIS' POV

February (4 Months Later)

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The car was warm and even though her eyes tried to stay open, Fenris knew Dominika was fighting a losing battle against sleep. "S'ok," he said kindly, "close your eyes." Without taking his eyes off the road, he knew that she was looking at him. It was sort of like twin intuition, only Dom wasn't his twin—thank God for that, he thought fervently—and definitely not his sister.

She was—is—the love of my life.

Fen's fingers tightened on the steering wheel, wondering if she was still the love of his life when it felt like he'd lost his old life and started a new one. Seeing her again tonight made him feel like he'd been numb the last four months, an emotional rubber band wrapped tight around his wrist.

That moment he'd seen her flashing blonde hair and come-hither hips stride out of St. Mary's gates, the rubber band had snipped away, leaving a searing awareness in his flesh, sensation returning not in drips and drops, but like a roiling wave crashing onto the unsuspecting shore.

"It's weird how I still remember everything about him," Dom murmured.

He knew she was talking about Reed. "Go to sleep."

"The way his skin smelled after a shower. The way he wouldn't wash his sheets for weeks. That sly smile he had when he thought he'd gotten away with a lie." Dom's voice was soft, sleepy. "What do you remember?"

Fenris didn't want to play this game. It sounded perilously close to walking down memory lane, and any memory involving Reed Norcross, his former best friend, would end in a drive-by shooting instead of a nostalgic walk.

Reed was just that kind of person, wasn't he? Destructive. Like a human grenade, he would obliterate everything good and decent in the world until all that remained was shards of what could have been.

"The way he just stood there and let Caroline slice open Baron's throat. The way he kneed me in the balls. The way he kidnapped Mayuri and skipped town. That's what I remember." He stared straight ahead, knuckles white, focusing on the road ahead of him and the upcoming traffic light.

"You don't remember the good times?"

Fenris didn't answer. There was no need to. His silence said it all.

Dom shifted in her seat, and he knew from the way she straightened her back and yawned, wide and kitten-like, that she wouldn't be falling asleep any time soon. "Can you put some counties between here and St. Mary's?" She shot him a sheepish glance. "I mean, I can't be sure, but I'm pretty sure they'll have noticed me missing by now."

"Will they call your dad?"

"Probably." Dom shrugged. "Hey," she said, casting her finger toward the windshield. The red glow of the stop light made her hand turn pink. "If we head that way, we'll meet up with the highway that will take us back to Indiana."

Fenris followed her directions, took the exit ramp, and with each rotation of the tires, put distance between Dominika and St. Mary's School. It was only after their fifteenth mile had passed, Fenris drumming his one hand against his thigh while Dom scanned all the crime reports and maps in the backseat, that he said, interrupting his own thoughts as much as hers, "Hey. Weird idea. What if we just, you know, don't?"

Dom didn't look away from the gruesome article she was reading. "A garotte just doesn't seem like her style," she mused, pulling her lower lip out between two pinched fingers.