Bayou

Chapter 29 ~ The glue

Chapter 29

Willow

We had a plan that wouldn't succeed, but the time for running had ended. If we ran, they'd catch us. If they caught us, the deals began. I was done making deals. I was done bargaining for my life. Too much had changed. I'd changed. The life I had with Croc was mine and mine alone, and I wouldn't give a single ounce of it. I'd rather die in the swamp, commit my body to the place where my favorite memories lingered.

We'd gathered every kitchen knife and connected them to our waistbands. A stack of sticks lay in a pile, sharpened into points on both ends, and Croc worked hard to jam them all into the ground at an angle, forming a barrier between us and all who wanted to enter the yard.

It wasn't enough.

Julia and the kids coated themselves in mud and left with a duffle bag to go to the garden, and Croc became a man determined to make this what it could never be. He wanted to prove it, just like he had everything else. He'd proven that he was different. He'd proven that I wasn't tarnished. He'd proven that my body was mine and mine alone, and he'd proven that being with a man could be something holy.

But he couldn't prove that we could win, and each time he looked at me, I had to swallow back the sob that so desperately wanted to break free. Julia and the kids were safe enough. They might have some slim chance. But Croc and I...we needed to die. "When they show up," I said when he finally stopped to sit beside me. We were on the ground at the tree line, and Croc grabbed a stick and started helping me with the pile I was working on.

"We'll kill them," he murmured as he dug his knife into the wood.

I laid mine down and gave him a look. "When they show up, we can't be caught."

He paused and tilted his face toward me. "What are you saying?" His voice was tight, as if he already knew the answer.

"If— When the time comes, we have to end it. Ourselves." I swallowed hard. "Each other."

"No." The words shot out of him like a crack of thunder. "You will not die."

"I have to die," I whispered. "And so do you." My voice broke. "If they capture us, we'll die anyway, just much slower, and trust me—" I forced his eyes to meet mine "—you don't want to experience being a test. I'd rather be dead than go back."

This wasn't a fight for survival. It was my last fuck-the-government. For Merle. For Lita. For the kids that had their mother stolen and for the people who'd been cast aside. For the world they'd killed under the guise of salvation. "I just want to kill as many of them as we can before that happens."

Croc gripped my hand tight, then jerked me into a crushing embrace. "I want to make a deal," he rumbled against my hair.

I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. "A deal."

"A deal." He loosened his grip to hold me out at arm's length, red rimmed eyes latching onto mine. "Will you make one with me?"

My lip trembled, but I nodded. I'd have done anything for him.

Croc settled his forehead against mine, and his chest rose and fell heavily as his fingers dug into my arms too tight.

I swallowed the pain and waited. Each of my muscles tensed, from my jaw to my toes, as I fought to hold myself together. At any moment, I'd break apart, and I couldn't afford that, not yet, not until it was over.

"When I manage this," he finally spoke, "when I show you, when we beat them, then I want you to promise me something in return."

And there it was. Another deal. A piece of my soul in exchange for survival, but for once, it wasn't me on the bad side of the arrangement. It was him. He was bargaining for something he already had. My soul was at his disposal. I'd have given him any part he wanted, free of charge. "Whatever you want." I kissed his mouth once, then sucked in a breath and stared into his eyes as I fought to swallow my emotion. "Whatever you want, Croc."

He touched my hair, then pulled my head tighter to his and squeezed his eyes shut. "When this is over," he rumbled, "I want a day."

"A day?" I studied his shuttered expression. A day. I'd give him a thousand. I'd give him every one I had left.

He opened his eyes, and the emotion he'd been containing spilled out. The neon green shimmered, endless, raw, searing my thoughts and branding their image into my memory. For however long I had left, I knew, I'd remember this moment. This sight. When my last breath left my body, it would be his eyes that sent me off to whatever place came next.

"A day." His fingers curled against my scalp. "An entire day for me to tell you how amazing you are, and you not only have to believe me, you've got to accept it. All of it. Every word. Can you do that?"

His words liberated the last thread, and I unraveled. My vision blurred, tears sprung free, and my breaths broke apart inside my chest, rattling my bones, shaking my spine. I clung to him, buried into his embrace, and let his scent flood my senses. "Don't you get it?" Sobs slipped through each gap my words created, mingling into the syllables, dragging out the sounds. "I already do."

Croc rocked me back and forth and stroked my hair. He murmured soft words against my ear. He comforted and healed and kept my pieces safe, together, whole. I'd never been more whole, and it wasn't because he completed me. Croc hadn't filled the gaps my life had created. He'd given back every part I'd lost. He'd found them in plain sight then shown me where they'd been all along.

He'd made me love myself, so that I could love him.

I sucked in a breath, then another, calming myself just enough to raise up and capture his lips with mine. Two people, separate and whole, molding together to form the purest form of intimacy. It wasn't one sided or misguided. It wasn't half measured or deceitful. It wasn't about flesh or lust or a means to an end. It was sacred and spiritual. It was beauty in its most natural state, and it was everything I wanted before I left this world.

We made love, neither giving, neither taking. We shared and memorized and sunk into each other atop the soft marsh, under the canopied sky, amidst the world that'd joined us together, and it was bittersweet.

It was I love you, I need you, I accept you, and I'll never forget you, all wrapped up into a beautiful goodbye that made us both move slowly and fight to savor each second.

It was what we both deserved, and it was the last time we'd ever have it.