Hitched: A Dark Hitchhiker Romance (Ride or Die Romances)

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There it is. A quaint cabin tucked away in the middle of the national park, far away from everyone and everything. The whole outside is natural wood, aging ungracefully. Big solar panels line the moss-covered roof. At least there’s electricity, which is more than I expected. Selena cranes her head to see what I see.

It’s perfect.

We leave the truck a little ways back and follow an overgrown path on foot. She keeps looking at me as we walk, and I know she wants to know why I stopped us from fucking more last night. Her brain is probably in overdrive, trying to figure out what she did wrong. She didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all in my head. Even then, I still did what I needed to do to make her come, because that’s what matters.

There’s no way to explain to her what I felt. In that moment, I realized just how important she was to me. You’d think realizing that would have made me want to keep going. Fuck her better. But the foreign, uncomfortable feeling did the opposite. It made me close up.

I knew what to do with her pussy but not her heart.

I’ll make it up to her. I’ll make her forget I ever stopped us last night.

“What do we do if someone is home?” I ask, trying to get out of my head because it’s not a place I like to stay in.

“Get rid of them,” she says without looking away from the cabin in front of us.

There she goes, surprising me again with how dark and dangerous she’s become.

“Sadistic fucking rabbit,” I say through gritted teeth. I feel guilty that she has no qualms about killing someone else. Decades of coldness froze me. She may have warmed me, but she’s also taking my coldness as her own. Now I’m freezing her. Even thawed, I have no issue killing, and that’s how I know just how fucked I am. But she doesn’t deserve this.

We stop just outside the yard behind some trees and bushes. We watch and wait, but there aren’t signs of anyone having been there in a while. Weeds grow upward and have overtaken a wheelbarrow leaned against the wall of a shed. Its tire has been reduced to a pile of melted rubber beneath it. Tattered curtains line some of the windows, which are dirty and broken in some places.

We head toward the front door, looking over our shoulders. I rub my hand along the rickety wooden door. Humidity has warped its edges. I grab the doorknob, and it turns with a rattle because of a missing screw. The moment I open the door, I smell it. I recognize the scent as if I’m thrown back into my childhood within one breath.

“What’s that smell?” she asks as she covers her nose with her hand.

“That, rabbit, is the smell of death.”

Her eyes widen. “What do you mean?”

I motion for her to wait here. I don’t need to worry about protecting us both, but that smell makes me fairly certain I know what’s home, and it’s not someone living. “Just stay here for a minute,” I tell her as I load a round in the rifle.

The smell intensifies as I walk toward the back of the cabin. When I turn the corner, I see a man in a recliner. He’s slumped over, the television’s remote still in his mottled hand. His face is gray, but he hasn’t been dead all that long.

I’m so used to the smell that I hardly notice it at all. I’m almost completely nose blind to the familiarity. “Well, that’s fucking convenient,” I say through a laugh.

I can’t help but think the luck is from her stupid little rabbit’s foot, which is nestled in my pocket.

I go back to the front door and find Selena still covering her nose. “Can’t kill what’s already dead,” I tell her.

“What?” she asks, breathing through her mouth.

“Whoever owns this place is very dead in their room.” I start to open the windows, struggling against the years of grime to pry them open.

“We can’t stay here. It smells like death. Literally.”

I stop and stare at her. What does she mean we can’t stay here? It’s everything we’ve been searching for. It’s more than what we could ever ask for, smell or no smell. “We couldn’t be any luckier, and you want to leave because of a little smell?”

“It’s not little.”

“Once I get the body out, the smell will go away. Mostly.”

“I’ll wait out here,” she says as she waves me off and goes to a wicker rocking chair on the porch.

I enter the room and glance at the sad sap before trying to figure out how best to get rid of him. My fingers are crossed as I head into the backyard through an even ricketier backdoor to check the shed. A dingy blue tarp catches my eye, and I yank it out, knocking over a shovel and rake as it comes free. When I head back inside, I lay out the tarp on the floor in front of him.

“Sorry, buddy,” I tell him as I shove him off the chair. I haven’t apologized to men I’ve killed before, but here I am, apologizing to a long-dead corpse. Selena’s warmth has thawed me a bit more than I’m willing to admit.

The man hits the tarp with a thud that sounds like a garbage bag filled with congealed pudding and bones. The skin on his left arm has begun to slough away, revealing the sinewy highway beneath. I almost laugh when I realize how much this doesn’t disgust me. Not even the dark stain of human decay left behind on the chair elicits more than a shrug of my shoulders.

I wrap up the tarp, tie it off with rope, and drag him out the back door. I walk as far into the woods as I can and leave him there—in the humid heat but out of the sun, at least. I’ll come back and bury him later, after I’ve dealt with the chair.

When I go back inside, it’s already smelling better. I grab a half-smoked cigar off the table beside the chair and light it with the old Zippo resting beside it. My cheeks puff at the rich smoke, a strong scent that somehow overpowers the perfume of death. It feels good to have it between my lips. I miss the normalcy of having a smoke.

A legal one, at least.

The recliner is light enough to lift. The fabric smells like old man, piss, and death. Definitely not up to Selena’s standards. I carry it outside, letting the cigar mask the scent as I go. I lean it against the back of the shed, which is about all I’m willing to do with it in the stifling heat.

I circle to the front of the house and wipe my hands on my pants as I lean against the railing surrounding the front porch. The doors are wide open to let the stench clear, and flies and other insects buzz in and out.

Selena’s eyes roll up and stop at the cigar. “Since when do you smoke?”

I smirk, drawing the cigar from my lips. “Since I was eight.”

“Jesus,” she says with a shake of her head.

I offer it to her. “Want to try?”

She chews the inside of her cheeks before taking it and putting it between her full lips. If she knew it was half-smoked by the dead man himself, she wouldn’t have taken it. She puffs on it and hands it back.

“Since when do you smoke?” I ask, a sly smile on my face. From the way her lips wrapped around it, I have the feeling it isn’t her first time.

She shrugs. “On and off since I was eighteen. Mostly off. How’d you know?”

I step toward her, lift her chin, and look down at her. “Because you smoke like you’ve done it before. And it’s fucking sexy.” I run my thumb along her lower lip.

Her eyes roll back at my touch but then she rips her face away and wipes at her mouth. “Dude, you were just disposing of a dead body.”

I let the cigar rest between my lips. I smirk at her and go inside to wash my hands. If she only knew about all the things we touched in prison, and honestly, most were worse than a dead guy.

Coffee mugs and a single plate fill one side of the sink. I wash my hands, turning the knob and realizing there’s no hot water. I’m not sure how Selena will feel about this. Actually, I do know. She’s going to hate it. But she’ll deal with it for me. Which I hate. I still haven’t told her the shower is merely a stall outside with a hose attached to a rusty showerhead.

When I turn around, she’s behind me, sneaky little prey. At least her hand isn’t pressed against her nose any longer, which means the smell is getting better. Or she is getting used to it. Regardless, she still has a scowl on her face. I can’t help but chuckle.

“Not good enough for you?” I ask.

“It’s just so . . .”

“It’s all we have, rabbit. What’d you think would be out here? The Ritz Carlton?”

She blows hair from her forehead. “I know. I know.”

“You still have a chance to back out. I can still take you to the bus station.”

Her eyes narrow. “No.”

“Then enjoy what you won in our little game of hide and seek. You got to stay with me, just like you wanted.” I’m struggling to find sympathy for her. While this place is a downgrade for her, it’s an upgrade for me.

I turn around and start washing the dishes. Maybe she’ll feel better without the memory of a person’s dirty life strewn in front of her. My hands redden from the chill of the water.

“Hey, at least he didn’t die in the bed,” I call to her as she sneaks a peek around the corner. You get used to finding silver linings when everything else in your life is just a different shade of gray.

“I’m not sleeping in there,” she says. She strolls through the living room and prods the red couch, ignoring the lumps in the cushions. She pushes her weight down on the springs and rips away the cushions.

I turn around, dry my hands on a towel, and lean back against the sink.

“It’s a pull-out couch,” she says with a beaming smile that tugs at my lips, too.

“Do they even have those where you came from?”

She drops the old frame and snaps her gaze to me. I raise my hands. I don’t know why she gets so mad when I give her shit about being rich. I don’t care when she says things about me being poor. It’s just what we are and where we differ.

I walk over to her and wipe the sweaty hair from her cheek before nudging her aside and releasing the rickety pull-out. The lumpy mattress is stained with signs of age, but it looks clean enough for a fancy show rabbit.

“I hope the quarters are to your liking, your majesty,” I say with a playful bow. She doesn’t find the humor in it. I’m not sure what’s on her mind, but it’s making her pissy.

I lie on the bed and tug her into me. The old mattress coils whine, and Selena lets out a squeal. I guess now is the time to confront the big elephant in the room.

“What’s the matter, rabbit? You’ve been weird since last night.”

When she doesn’t answer, I roll over her and spread her legs with my knees. I look down at her trembling lower lip. If she’s not upset about my denial last night, I’m not sure what it’s about. She’s probably full of regret for staying with me in this decrepit cabin that still smells like a dead man.

“You can leave, Selena. No one is forcing you to stay here.”

She fights back the gloss in her eyes.

“What do you want?” I ask louder and shake her shoulders.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she says, shaking her head.

She always thinks I don’t understand. I understand more than she realizes. “Why? Why the fuck wouldn’t I understand? I wasn’t born with a golden fucking spoon in my mouth, but I can still understand you.”

Her eyes widen. “Fuck you, Lex,” she says through a huff and tries to squeeze out from beneath me.

“So goddamn mouthy for such a little thing.”

My words strike her harder than any fists could. I can only imagine the things her husband used to say that made her close herself off so tightly and lock her heart away. Until a criminal like me came along and knew how to pick it open.

She flails beneath me, but I pin her wrists and lean over her. “Tell me what’s bothering you, rabbit.” I lower my voice the way she likes. “Talk to me.”

She blinks and finally releases the tears she’s been holding back. “I . . . I just . . . I don’t want you to be so okay with me leaving. You keep asking me to leave. Telling me to leave. You’re pushing me away!” Her voice fills with anger instead of sadness.

“You really think I fucking want you to leave?”

She lifts her chin, drumming up confidence from somewhere inside her. “Yeah, I do.”

“For once in my goddamn life I was being selfless and thinking about the wellbeing of someone else. I didn’t want you to leave. I needed you to leave because it was safer for you.” I lift my gaze to the wall, staring at a rosary hanging from a hook. I drop my eyes to her once more. “I’ve never felt guilt. I was born like this. Something not quite right in the head. But I knew if you got in trouble for all this, or killed, I would never get past that.”

“Let me decide what I’m willing to risk.”

“I wanted to let you go so you’d be safe at home. I could imagine a life with you I could never have. I could think about how happy you made me when I’ve always thought I was incapable of such a normal emotion. The only thing that ever made me happier than you was fucking killing. And the part of me that enjoys hurting people? I didn’t want him to hurt you, either.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” she says with a shake of her head.

I choke back a laugh. “I could. And I almost did, more times than you know. I’ve been willing to kill you since the day I took you.”

“I don’t believe that, Lex.” The shake of her head intensifies, as if reasoning with herself more than me.

“I pushed you away so you could be with someone better. I wanted you to have better than the small life I could ever give you. This? This rundown cabin? It’s what I can give you.” I inhale a sharp breath. It’s not good enough for her, I know that. She knows that. We both do. “People describe love as not being able to be away from that person, that it’s such a horrible thing to be apart, but it didn’t feel like I loved you when I selfishly wanted to keep you for myself. I may not know what love feels like, but I knew enough to know that loving you meant letting you go.” I fight back the heat behind my eyes, which I don’t remember ever feeling in my entire life. “Old me would have kept you, fucked you, and killed you when I was done with you. New me, the one you drew out, wanted you to forget me and live the life you deserved.”

“Even now, you want me to leave,” she whispers, her voice wavering with the tremble of her body.

“Because you look so fucking unhappy,” I say as I cut my gaze.

“I’m unhappy because you make me feel unwanted.”

I sit back and pull her onto my lap. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I saw you in that car. I’ve never not wanted you.”

She drops her head to my shoulder, and I hear the breathy sounds of her trying not to cry as I hold her.

“If I wasn’t in this situation, bunny, I would never let you go or push you away.”

She flashes her eyes up at me. “I’m a killer, too, Lex.”

I shake my head. “You wouldn’t be if it weren’t for me.”

“This isn’t just your situation anymore. It’s ours. Stop thinking of me as the girl you dragged to hell and realize that maybe I’ve already been there.”

“Fuck, bunny.” I grip the back of her neck and kiss her. “If you want this, I’ll give you everything I can in this little world of ours.” I pull away and touch her cheek with a warm palm.