“Stop here,” she calls, and I do.
She gets off first; I’m off two seconds later. I tuck my hand into my pocket and take my time unfastening my bike bag while she sits down on a rotten log and folds her arms across her chest.
“So you were really gonna go back to them?” I ask as I spread out a blanket.
“It was my only choice.”
“That's pretty damn selfless.”
She doesn't reply, just starts picking at her colorless fingernails.
“How long were you with Cientos?”
This time, she flicks her gaze at me, but she doesn't answer. Her green eyes say, Do you really think I'll talk to you?
“I'm on your side, you know that right? I chose to take this job, to come find you.”
“Do you want a cookie?”
“White chocolate macadamia.”
“You’re from California.”
“That's right.” I answer smoothly, even though the comment throws me off. “How could you tell?”
“Your accent.”
“Ah.” But she’s not saying I sound familiar, right? Because I’m now remembering every time I answered the land line when I was in high school and people thought I was my dad. Before she can put my familiar face and familiar voice together, I thrust forward the bag of girl stuff. “For you.”
She sits the sack on the ground, beside the water, and takes three steps to the blanket. She lies on it and gazes up at the trees—or rather, the single one in this grove that’s tall enough to block our view of the stars. “How do I know you don't work for Priscilla Heat?”
My stomach clenches tightly, but I don’t let it show. Instead I frown, like this is preposterous. “Why would you think I work for a porn star?”
“Never mind.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks down at the blanket, as if seeing it for the first time. “Are we sleeping on this together?”
“I couldn't bring two bags. If you like, I can sleep on the ground.”
She shakes her head. “Just stay on your side.”
I'm surprised she isn’t more leery of me. I wonder if it's my hand and try to push all the self-loathing away. She's tough. Been through a lot. She can probably tell a good guy from a bad one at this point.
I lie down beside her, looking up, like she is. I want to touch her, but I focus on the sky instead. Silence envelops us—silence and the sounds of water.
“I'm not sorry I killed him,” I tell her.
She doesn't reply, and I feel my chest fill up with something warm and unnamable. Concern, I guess it is. Concern that’s inappropriate, given who I am and who she is. Given what I knew and didn’t do. And still I can’t help but say, “I am sorry that this happened to you.”
She rolls over, with her back to me. “We need to be up in two hours or so. We'll have to travel farmland until we're past Parral and Delicias, until we’re very close to Chihuahua. Otherwise they'll find us. They probably have the police on their side.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding,” she says flatly.
Damn—I really didn’t think this through. “You rest. I'll stay up.” And figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of this.
She never replies, but eventually I hear her breathing even out.
Merri
I KNOW I'M being a bitch. I even feel a little sorry for it.
The problem is, I just can't help myself.
When he wakes me up about an hour before sunrise, after only one hour of sleep, I help him re-pack the bag and I try to find some equilibrium. I try to make myself feel human again. To feel sad for the loss of life yesterday, worried for the clinic, excited that I'm free. I try to care about this man who saved me, even if it's just one living creature to another.
But I can't.
Disliking him is easy, because it gives me a mission. It gives me someone else to blame, at least for a little while. Also, it helps me avoid temptation.
Evan is beautiful. Stunningly handsome, and cool under pressure. Reckless, charming, and considerate. He even bought me deodorant. Real deodorant. My favorite brand and second favorite scent, at that. I’ve basically been putting chalk under my arms for the last year and a half.
Since he likes Battlestar Galactica, I know he has good taste in TV, and before we take off on the bike, I find he has good taste in music, too. He's got a small iPod and it's fully charged. He hands me one ear-phone and takes the other for himself, and for the next hour or so, as we poke along at thirty miles an hour, through old, dried up fields, we're serenaded by Neil Young, the Grateful Dead, and Bon Iver.
Bon Iver is what really gets me. I had barely heard of them when I was living in Vegas, but the two or three songs I had heard, I adored.