Chapter ten
IT WAS dusk before he found his voice again.
They’d been driving for hours, mostly in silence. They’d passed by Green Creek without stopping. There was a turnoff for another town called Abby, but it was thirty miles off to the east. They hadn’t seen another car in a long while.
At one point—and Nate couldn’t be sure when because time had lost all meaning for him—Alex had demanded Nate hand over his cell phone. He didn’t argue. He didn’t even think to argue. Once Alex had it, he rolled down his window and tossed the phone outside.
Nate thought about arguing with him, demanding to know why the hell he’d done that. Because Nate needed his phone, right? How else would Ruth know he was alive? How else would Big Eddie call him after hearing of the mess up on the mountain?
But he couldn’t even find the strength to do that, because it hit him then that those were the only two people in the world that would even know he was gone. No one else would care. That… didn’t hurt as much as it should have. He figured it was because he was numb.
It probably didn’t help that Art sat between them, staring at him and barely blinking.
Sometimes he stared right back, trying to see something, anything that would show him how full of shit she was. How full of shit both of them were. But he couldn’t find a thing. Not that he knew what he was looking for, anyway.
Other times he ignored her outright, knuckles white as he held on to his own knees, knowing there’d probably be bruises later but not caring in the slightest. He had to hold on to something to keep from flying apart.
He tried to form thoughts. Some sense of order. But everything came in fragments, shards of a whole he couldn’t quite put together. He knew the way the world worked. He’d seen its teeth, its sharp edges, but there was an order to it. There was a reason. Maybe he wouldn’t always know said reason, but he was at least comfortable in the knowledge that it was there. All he had to do was dig for it. Ask the questions that needed to be asked. Push the people that needed to be pushed.
This.
This was outside of the order Nathaniel Cartwright knew.
This was in a realm of chaos, and he couldn’t find his way out of it.
Art still stared at him anyway.
He didn’t know if she was reading his mind.
He didn’t know if she could read his mind.
He didn’t know what she could do.
Alex stared straight ahead, the ever-present scowl deep on his face.
Nate found himself not giving two shits right at that moment.
So it was surprising when he was finally able to find his voice again. He hadn’t been expecting it. He was still lost in the storm in his head. But then he opened his mouth and said.
“Pull over.”
Alex looked startled.
“We don’t have time—”
“Pull over.”
“Nate, I can’t—”
“Pull over!” he bellowed, slamming his hands against the dashboard, fingers grazing the imprints left by the girl sitting next to him.
“Pull over! Pull over! Pull—”
“Do it,” Art said, cocking her head at Nate. “Please.”
Alex snarled at her but did as she asked. There was a pull-off up ahead on the right, a widening of the road meant for slower vehicles to stop and let others pass. Nate was out of the truck even before it had stopped moving, stumbling a little as his feet hit the pavement. His legs felt numb—hell, his entire body was numb—and he was sure he’d go down. Somehow he was able to remain upright. He sucked in great gasps of air, trying to fill his lungs as much as possible, chest expanding so much that it almost hurt.
“I think he’s hyperventilating,” he heard Art say from inside the truck, and he struggled to not start laughing hysterically. If he did, he’d probably never stop.
“I saw someone do that once in front of me. It was before you.”
He didn’t hear Alex’s response because he was walking around the back of the truck, squinting against the brightness of the taillights. Nate crossed the blacktop to the other side of the highway until he hit the opposite guardrail. He put his hands on it. The metal was cold against his skin. It was almost shocking, and it grounded him.
He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth.
Below him, he could see the forest stretching out, the canopy blocking his view of the ground. The sun had mostly set, the sky orange and fading toward the darkest blue. Stars were beginning to appear overhead and—
So later, after we escape the bad men with the guns and the helicopters, we probably should tell you that I’m pretty much not from around here. And by around here, I mean this planet.
That set him off all over again.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been bent over, gagging even though nothing was coming up, when he felt a hand on his back. He flinched against the touch, but it was firm and warm, rubbing in a slow circle.
It wasn’t the hand of a little girl.
He opened his eyes.
Alex stood next to him, a wary look on his face. One hand was on Nate, the other held a water bottle.
“That for me?” Nate asked hoarsely.
“Figured you needed it. Bad taste in your mouth.”
Nate nodded. He took the water bottle but didn’t open it. Not yet. “Art?”
“In the truck. She’s… She didn’t want to make it worse.”
Nate appreciated that.
“Are you attached to the truck?”
Nate didn’t know what that meant. “What?”
“The truck. You said… your parents. They left it to you. After they died.”
“Yeah. Right. I don’t—”
“We need to get rid of it.”
“I don’t understand.” He was breathing evenly now, but the world was still blurred around the edges like he was caught in a dream.
“They know what to look for. The plates. The make and model. It’ll be easy for them to track us. They’ll put out a BOLO to the local cops.”
That… wasn’t helping Nate feel any better.
“You’re saying we have to ditch it.”
“Yes.”
“And then… what?”
“Find another car.”
“You mean steal one.”
“Yes.”
Nate stepped away from him. Alex’s hand fell back to his side.
“But that’s illegal.”
Alex stared at him.
“That’s not a priority right now.”
“Right,” Nate said, feeling the panic starting to rise again.
“My bad. I forgot. What’s grand theft auto in the face of a little girl lifting three-thousand-pound vehicles and throwing them at helicopters.”
“Exactly. I’m glad we’re on the same page. You should drink the water.”
For a split second, Nate thought about chucking the water bottle at Alex’s head, just to be defiant. It was a close thing.
He opened the water bottle instead.
The water felt good going down.
His mouth still tasted bitter, but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.
He had questions. Of course he did. Too many of them. He didn’t know where to start. He needed answers. He was rational. He liked things in order. If there was a mystery, he could solve it, because everything could be solved if you went after it long enough. He was tenacious. Once he got that itch under his skin, he would pick at it until it bled just to see how far it went.
But for the life of him, he couldn’t find the words now.
“No. The truck. It’s not—it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Good,” Alex said.
“What if I’d said it had? Meant something, that is.”
Alex shrugged.
“I would have told you that you needed to get over it.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“I know.”
He had to ask something. “What is—”
Alex shook his head.
“Not now. We have to keep moving. Later. Okay?”
No. That wasn’t okay. Nothing about this was okay. But Nate nodded.
Alex went back to the truck. Nate could see Art watching him through the windshield.
He could run. Right now. While Alex was distracted, he could run. He wasn’t in the greatest of shape, but he could be fast when he needed to. Head back toward where they’d come from. Back toward the soldiers. Because soldiers were good, right? They were good people who did brave things and Nate could trust them. They would take him in, and everything would make sense again.
He glanced back down the road.
He wondered what had happened to the helicopters. If they’d crashed.
Like that helicopter in California. During the training exercise that wasn’t a training exercise.
Something big happened there, Ruth whispered in his ear. Something that no one outside is supposed to know about.
So many questions.
A mystery.
An itch under his skin.
He didn’t run down the road.
He went to the truck.
Art was smiling at him as he opened the passenger door.
“You made the right choice.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
THERE WAS a bar, a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere. Nate didn’t know where they were. The sun was long gone.
A cluster of motorcycles was parked outside the bar. A few trucks. Old neon signs hung on splintered wood, buzzing brightly in the dark. Loud music came from inside, drums and guitars.
“How quaint,” Art said.
“Maybe we should go inside. We’ve been on the trail a long time. I sure could use a sarsaparilla.”
“We’re not going inside,” Alex said.
She folded her arms and pouted.
“You never let me do anything fun.”
He ignored her.
“That one,” he said.
“Near the back. The Chevy C/K.”
“Why that one?” Nate asked, peering out into the dark. It looked old. It had a black paint job that had seen better days. The hood was rusted. The tires looked a little low. There was a Confederate flag in the back window. It was everything Nate thought you’d find in a backwoods bar in the middle of the mountains.
“Dust on the windshield.”
“And?”
“It hasn’t been moved in a few days.”
“Maybe because it doesn’t work.”
“We’ll find out.”
“We don’t even have keys for it.”
“Have you never stolen a car before?” Art asked, squinting up at him.
“No,” Nate said.
“Never really came up.”
“Oh. Well. We won’t need the keys. I can hotwire it. Alex taught me.”
Nate didn’t know what to do with that. So he did nothing.
Alex pulled the truck into the gravel parking lot, turning off the headlights. There was no one outside the bar. They drove toward the back and stopped when they were next to the C/K. Alex put the truck in park.
“Art and I will take the Chevy. Nate, you take the truck. Follow us out of here, and we’ll stop farther down the road and transfer everything.”
“Don’t drive away,” Art said, eyes wide as she stared at Nate.
“If you do, there is nowhere you can run where I couldn’t find you.”
Nate gaped at her.
“Knock it off,” Alex said, cuffing the back of her head.
“I was just kidding!”
“Does he look like he knows that?”
“It’s not my fault Nate’s mind is being expanded in ways he never expected. The same thing happened to you when—”
“Let’s go.”
Art grumbled under her breath as she followed Alex out of the truck, scooching along the seat. Alex helped her down, and she took off toward the C/K. Before he closed the door, Alex looked back at Nate.
“She’s just joking.”
Nate nodded dumbly.
“But don’t drive away. Because I will find you.”
Nate nodded again.
Alex closed the door.
Nate shifted across the bench seat. He put his hands on the steering wheel.
He almost drove away.
Instead, he watched Alex and Art through the windshield. They stood on the driver’s side of the C/K. Alex lifted the handle. It was locked. He said something to Art, but Nate couldn’t hear. He picked her up, lifting her to the door. Art put her hand on the handle. There was a beat where she didn’t move, and then she pulled the handle.
The door opened.
She grinned up at Alex.
Nate almost drove away again.
Art climbed into the truck through the driver’s door, all awkward limbs as she went from one seat to the other. Alex followed her, closing the C/K’s door behind him. He almost looked too big to fit in the truck. Both Art and Alex bent over the front console, arms moving.
A moment later, the truck roared to life.
Art sat back up and gave Nate a thumbs-up through the window.
Nate didn’t give a thumbs-up back. He didn’t know how to act toward a girl who could stop bullets in midair.
And yet, when they pulled out of the gravel parking lot, Nate followed the taillights in front of him.
His skin was itching something awful.
“SHOULD WE say something?” Art asked.
She was standing next to Nate, who was staring at his father’s truck. Alex was transferring everything to the C/K. The bar was miles behind them. They had stopped outside of a town called Mason’s Corner. There was a bridge that went over a river. The embankments were steep.
Art tugged on his hand.
He looked down at her.
“Should we say something?” she asked again.
“About what?”
“Your truck.”
“Why?”
She frowned.
“Because we have to leave it behind. Like we left the cabin.”
“I don’t understand.”
“These things were your things. That were given to you. And now they’re being taken away from you.”
He struggled to find the right words. He wondered if he should be speaking to her at all.
“It’s not… that isn’t what—” He sighed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why?”
“They’re just… things. I don’t know if I would have kept them anyway.”
“Those photographs on the wall. You don’t miss them?”
He shook his head.
“That was… an old life. One that’s not mine, not anymore. It didn’t—I don’t know that it ever belonged to me. It wasn’t real.”
“Because it’s just… things.”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“I think I get that.” She glanced at Alex.
“He’s not just a thing. He’s not a photograph. He’s real. He’s mine. That’s why I take him with me.” She tugged on his hand again, her hand so small in his. “And that’s why we took you with us. Can I tell you a secret?”
Nate didn’t know if he could handle another secret. He was struggling with the last one. “Uh—”
“I took some of your books.”
“Oh… kay?”
“I put them in my bag.”
“That’s… fine.”
“I felt bad about it.”
“You… can feel bad?”
She grinned up at him.
“Oh sure. I can feel lots of things. I feel so bad right now. But I really wanted the books, and I knew if we had to leave fast, there wouldn’t be time, so I kept putting books in the bag Alex got for me. Sorry. Wow. I feel better. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome?”
Alex finished transferring everything they had left to the C/K. He told them to get in the truck, but Art shook her head.
“We have to say something.”
“About what?” He was scowling again.
“About the truck. Nate is sad because we have to leave it behind, and he doesn’t have anything left besides us.”
Alex got a strange look on his face.
“I’m not sad,” Nate said, pulling his hand from Art’s.
“Kind of sad,” Art said.
“If you don’t want to, I can. Dear Truck, thank you for helping us escape the bandits trying to take over our valley—”
“And that’s enough,” Alex said.
“We need to move. Nate, put the truck in neutral.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
“Aren’t we just going to leave it—”
“We’re going to crash it,” Art said gleefully.
And that’s exactly what they did. Nate, against his better judgment, put the truck in neutral. He pushed against the open door. Alex was at the rear of the truck, hands flat against the tailgate. Art helped by pushing Alex’s legs.
The truck rolled forward.
It was easier than Nate expected it to be. One moment the truck began to roll, and the next, it was gone over the edge. They watched as it bounced down the hill, knocking down young trees. Somehow, it didn’t flip. It ended nose down in the river below.
“I thought there’d be an explosion,” Art said mournfully.
“I set my expectations far too high.”
“Are you okay?” Alex asked him.
“I have no idea,” Nate said, staring down at his father’s truck.
THEY DIDN’T stop until the sky was beginning to lighten the next morning. And even then, it was only because Art told Alex that if he fell asleep at the wheel and killed them all, it’d defeat the purpose of running away from the soldiers and the helicopters. Alex looked as if he was going to try and argue but ended up yawning instead.
“See?” Art said.
“Nate doesn’t want to die either. Right, Nate?”
“Right,” Nate said.
“Fine,” Alex muttered.
“I’ll find something.”
There was an old motel that had seen far better days, but the VACANCY sign was lit up, and Nate’s eyes felt as if they were filled with sand. He didn’t think he’d sleep, but he needed to get out of the truck for a little while before he cracked in two.
Alex told them to wait in the truck.
“Do you even have money?” Nate blurted.
“You can just take my card and—”
Alex snorted.
“You can’t use your cards. Ever. In fact, you need to get rid of them. Everything is cash only from this point on.”
Nate blinked. “Why?”
“Because a credit card can be tracked,” Alex said slowly, as if he thought Nate was an idiot.
“And the whole point of this is to not be tracked. I have money. It’ll last. For now.”
He shut the door behind him, leaving Art and Nate in the semidark.
What happened when this was all over? He could go back to… whatever his life had been before, right? Yeah, he’d been living a half life the past couple of months. But the whole goddamn point of coming to Oregon was to find his way again. When he couldn’t sleep back in his last days in DC, he imagined how things could be. He’d move to the cabin at Herschel Lake and find some way to grieve. For himself, his parents, the remains of a once-promising career. And when he’d finished, maybe he’d make his way back down to Roseland. He’d find a job in one of the shops. He’d become a townie. Or maybe he’d go a couple of towns over and work at the local newspaper, a weekly thing whose biggest stories were about Roseland getting a new traffic light or how a local 4-H club member raised a goat that won the blue ribbon at the Douglas County fair.
They were small dreams. They were the dreams of a man who couldn’t fall asleep and thought about the best possible ending for himself after all that had happened.
“He’s very good at this,” Art told Nate after a few minutes of silence.
“So you don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried.”
“A little worried. You keep twitching.”
“I’m not—it’s fine.”
“I like motels.”
“Great. Wonderful.”
“Do you think anyone has ever committed suicide here?”
Nate closed his eyes and wondered if there was any going back.
THE ROOM was… well. The nicest thing Nate could think to say was that it had four walls and a ceiling. There were two twin beds, one of which had a metal coin slot and a sign that promised MAGIC FINGERS for a quarter. There was a bland painting of a bowl of fruit on the wall, a TV with a layer of dust on the screen, and bright blue carpet with a large stain in the far corner that Nate decided he would ignore for the duration of their stay.
Art chose the bed with the Magic Fingers. She asked Alex for a quarter. Alex said he didn’t have a quarter. Art put her hand flat against the coin slot. A moment later, the bed began to shake.
“Whooaaaa,” she said.
“That was unexpected.”
Nate stood at the door, clutching his duffel bag against his chest as if it could protect him.
“You can take the other bed,” Alex said gruffly.
“You need to get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” Nate said.
“You know what? Suddenly I’m not very tired. In fact, I don’t really know what I am right now, but it’s definitely not tired.”
“You can sit on the bed with me,” Art said.
“These fingers are magic. It might make you feel—oooh, a TV! I love TV.”
“I know you have questions,” Alex said, pushing Art toward the edge of the bed as he sat down heavily. She grabbed the remote off the nightstand between the beds and started pressing buttons.
“But they’ll have to wait. I need to get a few hours in before we have to get back on the road.”
“Sure,” Nate said, slightly hysterically.
“That’s fine. That’s A-okay. In fact, I don’t have any questions at all.”
Alex snorted.
“Sure.” He toed off his boots before reaching behind him and pulling out his gun. He lifted the pillow and set it underneath. He scrubbed a hand over his face as he lay down. He was too big for the bed, his feet dangling off the edge. Art sat between his legs, attention focused on the TV. Alex closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.
He was asleep a moment later.
Nate stared at him in disbelief.
“He does that,” Art said without looking at him.
“Part of his training. He can sleep anywhere. Only takes a few seconds. It’s a pretty neat trick, if you ask me.”
Nate just nodded.
“He’s right, though,” she said, glancing at Nate.
“You should sleep.”
She was right. He needed to sleep. Instead he asked.
“What are you?”
She smiled.
“I’m your friend.” She turned back to the TV.
“What’s this show? I’ve never seen it before. Why is that woman sucking on that mechanic’s penis? That’s not how you pay for car repairs, is it? That’s certainly a strange transaction. Why doesn’t she just give him money? Isn’t that what currency is for?”
Sure enough, a large-breasted woman was choking on a dick belonging to a man in oil-stained overalls. That broke Nate’s determination to stay right where he was. He took three steps forward, dropping his bag before snatching the remote out of Art’s hands. She squawked angrily, but he ignored her, frantically trying to find the right button. The mechanic opened his mouth to spill more fresh horror, but then the screen went dark.
Nate breathed a sigh of relief.
Art glared at him.
“I was watching that.”
“It’s not for little—girls. Or whatever you are. You have to—wait. Until you’re older.”
She rolled her eyes.
“I’m older than you,” she muttered under her breath.
Nate thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.
“What did you just say?”
She smiled sweetly at him.
“Nothing. Gosh, I’m tired now. I’m going to sleep too. Good night!”
He watched as she curled up between Alex’s legs, her head resting against his thigh. She closed her eyes, and a moment later, she too was asleep.
“What in the actual fuck,” Nate whispered.
HE DIDN’T plan on sleeping. His thoughts were moving too quickly for him to even consider sleeping.
Which is why he was surprised when he was pulled from a deep slumber by a hand on his shoulder. He shot up, gasping, jerking away from the hand. He fell off the bed and landed face-first on the blue carpet.
It smelled medicinal.
Nate groaned as he rolled over on his back.
Alex stared down at him. His hair was wet, and he wore the same jeans he had on before, this time with a tight black tank top.
Nate wasn’t prepared for such a view so early in the morning.
He closed his eyes. “What.”
“You fell off the bed.”
“I noticed. What time is it?”
“Two.”
“In the afternoon?”
Alex sounded amused when he said.
“Yes. In the afternoon. We need to get moving. You should shower before we go. I don’t know the next time you’ll get one.”
“Great,” Nate muttered.
“Fantastic. Artemis was watching porn earlier.”
“She told me. She asked me why the mechanic didn’t just take money instead.”
“I made her turn it off.”
“She told me that too. She wasn’t happy about it.”
“She’s ten.”
Alex didn’t reply.
Nate opened his eyes. Alex was still looking down at him, but there was a wary expression on his face.
Nate sighed.
“She’s not ten.”
Alex didn’t answer.
“Is there any chance I dreamed all of this? Like the helicopters and the guns and the explosions.”
“It wasn’t a dream.”
“Dammit.”
“We need to talk.”
“The last time you said that to me, you told me that you were on the run trying to get a little girl back to her parents.”
Alex shifted awkwardly.
“That wasn’t… entirely false.”
“Oh great. Just as long as it wasn’t entirely false.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me—us—at the time.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I.”
“I don’t know. It’s… a lot to take in. At first.”
“Where is she?”
“Finishing up in the bathroom.”
Nate nodded. He thought about staying right where he was, but somehow he managed to push himself up. He was surprised when Alex reached down to help him up. He stared at Alex’s hand for a moment before grasping it. Alex’s skin was warm. His grip was firm. He pulled Nate up swiftly. Nate overshot and lost his balance. He fell against Alex. An arm went around his back. Nate’s hands were on Alex’s chest. Nate swallowed thickly as he looked up at Alex and—
“Are you guys hugging?” Art asked.
“That’s so nice. I like hugging too. I don’t know if you’re doing it right, though.”
Alex scowled and stepped away.
Art stood in the doorway, her braids damp, her skin a little red. Her overlarge red shirt had white lettering on it. It said LIFE WOULD BE TRAGIC IF IT WEREN’T FUNNY.
“I think we should have pancakes,” Art said.
“That’s the food you get when you’re on the run. I read that once.”
Nate grabbed his bag and pushed past her without a word. The shower should have been his safe space. It was where he did all his thinking. It was where he figured shit out.
Except it looked as if there were the beginnings of mold in one tiled corner, and the water was lukewarm at best, and the only fucking thought that went through his head was made up of words that he never expected to hear in his lifetime.
And by around here, I mean this planet.
It was, without a doubt, one of the most frustrating showers in his life.
“WOW,” ART said, staring up at the waitress. She sat in the booth near the window. Alex was next to her. Nate was across from them.
“You’re a waitress, right?”
The woman smiled down at her. She was young and pretty, reaching up to curl a lock of yellow hair behind her ear. Her name tag said Peggy, and she had a smile that lit up the room.
“I am,” she said, standing a little too close to Alex for Nate’s liking. Not that it mattered, of course. Because that wasn’t important in the face of so many other things. Like the fact that there was a little girl sitting across from him who apparently had superpowers.
Art leaned forward.
“Are you the quintessential small-town girl waiting tables but who has dreams to make it to the big city and get signed to a record label or dance for money?”
Peggy’s smile faltered.
Nate choked.
Alex smiled tightly.
“She watches too much TV. Art, what did we talk about when it comes to waitresses?”
“Not to ask questions,” Art said, sighing as she fiddled with a paper napkin.
“Because it’s none of my business if they want to dance for money.”
Nate struggled to breathe.
Peggy’s smile returned in full force. A hand lingered on Alex’s shoulder.
“That’s all right. Curious thing, isn’t she?”
Art frowned.
“I’m not a thing. I’m a person.”
“Of course,” Peggy said.
“Coffee for you?”
“Two coffees,” Nate said.
“And an orange juice.”
They stared at him.
He realized it’d come out very demanding. He added, “Please.”
Peggy nodded.
“Will be right back with that. You let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.” She sashayed away, hips swinging side to side.
“What’s wrong with her?” Art asked, looking after Peggy, brow furrowed.
“She’s like the woman with the mechanic,” Nate said. Then.
“Uh, I mean, what?”
Alex glared at him.
“There’s nothing wrong with her. She’s just being nice.”
“Huh,” Art said.
“The other waitress was nice, but it wasn’t that nice. I thought all waitresses were supposed to have dreams to move to the big city. Does she want to suck on your—”
“What about waitresses already in big cities?” Nate asked, trying to change the direction of the conversation.
Art squinted at him.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been to a big city. I didn’t know they had waitresses there too. I’m going to have to rethink everything I’ve ever learned. Nate, you may have just doomed your planet.”
Nate felt himself pale almost immediately.
“She’s joking,” Alex grumbled.
“What’s that look on your face?” Art asked.
“Is that what sheer terror looks like? I mean, yesterday you looked scared because of the guns and the helicopters, but this certainly isn’t that. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen someone look so white before.”
“Answers,” Nate said.
“Now. Right now. Every answer. Immediately.”
“And here we are,” Peggy said, appearing out of thin air. In one hand, she carried a small glass of juice. In the other, she had a pot of coffee. Nate wanted to ask her if she was aware her timing was terrible, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. She set down the juice in front of Art, who proceeded to watch it suspiciously. She poured Alex’s coffee first, leaning down just a little over the table.
Alex didn’t take the bait. He was looking directly at Nate.
Peggy didn’t seem deterred.
She poured Nate’s coffee with less cleavage involved.
“Have y’all decided what you wanted to order?”
“Pancakes,” Art said, poking her finger into her juice.
“And bacon. In fact, please just cover my pancakes in bacon. I don’t even want to be able to see pancakes because of all the bacon.”
“Eggs,” Alex grunted.
“Scrambled. Toast. Sausage. Hash browns.”
Peggy’s hand had found his shoulder again. Nate was thankful Alex had worn another plaid shirt over the tank top. He probably would have reached over and broken her fingers if they’d been on skin.
She turned to him and arched an eyebrow.
“Just the coffee,” he said as politely as possible.
“He’ll have the same as me,” Alex told her.
Nate glared.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat,” Alex said, jaw clenched.
“Just the coffee,” Nate repeated.
“Same as me,” Alex said again.
Nate’s hand tightened around his coffee.
Peggy looked back and forth between them.
“All right. I will… get that order in. Let me know if you need anything else.”
No one watched her this time as she walked away.
“Do you think this juice is okay?” Art asked, watching it drip from her finger.
“I don’t know if I can trust waitresses now.”
“It’s fine,” Alex said, reaching over for the little ceramic bowl that held individual packets of cream and sugar.
“Drink it.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” Art muttered, but she just watched another drop fall from her finger back into the juice.
Nate flinched when Alex jerked the coffee mug from his hands. He took two packets of sugar and poured them into the coffee. He picked up a spoon and swirled the liquid around before shoving it back over to Nate.
“You’re going to eat.”
Nate didn’t know what to do with any of this.
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
“He’s a staff sergeant,” Art told him.
“He outranks us both. We have to do what he says, or we’ll be thrown in the brig.” She frowned.
“Or we’ll be killed. I’m not quite sure which one is worse.”
“What the hell is going on?” Nate demanded in a harsh whisper. He leaned forward. He probably looked a little manic, but he was allowed after everything he’d been through.
“What is this? Jesus fucking Christ, do you know how fucking nuts all of this is?”
“I know,” Alex said slowly.
“But it’s not—”
“All I wanted to do was go to my goddamn cabin, and now I’ve been kidnapped. By squatters. Why did you kidnap me?”
Alex’s eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t kidnap you. You could have stayed if you’d really wanted to.”
“Yeah. And then been arrested by the water guy!”
“He wasn’t a water guy,” Art said.
“He was lying. Didn’t you realize that?” She looked at Alex.
“Why does Nate still think he was the water guy?”
“I gave you a choice,” Alex said quietly.
“I didn’t—you let us stay. You said we could stay.”
“Oh sure,” Nate said, skin crawling.
“Victim blaming. Sure. That’s just wonderful. Out of all the cabins in the goddamn world, you just happened to choose mine. Of course that’s how my life works.”
“He doesn’t believe in destiny,” Art told Alex.
“I don’t think he believes in very much at all.”
Alex looked as if he didn’t know if he could be angry or not.
“I’m—it’s not like—I’m sorry, okay? It’s not like you—”
“You’re sorry? How is that supposed to make any of this better—”
“I am what your kind calls an extraterrestrial,” Art said. She’d found a straw somewhere, but instead of bouncing it on the table to get it out of the wrapper, she was peeling it slowly down the side.
“As in not from this Earth. And I was held prisoner in the Mountain for thirty years until Alex broke me out a week before we met you.” She finished with jazz hands.
Nate heard the words. Individually, he knew what each of them meant. He understood the sentences. He knew where they began and where they ended. But for the life of him, he couldn’t process them, couldn’t fit them together in the shape of something he could comprehend.
His mouth opened once, twice, but no sound came out.
“What did we talk about?” Alex asked her.
“We’ve talked about many things, Alex.”
“Art.”
She sighed.
“You told me I can’t just say things like that because I might break Nate.”
“And what did you just do?”
“Broke Nate. But! To be fair, you just told me that. I never agreed to it.”
“Art.”
“It’s for science, Alex. Just look at what we’re learning. If, say, the test was to see how much Nate could take, we would have our answer. And the answer is not very much at all. How disappointing.”
Nate took a long drink of coffee. It was hot. It burned his tongue. He winced.
“Just… not now,” Alex said.
“Not yet. Wait until we’re back on the road.”
“You really think having us all in an enclosed space like the truck and having this conversation is going to be a good thing?” Art asked him. She cocked her head.
“Though I suppose he’s already thrown up out a window once before. He’d be used to it by now if he had to do it again.”
Nate tried to speak again. He failed miserably.
Art finally finished peeling the straw. She put it in the juice, stared at it for a moment, and then leaned forward slowly. She wrapped her lips around the straw, hollowed her cheeks, and drank. She sat back as she swallowed.
“Okay. Nothing hurts. It wasn’t poisoned.”
Peggy chose that exact moment to reappear. She looked as if she’d freshened her makeup in her absence. Nate didn’t know how to tell her that his entire worldview had shifted in the short minutes she’d been gone. She set down Art’s plate first, before Nate’s. Alex was last, of course.
“There,” she said.
“Doesn’t that just look fine, if I do say so myself.”
“Bacon,” Art breathed.
“So much bacon.”
“Thank you,” Alex said, voice gruff.
“We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
“You do that, sugar,” Peggy said, winking at him.
“I’m at your beck and call.”
“You really like lipstick, huh?” Art asked her.
“Pardon?”
Art shrugged.
“Lipstick. You must like it. I mean, you’re wearing a lot of it. Did you try and eat it too? Because it’s all over your teeth. I’ve never worn lipstick before, but I don’t think you’re supposed to eat it.”
Peggy blanched.
“I—didn’t. Enjoy your meal.” She hurried away.
“That was rude,” Alex told her, but even Nate could see the way his lips were twitching.
“I was merely pointing out that she had lipstick on her teeth,” Art said.
“It was the polite thing to do. Just because you don’t know how to be polite doesn’t mean I don’t. Do I like sausage?” She was eyeing his plate.
“You have bacon,” Alex reminded her.
“Eat that.”
“But I think I would like sausage.”
“Give me a piece of your bacon. We can trade.”
“Are you out of your mind? That’s not—partner, you’re lucky we’re stuck together. Otherwise, I’d have half a mind to call you out for pistols at dawn.”
Nate tried to speak. He couldn’t form words.
Alex eyed him warily.
“Eat your food. You’re gonna need it.”
Art grinned at him through a mouthful of bacon.
Somehow, Nate ate his food.
Of course, he didn’t taste a single bite.