Chapter Seven #2
“Is that so?” Chase saw his thick eyebrows twitch in the mirror and a cunning smirk crawl out from his snake-like lips. “And what about you?” He was looking at her now. “You’re awfully quiet back there. You got yourself a husband?”
Chase panicked. “I…yes. Yes, I do.”
The man winked at her and refocused his attention on Norah.
“I don’t know why they even let ladies in the army. You know, with periods and all that feminine stuff. Too many feelings. Fightin’ is a man’s job. War is a man’s job.”
“Is that so?” Norah was the one smirking now, and any relief Chase had found was dissipating quickly. “And tell me, how many wars have you fought in?”
The truck noticeably slowed.
We’re dead. We’re fucking dead. Norah, you killed us.
“You got quite a mouth on you, little lady. No wonder you can’t get no husband.” They’d stopped completely now, the man not bothering to pull over to the side of the road.
Chase watched anxiously from the backseat, quietly unbuckling her seatbelt and preparing to make a run for it if need be. She glanced at the lock under the window, which seemed to be open. This thing was probably too old for power locks anyway. She might stand a chance.
“And you’re an ignorant asshat.” Norah made sure to slow down on “asshat.”
At that, the man twisted his meatball of a body toward Norah and put a hand on her thigh, his breath so close Chase could actually smell the onions and what was probably a couple of lagers, even from the backseat.
“Get your goddamn hands off me.” In about a nano-second, Norah had lunged to her right hip, swiped her gun out of the holster, and had it pointed directly between his two rat eyes, which were almost red with rage.
He held his doughy hands up in the air, not moving the rest of his body even a millimeter.
“Jesus, lady. You’re bat-shit crazy.”
Norah kept the gun pressed against his forehead and reached with her right hand to open the door.
“Chase, get out of the truck.” Chase didn’t have to be told twice.
She nearly barrel-rolled out of the backseat, Norah following her at a much steadier pace.
Norah kept the gun aimed at her target until both doors were shut, lowering it only at the sound of his tires spinning dirt into the air until he took off in a cloud of dust, middle finger held high out the window shouting, “Fuck you bitches. Fuck you,” until the truck was well out of sight.
Norah stood several feet away, a plume of dust still swirling up to her mid-section.
The crest of her breasts gleamed with just a hint of sweat in the early morning sun, and Chase’s insides tightened as she found herself wishing Norah had been wearing more than just the olive-colored undershirt she’d stripped down to when the dawn temperatures skipped to a sticky eighty degrees.
They were lucky. No. They weren’t lucky.
Norah had saved them. In fact, she’d kicked downright ass.
“You all right?” Chase approached now, tentatively placing her hand on Norah’s bare shoulder, where her skin was every bit as warm and velvety as it had been the night before.
Norah still wouldn’t look at her. She was staring off into the nothingness of empty dirt roads and lush swamps ahead of them. Chase knew she was thinking, processing the disaster they had just narrowly avoided thanks to Norah’s fast hands and faster brain.
“Yeah. Are you?”
“I’m fine. Norah, that was fucking incredible.
” Chase was gushing, her pride in Norah glowing warm and white, wiggling its way out of her body.
It was something she’d felt so many times before.
She loved to brag about Norah to anyone who would listen—a classmate, a professor, an attending—any chance she could get to say, “That girl? She’s with me.
” Except now, Chase had to rather harshly remind herself that girl wasn’t with her.
They were nearly strangers, stranded on the side of a road to god-knew-where, who’d shared one extraordinary kiss the night before for what?
Nostalgia? Companionship? Whatever Norah’s reasons were, she planned to keep them locked far away. And they would remain nearly strangers.
“That asshole almost killed us. Or worse,” Norah said. Chase shuddered, hating to think about what the “or worse” was. Norah seemed less charmed by the situation.
“But he didn’t. And really, I don’t know whether to be totally freaked out or turned on by the way you manhandled that Glock. But I’m definitely leaning more toward turned on right now.”
Norah managed an obligatory scowl, but Chase was sure she was stifling a grin under there somewhere.
“I wasn’t actually going to use it, you know,” Norah said, beginning to sprint down the deserted road. Chase followed, this time keeping a solid yard behind her. It was a long walk. She was going to have to pace herself.
“I know that.”
“Might have pistol-whipped the bastard if I had to, though.” Norah took a second to slow down to normal-human speed and turned to wink at Chase, whose knees momentarily became cushiony pillows, ready to send her hurtling to the ground in a helpless pile.
How was it possible that Norah could still do this to her a million years later?
She couldn’t say she wasn’t enjoying it though.
The walk to Moresville, which would have taken Chase about two hours on her own, took them only an hour and ten minutes.
By the time they spotted a beaten-down Sunoco station with a handwritten sign reading Tim’s Gas—What Other Choice Do Ya Got?
Chase was panting, her short hair plastered to her forehead with unrelenting sweat that was going nowhere in the Southern humidity.
Norah, on the other hand, looked like she’d just woken up from a late-afternoon nap, her cheeks brushed with the most subtle hint of pink and her breathing even and unlabored.