Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
“Why are we stopping?” I ask hours later, jolting out of another doze.
A sign beside the road reads “Welcome to the Customer Support Department.” In the distance, the skyline glows with what look like office buildings.
I glance down at the map, doing some quick calculations to guess we’re somewhere near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Not even halfway to Death Valley.
Luke grunts in frustration. “Because I’m falling asleep at the wheel.”
Duh. “You’re going on what, sixty hours without sleep? At least? You said it yourself. To stay human, you need to do human things.”
His mouth flatlines in annoyance that I’m throwing his own advice back at him, but the exhaustion is evident in his features. The whites of his eyes are bloodshot, and bags rest beneath them that rival my own. Even his posture is slumped.
“I don’t need long,” he promises. “We can get a room here, eat some dinner, and rest for a few hours. I’ll make up the time on the road so we get to Beliar by sundown tomorrow.”
I follow him out of the car, staring at the blinking neon sign before us advertising a motel and tavern. I’m less hungry than ever, but it’s been nearly eight hours since we left Chicago and I ate the snacks. Still, stopping feels like wasting precious time.
“I can take over,” I offer. Without waiting for his rebuttal, I slide into the driver’s seat. The AC stopped working halfway through our journey earlier, so I lean out his open window. “Get in.”
He doesn’t move. “It’s dark.”
“I can see that,” I say, though my vision is questionable. I’ve never been great about taking my contacts out every night, something I’ve been warned will likely make me go blind someday, but three days is pushing it even for me. They feel fused onto my eyeballs, and not in a good way.
“You don’t like driving in the dark.”
Don’t like is an understatement of epic proportions. But the idea of sitting through a meal I once would have devoured and now can hardly stomach is enough to make me reconsider facing my fear. “We’ve barely passed anyone on the road,” I say. “I think I can manage for a few hours.”
Luke relents quicker than expected and gets into the passenger seat, a sign of his bone-deep exhaustion. I start the van, adjust the mirrors, and shift it into drive before I can overthink it. Slowly, I turn out of the gravel lot and onto the dark road.
No streetlights. Fissures in the cracked pavement. Trees towering on either side. It’s all familiar, eerily so. As if hell is taunting me.
“Is your seat belt on?” I ask Luke, but my voice is pinched and breathy. Panicky. It’s like a brick sits on my chest, a whole stack. As if the street isn’t dark enough already, my vision dims. The lights of the nearby buildings feel thousands of miles away.
“It is.” Luke’s voice is measured. “You can pull over.”
“I’m fine.” I am so not fine. It’s evident in the quiver behind my words, the sweat soaking my palms. I can’t catch my breath for shit.
“It’s okay, Brie. Just stop the van.”
I do the opposite. I jerk the wheel, tires screeching as I pull a U-ey, and zoom back into the parking lot of the motel we just vacated.
I barely made it a tenth of a mile down the road.
I throw the van into park and plunge my head into my arms folded against the steering wheel.
The horn gives a pathetic honk as the cherry on top.
The sound of my gasps fills the car, despite how hard I dig my teeth into the skin of my forearm to staunch them.
“I’m sorry,” I shake out, but it’s too close to a sob.
I’m fucking twenty-seven and having a panic attack.
I hate this. I hate that after all these months since the accident, I still can’t handle driving after dark. “I’m so sorry.”
It’s been nearly a year. I should be better by now. I should—
Luke’s warm palm against my skin shocks my thoughts still. He rubs soothing circles on my bare lower back, exposed from my shirt riding up. “You have nothing to be sorry about,” he says, voice low and calming. “Let yourself be afraid. Fear keeps you human, remember? It’s a good thing.”
I nod against my arms, willing my racing heart to slow. I focus on the radius of the circles, the roughness of his palm, the steadiness of his own breaths. It’s almost like he’s over-accentuating them to encourage me to match mine to his.
It works. I finally get my breathing under control enough to lift my head. His hand falls from my back and an unwelcome chill fills its place.
We stare at each other over the center console. His eyes are bright in the dark, but not unkind.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, voice hoarse.
“Don’t be.” He pushes my hair out of my face and behind my ear so there’s no way to miss the sincerity in his gaze.
His fingers graze my cheek. I lean into his touch against my own volition.
But then it’s gone, like it was never there at all.
He exits the car and opens my door: an invitation. “Let’s eat.”
· · ·
The dimness inside of the tavern is so similar to every other one I’ve ever been in that comfort washes over me.
At the chipped wooden bar, a few people sip tall glasses of dark liquid, as regular bar patrons would.
Even the menu isn’t that bizarre, save the fact that it largely caters to carnivores with mostly meat entrees.
The place isn’t a vegan’s paradise, that’s for sure.
“One ribeye, rare, and one burger, medium,” the waitress says, setting my burger in front of me.
Her auburn hair is in a messy knot on the top of her head with tendrils cascading down to frame her face.
Dark red lipstick stands out against her pale skin and her amber eyes are rimmed in smudged black liner.
“You sure you want that medium, sweetheart? Cook says it’s barely bleeding. ”
“Looks great to me,” I say.
She shrugs, as if to say, to each their own, and saunters off.
I take a bite of the burger and literally moan at how delicious it is, washing it down with a handful of fries. Luke’s amused gaze latches on to me as he cuts into his steak.
“This is really good,” I say around a mouthful. “So— Wait, this tastes good. I’m hungry again!”
I look down at my plate, half my fries already gone.
“You felt fear over driving in the dark, and it connected you to your humanity,” Luke explains. “Fear is a hungry emotion itself, feeding off you. Why do you think so many hell beings down here feast on it? It’s very satiating.”
“So being afraid keeps me hungry?” I take another chomp.
“True fear. Deep fear. Not just momentary fear, like running away from the Night Market. Fear that festers is best.”
“What’s your festering fear?”
The question shoots out of me. As if it really was a bullet, Luke flinches.
When his eyes finally meet mine again, I’m taken aback by the weariness in them.
Krystal and I could never guess his age because he seemed older than his body.
Now knowing how he grew up—where he grew up—it all makes sense.
But something else is there that I’ve never seen before.
A maelstrom of emotion he keeps carefully guarded, but feels close enough to touch if only I could reach inside him and pull them out, one by one.
The door to the tavern flies open, slamming against the wall. The bartender—a man with long dreads in a half-up, half-down style—scolds the offender to be more careful. A chill cuts the room, dropping the temperature as the newcomer strides in. Luke tenses, our brief connection broken.
“Shit, sorry, boss,” the bartender apologizes. His hands start making a drink though his eyes never leave the face of the approaching stranger. “The usual?”
“Please.”
The voice is feminine with a husky, seductive edge.
Her entire body is swallowed by a giant black fur coat and her face is hidden by a matching cowboy hat tugged low.
Since night fell, the temperature has dipped to the point where I shrugged my denim jacket on before coming in, but the fur still seems excessive.
“Check, please,” Luke says to our waitress. She slaps down a bill and before he even reads it, Luke scatters a handful of soul jars on top of it. Looking at me, he says, “Let’s see if the room’s ready.”
I still have a fistful of fries on my plate, but he’s already out of the booth. Since being ladylike isn’t one of my strong suits, I shove the remaining fries into my mouth and follow him.
We’re nearly out the door when the woman’s voice slides over the room, hushing every other. “Now, Luke, don’t tell me you’re running away from me. Care to chat with an old friend?”
Luke’s eyes flutter shut as if he longs for the ground to open up and devour him. It doesn’t, though given hell’s bizarre track record, I’m not sure how much that would surprise me.
“Get the room,” he tells me, passing our bags over. “I’ll meet you there.”
I glance past him at the woman leaning against the bar, hat now off and on the wood. She’s breathtaking, with tumbling black waves, high cheekbones, and light brown skin. Her lips quirk in a smirk, catching my gaze. She waggles long ring-studded fingers in a wave.
“She looks like she could kill you,” I tell him honestly, admiring her tight leather pants, stiletto boots, and bright scarlet lips.
“She’s already tried,” he mutters. “Please go.”
It’s the please that does it. “As long as you promise not to actually die.”
“Go.”
Outside, I amble over to the window Luke and I approached before to reserve a room. A new person is inside the small hut, a boy who looks like he can’t be much older than fifteen. He’s pale, with messy dark waves that hang in his amber eyes.
“Can I help you?” Boredom drips from his tone. Glad to know teenagers are the same no matter what world they’re in.
“We were waiting on a room to be ready. I think it’s under Luke?”
He flips through a notepad at a sloth’s pace, pausing for five seconds to yawn. “Follow me.”