Chapter 38
They caravaned back north in the same order they’d driven down.
It was tactical—if one got stopped, the others kept moving—but it also meant the team was spread thin for the first time since San Francisco. Reagan drove her car with Cara and Elena. Wade had his truck with Tom and Piper. Gabe drove his SUV alone.
They crossed the Bay Bridge heading north and the bright, crowded city shrank in the rearview mirror.
By the time they cleared Vallejo, the buildings had given up.
The landscape opening into flat farmland and the long dull miles of the Central Valley.
California in January was still California—mild, green, and bright.
The group chat lit up somewhere past Sacramento.
Piper: FYI this is the part of the movie where the bad guys are definitely going to be waiting for us at the hospital.
Elena read it over Cara’s shoulder. Didn’t say anything. Just watched.
Wade: Kid’s right.
A heart emoji immediately appeared next to his words. Piper, of course.
Reagan, eyes on the road, smiled faintly. “That’s a new friendship.”
Cara texted the group chat:
Noted. We’ll be ready.
They stopped for gas somewhere north of Redding. Cara got out to stretch. The air was cool now—proper January air, the kind that smelled like trees instead of pavement—and the sun was low and red over the western mountains.
She went to get coffee from the gas station and walked past Wade’s truck on the way back. Tom was at the pump, gas nozzle in his hand, saying something to Reagan, who reached for his hand on the pump.
In the truck cab, Piper had her phone out and was studiously not looking.
Cara kept walking. Got back to Reagan’s car. Put the coffee on the dashboard. Elena, from the passenger seat, said, “Did you see that?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Reagan hasn’t told me. But I think a while now.”
Elena smiled. It was small, and it was real, and it was the first time Cara had seen her smile. “Good for them.”
Cara took her turn behind the wheel after Redding.
The seatbelt pressed against her ribs, and she shifted until the ache dulled to something she could ignore.
Her body was still keeping a ledger of everything they'd been through, cashing out little reminders at unexpected moments—as if it didn't trust her to remember on her own.
Up ahead, Gabe's taillights kept their steady distance.
He'd driven alone the whole way down, and he was driving alone now.
She'd told herself it was tactical—someone had to be the floater, the one who could peel off if the convoy got made—but tactics didn't quite cover all of it, and she knew she was the reason for the rest.
Tom and Reagan had something simple. Something settled.
Two people who'd decided on each other and were getting on with the business of it.
Cara wasn't sure she remembered how to decide anything that wasn't an exit route or a threat assessment, and she wasn't sure Gabe was the kind of man who'd wait around while she figured it out.
They crossed the state line at dusk.
Cara watched California disappear behind them and Oregon open up ahead—tall trees, dark green, the road climbing into mountains.
Somewhere near Medford, the first fat raindrop hit the windshield, and the rest followed in a steady Pacific Northwest rhythm, turning the highway into a long, wet ribbon of reflected taillights.
One pair of those taillights, somewhere up ahead, was Gabe's. She kept her eyes on the road and tried to remember the last time she'd let herself want something that wasn't survival.