31. Helene #3
The town slowly falls away behind us until it’s a stain on the horizon. A black smudge on a pane of glass. There's nothing left to say. She's right.
I've always wondered who needs who more in our dynamic, and to have it presented with such clarity, sharper than razors, is what I deserve.
“I’m sorry.” She sniffs. “I’m so tired.”
“Then why don’t you rest? I’ve got this.”
“You’ve never been great at driving in the snow. Not with these tires, either," Audra says slowly.
Our tiny apartment is behind us. The one where Mom once sent the landlady into fits by blasting Eminem.
We’d curl up on the couch, or the rug, and watch nineties movies on the laptop. Sometimes we’d read.
“The whiteout seems like it’s worse in town, for some reason. Look? The roads are clear now.”
Black asphalt stretches out for miles in front of us, disappearing beneath low branches of weighty tree limbs. Sunlight disappears in the canopy before showing its face again when the trees thin.
She rests her head against the seat. “Helene, I think running is a mistake. Nothing is ever accomplished by turning your back on it and pretending it doesn’t exist.”
“Look, if this shit follows us to New Orleans, then we'll come up with a fresh plan. But up to the point that it knocks on the door with a housewarming gift, I’m doing what I think is best, for you and for me.”
Fuck Nightshade Hollow.
Fuck the woman who brought us there in the first place, who thought a small town would hide her insecurities better than a city. Fuck the men who showed up and changed the tenor of my existence.
It hadn’t been great until now, but it was mine. It didn’t belong to some heroine who defied the gods.
"Don't you like one of them enough to stay? To try? You haven't had a boyfriend in a good three years," Audra says.
I wince again and avoid looking in the mirror to check if blood's been drawn. "They're dangerous."
"You liked them enough to sleep with them."
"Extenuating circumstances," I grind out through my teeth.
"Wren is sarcastic. Nicholas is all brooding control. Forest has magical color changing hair! They're cool." She looks out the window. "And they don't look at me like I'm different."
"This isn't about how cool they are," I say through heartbreak. "It's not about liking them, either. Or about me not having a boyfriend in—"
"Three years."
"An unhelpful thing to supply. It's actually been six." Which hurts worse to admit. "I'm trying to save our lives."
Back roads stretch for miles and snake through woodland before taking us to the highway. And from there, the coast or the south, I can take us wherever I want.
The sun disappears, concealed by a corona of thunderous clouds. Vapor and snowflakes dampen the chill in the air until no amount of thin heat from the car makes up for it. It pushes through the metal and plastic seams.
“I know you think running is the best option. But is freezing to death better or worse than dying in battle?” Audra shivers, sinking into her coat and disappearing beneath the fake fur hood.
“We’re in the car. We’re not going to freeze to death.”
Flakes whip from the margin of the road in frozen tornados across the center line.
She points ahead. “Once again, I take serious issue.”
The horizon is a solid sheet of hammered metal. Clouds form an impenetrable barrier between the road and the rest of the world.
Stormy winds gust against the side of the car and rock it damn near off the right wheels.
White knuckling the steering wheel, I yank it in the opposite direction, the vehicle careening toward the gulley before I regain control.
“What the fuck!”
My heart leaps in my chest, and my head spins with the adrenaline surge.
Audra grips the bar above her head. “I really don’t want to die today.”
“What do you think I’m trying to prevent?” I grit out. “It’s a storm. Came out of nowhere.”
“A massive snowstorm that hit without warning.” Her correction disintegrates beneath another sound of surprise.
This gust is worse than the first one. Visibility goes from decent to nonexistent in less than half a mile. Snow obscures the dark clouds, blanketing the world in a whiteout so complete, the center lines disappear.
“It will be fine,” I tell myself.
Audra reaches over and jabs her finger against the console to silence the radio. The soft strains of rock are a distraction neither one of us needs.
“Thanks. I see better when I can hear.”
But nothing helps, and we slow to a crawl. Fifteen miles an hour is too much in this blizzard.
It’s like something doesn’t want us to leave.
“Helene! Watch out.”
I swerve in time to avoid whatever is in the middle of the road. The snow solidifies around it, a hunch of shoulders and long-limbed legs.
Then it’s vanished, but the car is already in motion, swooping to the side to miss the creature. Thought is gone. Worry is gone. There’s only movement and flurries and the crunch of metal when we crash into the sturdy trunk of a mountain pine.
Audra lurches forward toward her seatbelt and my forehead snaps against the steering wheel. Pain splinters through my skull as the tree buries us in more snow, and the wind seems to cry.