I opened the passenger-side door and made sure she got in, mainly because I wasn’t sure she’d speak up if I drove off without her.
I climbed in behind the wheel and pulled away from the curb with a screech of tires on the pavement, generating a reproving look from an old guy across the street out picking up his newspaper.
Blowing out a slow breath, I let my foot off the gas a little as we left my mom’s neighborhood. Driving angry wasn’t a good idea right now. We couldn’t take the chance of getting pulled over.
Turning back onto the main road, I picked left, randomly. It was the opposite direction we’d come from. And it was as good as any for the moment. The lack of a specific destination made me a little edgy, but there was nothing to be done about it for now. I didn’t have Ariane’s training, but it seemed to me the smartest thing to do was find somewhere we could blend in and hide until we could figure out a next step.
“She’s right,” Ariane said after a few moments, her tone flat, emotionless. “I was being selfish. I could have left the motel without waking you up. But I shut the door. I wanted you to come after me, even if I couldn’t admit it.” Then her voice broke over a hiccup. “I wanted you with me.”
Oh God, she was killing me here. I couldn’t look at her and keep my eyes on the road.
“Listen to me,” I said as firmly as I could, “I’m here because I want to be. Until I met you, no one had ever put me first. Do you get that? Even with my mom, leaving my dad was more important than I was.” I glanced at her to see if my words were making a difference.
She was shaking her head. “We have nowhere to go, no plan. You can’t stay with me. You shouldn’t.”
This was my mom’s fault. Ariane might have left me behind before in an attempt to protect me, but now, it was more than that. My mom had said those horrible things, and Ariane had believed her. About her not being human, about it not ending well. Along with a strong implication that maybe she didn’t deserve to hope for anything more. All of it confirming what I suspected Ariane already believed.
If I didn’t do something, she’d take the first opportunity to sneak away or, God forbid, offer herself up to Laughlin in exchange for my safety, just as she’d tried to do the other day at GTX.
Ahead on the right, I saw bright and cheery signs for a mall, and beyond them a vast expanse of parking lot. Cars moved around the outer edge with purpose. Like ants surrounding a dropped sandwich, they were collecting around several early morning restaurants—McDonald’s, IHOP, and something called Walker Bros. Pancake House—within the mall complex.
I made a snap decision and jerked into the turn lane, ignoring the blare of a horn behind us. “Let me ask you something—how shallow do you think I am?” I demanded, letting more of my frustration bleed through than I’d intended.
Ariane looked at me, surprised, her eyes damp.
“Do you really think if you sent me back to Wingate, I’d just drift into a normal routine?” Assuming, of course, that Dr. Jacobs would allow it. “Do you think I’d forget all about this? Do you think I’d just drive by GTX and not wonder if you were in there, if they were hurting you?” My voice cracked, and I had to swallow hard to keep the words from getting stuck with the lump in my throat. “Do you really think that little of me?”
Her mouth fell open. “Of course not, but—”
“But what?” I challenged.
“I’m trying to do the right thing!” she shouted, frustrated.
“I’m sure that’s what they thought too when they gave you that messed-up list of commandments. Thou shalt not have a life. Always remember that you’re a freak and not deserving of anything resembling happiness.”
She inhaled sharply.
“I’m here, with you, because I want to be,” I said, trying to put my feelings into words, hoping they would convince her, if nothing else. “It’s not your job to save me.”
Her silence spoke volumes.
Weary suddenly, I pulled into a parking space, near a clump of cars on the far side of Sears—either employees getting an early start or overflow from Walker Bros. “I can’t make you believe that, though, and I can’t keep you from leaving. So, if you’re going to go, then fine.” I shoved the gearshift into park, turned the van off, and got up, staying half stooped to avoid the roof.
“What are you doing?”
I gestured to the parking lot around us. “It looks like it’s going to be busy as hell here in an hour or two. So I think this is as safe as it gets. Neither of us has slept in days, and I’m tired. We’re going to get some rest and then figure out what to do next, preferably before the van reaches a temperature hot enough to cook us alive.”
Without looking at her, I headed to the back of the van. I unrolled one of the sleeping bags that had been hidden in the smuggling compartment and unzipped the edges to create a blanket, some small measure of comfort against the hard metal floor of the van.
Then I lay down, tucked my arm under my head, and turned away from her, my heart beating too fast. It was a gamble to take this approach. I couldn’t convince her of anything; she had to reach the conclusion on her own. But would she?
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t watch.
After a few seconds, I heard her seat belt unclick, and swallowing the growing lump in my throat, I waited to hear the clunk of the door opening.
Instead, I felt the sleeping bag shift underneath me, and I opened my eyes to see her kneel down next to me. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered to me, the words aching, raw, and full of fear. That must have been hard for her to admit, being someone who relied on strategy, training, and plans.
I rolled over and lifted my arm in welcome, and she curled herself against me, resting her head on my other arm. Her tears dripped on my elbow.
“Welcome to the club,” I whispered back. “It’s called, we’re all just doing the best we can, and it’s better if we stick together.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “Are there membership cards? Because I don’t think that name is going to fit.”
Caught off guard, I laughed, surprising myself. “You should try to get some rest while we can. Then we’ll figure out what to do,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. “It’ll all make more sense later.” At least, that’s what I was hoping. Because honestly, right now, I had no clue.
7
Ariane
EVEN WITH THE SOOTHING SOUNDS of Zane’s steady breathing next to me and cars rushing by on the road in the distance, as rhythmic as waves hitting the beach (not that I’d ever seen either waves or a beach in person—it was at the top of my list, though), I couldn’t fall asleep.
My eyes were gritty from being awake for too long and swollen from crying, and the darkness behind my eyelids was a blissful relief. But I couldn’t shut down my brain, and my eyes kept snapping open, studying the molded metal roof above us.
We needed a plan, a course of action, a goal. Something. Zane was putting up a good front, but I knew that revelation about his mother had thrown him more than he wanted to admit and he didn’t know what to do next. The perils of hearing thoughts even when you didn’t want to. And it occurred to me now, a little belatedly, that even as the strategy expert, maybe I was out of my depth. After all, I’d been designed to follow orders, not create them.
Tell me to infiltrate a building. Sure, no problem. Perimeter scan and threat analysis. Determine the position of doors and windows relative to available cover. Am I dealing with locks or live security? Identify and disable exterior surveillance cameras. In case of trouble, what other tools are at my disposal?