“Really?” he said. “Oh man, that’s excellent.”
“Yeah.” In spite of myself, I smiled at the memory, too. “She took a taxi to work that day, and I played hooky from school and fixed it. It was just the alternator; all I had to do was go to the dump and get a new one. You should have seen her face when she got home — I think she’d really been looking forward to a few weeks of complaining.”
“I bet.” He gave me a considering look, his eyes warm. “How old were you?”
I thought. “Thirteen? Anyway, then I just got really into it. I like engines. They’re not actually that complicated. There’s a real . . . logic to them.”
“Well, it’s about all I can do to check the oil,” said Alex, changing lanes as he passed a truck. “So I’m pretty impressed.”
“Yeah, but you’re James Bond,” I said. “James Bond doesn’t have to fix his own car.”
He grinned. “True. Plus I used to have a car that was actually from this century, which helped.”
His Porsche. I thought of it sitting in the parking lot in the Bronx. Except that I seriously doubted it was still there. “Did it bother you, having to abandon it?” I asked, propping my feet up on the cracked vinyl seat.
“Not really. It was a great car, but getting killed would have bothered me a lot more.”
“And, anyway, the Mustang’s a great car, too,” I said after a pause.
His eyebrows shot up. “You’re joking, right?”
For a second I thought he was joking. “No, I’m not, actually. It’s a complete classic.”
“Um, yeah. Is that another way of saying it’s a broken-down wreck?”
I felt my jaw drop. “Alex! Come on, this is the classic American muscle car. A ’69 Mustang is iconic. I mean, think of American Graffiti. Would George Lucas have had Porsches in it? No, he would not.”
His face twisted as he tried not to laugh. “OK, I sense that I’m losing this argument.”
“Well, at least you admit it.” Suddenly I felt a lot more like myself again; it was a huge relief. We had gotten away; we were safe. Maybe the dream that had saved us had been more half-angel freakery, but I didn’t have to think about that now; I could put it aside. And Alex was right — as horrible as it had been to see the angel feeding, I couldn’t have done anything to help the woman.
I gazed across at him, taking in the firm slant of his cheekbones, his bluish eyes and dark hair. And though I never would have believed it our first few days together, it struck me now how kind he was. How really, truly kind.
“Thank you,” I said.
Alex’s eyes narrowed as he glanced at me. “You’re welcome. What for?”
“You know what for,” I said. “That . . . really helped. Thanks.”
He shrugged, looking embarrassed. “You just can’t let it consume you when you see something like that,” he said finally, running his hands along the wheel. “It’s hard, but you have to let it go.”
Outside, Tennessee glided past, the dramatic hills becoming gentle and rolling. We skirted around Memphis, and by five o’clock we’d crossed the Mississippi River, curving wide and vast below us. Halfway over the bridge, we were into Arkansas, where all at once the land flattened, turning into broad fields dotted with trees.
In the driver’s seat, Alex shifted, flexing his shoulders.
“You know, I could drive for a while,” I suggested.
His eyebrows lifted as he glanced at me. “You want to?”
“Yeah, I do, actually,” I said. “It’ll give you a break and get us there a little faster. Besides, I’ve never driven a Mustang before.”
He grinned. “Well, I know you won’t believe me if I say you’re not missing much. But yeah, thanks — I’ll take you up on that.” He pulled over to the side of the road, and we got out to switch sides. The late-afternoon sun beat down on us. It was so strange that it was still almost summer here; back home we’d all be wearing sweaters and jackets.
I paused in front of the car, looking out at a field of crops. Short, twiggy-looking bushes with heavy balls of white on them, like snowfall. I did a double take as I realized what they were. “Is that actually cotton?”
Alex stopped beside me, his hands in his back pockets. A slight breeze ruffled his dark hair. “Yeah, you get a lot of it down here. Rice, too.”
I gazed at him, thinking that even if he’d never been to school, he knew so much more than most of the people I’d ever known. “Where did you learn to speak Spanish?” I asked. “At the camp?”
He nodded. “A couple of the AKs were Mexican — I just sort of picked it up. Plus we weren’t far from the border; we used to go over into Mexico sometimes.” He looked down at me with a smile. “Hey, are you trying to get out of driving?”
His eyes were warm, full of laughter. Suddenly I had an insane urge to just step forward and slip my arms around his waist. I shook it away. “Nope,” I said, holding my hand out. “Here, give me the keys.”
Slowly, we crossed through Arkansas. The Mustang was great to drive. The tracking was a little off, but the wheel under my hands just felt amazing, like holding a piece of history. As I drove, the sun gradually vanished below the horizon, so that by the time we got to Oklahoma, it was so dark that I couldn’t make out the countryside at all.
I peered through the windshield. “Another state that I’ve only heard about before, and now I can’t even see it.”
Alex was lying back in the passenger seat, his eyes half closed. “This part of it’s just like Arkansas, pretty much,” he said. “Don’t worry: you’re not missing anything exciting.”
From what I could see in the headlights, he was right. “What do you think will happen when we get to the camp?” I asked.
Sitting up, he propped a foot onto the dash, his expression thoughtful. “We’ll need to get all the AKs together and regroup, and then set up on our own again without the angels knowing. I don’t know how many AKs there are in the field now — hopefully Cully will have some idea, so we can decide what our next move is.”
I really wasn’t sure how I was supposed to fit into all this or why the angels were so certain I was a threat to them. It didn’t matter, though — as long as my family might be in danger, there was no way I was going home. Mixed feelings swirled through me: a sharp stab of sadness at the thought that I might never see Mom again, but also a sense of relief that whatever the future held, it sounded as though I would be with Alex. I swallowed as I realized just how important that had become to me. God, when had that happened?
“Do you want me to drive for a while?” he asked, glancing over at me. “You’ve been at it for hours now.”
“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said after a pause. And I pulled over so that we could change sides.
IT WENT FASTER with both of us taking turns behind the wheel. By noon the next day, we’d passed through Oklahoma and were heading across the Texas panhandle. I stared out the windshield in awe. I had never seen anything to compare with the absolute flatness here — the sweeping, empty expanses of burnt-looking grass, stretching out for miles to the unbroken line of the horizon. The sky soared above us, looking about ten times larger than usual, and grain elevators peppered the landscape. Every dusty little town seemed to have one, though often there wasn’t a single person in sight. As I drove, I gazed at an abandoned elevator beside a boarded-up house, wondering if the owner had finally become so fed up with all the flatness that he’d just left.
By then we were both getting hungry, so I pulled into a gas station with a mini-mart. “Would you drive for a while now?” I asked, tucking my hair up in the cap.
“Yeah, sure,” said Alex. “Are you going in?”
“Just to use the restroom.”
“What kind of sandwich do you want — ham and cheese, right? And water to drink?”
“Yeah, thanks. And you’ll be getting your coffee,” I teased. “You’re a complete caffeine addict, you know. You’d probably go into withdrawal without it.”
“Hey,
I’ve got to have at least one vice,” he said with a grin. He started off across the pavement, his gait loose and relaxed.
Smiling, I got out of the car and went around to the side of the gas station, where the restrooms were. When I’d finished, I splashed my face with cold water and went back out into the blinding heat. Alex hadn’t returned to the car yet, and as I headed toward it, I saw a pay phone to the side of the parking lot.
My steps dwindled to a stop as I stared at it. They couldn’t track a pay phone, could they? I had some change in my bag; I could call Nina and find out whether Mom was OK. The temptation was almost unbearable. I had actually started for the phone when I hesitated, wondering if they might have tapped Nina’s cell phone. Could you do that?
No, I thought. I can’t; it’s too risky. But almost doing it and then not was worse than never having spotted the pay phone at all. Ridiculously, I felt tears clutch at my throat. Angry with myself, I pulled off my sunglasses, swiping my eyes with the heel of my hand.
“Hey. You OK?” said Alex. He was just coming across the parking lot, carrying our food. He frowned, his eyes on mine. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head. “It’s stupid. I was just really tempted to call Nina and see how Mom is. I didn’t,” I added hastily. “But I just . . . really wanted to.”
He looked like he understood. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I hope she’s OK.”
I managed a smile. “Thanks. Me too.” I took my sandwich from him, and we walked back to the Mustang. I could feel my hair about to slip down from the baseball cap, and before I got in, I put my sandwich on the roof so that I could redo the knot. I tossed my cap onto the roof, too, and started smoothing my hair with my hands.
I glanced up as a gleaming silver pickup truck swung in to the space next to us. There was a couple sitting in the cab. The man had a bushy brown mustache; the woman, frosted blond hair that was stiff with hair spray. As I began twisting my hair up again, the woman looked over and our eyes met.
Time seemed to slow down. Her face slackened in shock. I saw her mouth fall open, and then it was moving, forming words: It’s her.
Panic burst through me. Oh, my God, I didn’t have my sunglasses on; I’d hooked them into the front of my T-shirt as we were walking back to the car. I leaped into the Mustang and slammed the door. “We’ve got to go,” I said, my words falling over themselves. “That woman saw me.” Shoving my sunglasses back on, I saw her talking urgently to the man, pointing at me. He was leaning over her, squinting at the Mustang.
Alex didn’t ask questions; he backed us out in a rush and floored it, squealing out of the gas station. I twisted around in my seat and saw my sandwich and cap bouncing over the concrete; the man had gotten out of the truck, staring after us. There was a Church of Angels sticker on the pickup’s bumper.
And a rifle hanging in the cab.
“How could I have been so stupid?” I whispered. I was shaking, my fingers cold. The man had to have noticed the New York plates on the Mustang; he’d know it was us. The last thing I saw before the gas station disappeared from view was him climbing back into his truck. My pulse thudded through my veins. Were they coming after us?
A turnoff appeared; Alex took it, hurtling us onto a county highway. I watched out the back window. No sign of the truck. “Maybe we’ve lost them,” I said tentatively.
“Maybe,” said Alex, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Except that they probably know every highway and back road around here. It wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that we’d leave the interstate.”
My hands clenched; I couldn’t stop trembling. “I’m so, so sorry,” I said. “I was so stupid —”
He shook his head briefly. “Stop it — it’s not your fault the Church of Angels is full of whack-jobs.”
I huddled in my seat. The highway took us through a small, dusty town called Jasper. Miles passed, and then there was another small town called Fonda. Nobody seemed to notice us, and I started to hope that we’d really lost them. But then, a mile or so after we left Fonda, Alex looked in the rearview mirror again, his gaze lingering.
“I think we’ve got company,” he said.
“Is it them?” My throat tightened as I whipped around. Sure enough, there was a silver pickup truck cruising along behind us. Please, please let it be a different one, I prayed. But then it got closer and I saw that there were two people itting in the front: a man and a woman.
And the woman had blond hair.
Alex floored the accelerator and the Mustang shot ahead, its engine roaring. It was miles between towns out here; we were in the middle of nowhere, with only flat, scorched land and endless skies. The highway was a run-down road, almost empty of traffic. Behind us, the silver pickup accelerated, too, eating up the distance between us.
Fear pummeled me. “Oh, God, Alex, keep going, whatever you do.”
“Yeah, don’t worry — that was sort of my plan,” he muttered.
Staring behind us, I watched in sick horror as the pickup drew closer, gaining on us with almost comical speed. Then they were right on our tail, almost bumper to bumper. My eyes met the woman’s. She was gripping a pendant around her neck, glaring right at me. The man was at the steering wheel, his expression fixed, intent, like a hunter with a ten-point buck in his sights.
Suddenly the pickup rammed us from behind. The Mustang jolted forward with a metallic crunching noise. Swearing, Alex spun the wheel, careering over the yellow line. Its engine roaring, the pickup pulled up beside us on the passenger’s side. The woman had taken the wheel; the man was holding the rifle, pointing it right at me.
Alex saw it in the same instant. “Get down!” he shouted, swerving. He shoved me toward the floor just as gunfire sounded and my window burst into thousands of fragments of glass. I screamed, throwing my arms over my head. I could feel the pattering of glass all around me — in my hair, on the back of my T-shirt.
“Stay down,” ordered Alex’s voice. Shaking, I peered up from under my arms and saw him take his gun from the waistband of his jeans, flicking the safety off. But before he could fire back, I heard tires squealing and saw from his gaze that the pickup had pulled in front of us. There was the popping sound of gunfire again.
“Jesus!” He ducked low in his seat as the windshield exploded.
Safety glass flew all around us; a sudden rush of wind howled past. The Mustang veered wildly, but somehow Alex managed to keep control. The sound of rifle fire became more distant, and finally stopped altogether. Alex pulled onto the shoulder, did a screeching three-point turn, and headed back in the direction we’d just come from, wind whistling through the car. I kept my head down, not daring to move. A few minutes later, I felt the car turn. There was a rough bumping, and then we jolted to a stop.
In a daze, I sat up, glass falling from my back and shoulders with little clinking noises. Alex had pulled off the highway; we were on a dirt road in the middle of a field. There was a cut on his cheek where a piece of glass must have struck him — a thin trickle of blood, like a red teardrop, tracing down his face.
“Are you OK?” he asked urgently, gripping my arms. “Willow, are you hurt?” His eyes were wide, almost frightened.
Numbly, I wondered why. Alex faced danger all the time; it didn’t seem like him to get scared by it. Still trembling, I nodded. “I’m — I’m fine.” Reaching out, I started to touch his cheek, then swallowed and pulled my hand away. “Your . . . face is bleeding.”
Alex’s shoulders relaxed; he let out a breath. Brushing at his face with the flat of his hand, he glanced down at the blood and swiped at his cheek with a paper napkin. “Yeah, it’s fine. Come on, let’s get the hell out of here before they come back.”
He started the car again with a lurch. Rumbling over the dirt road, we came to a paved T junction. Alex turned right, and the Mustang gained speed. He pushed a hand through his hair and shook the glass out, lifting his voice over the wind. “OK, we’ve got to ditch this car and find another one, like now, before they find us an
d try again.”
“You mean steal one,” I said.
“We don’t have a choice,” he said, shifting gears. “I know it’s not a great thing to do, but —”
“No, it’s all right,” I interrupted, my voice unsteady. “In fact — I can probably help.”
Alex gave me a startled glance. Amazement spread slowly across his face. “Holy shit. You know how to hot-wire a car.”
“I know the theory,” I said, hugging myself. “It’s not all that difficult.”
He gave a short nod. “Good, we’ve just got to find one, then.”
I sat rigidly in the glass-strewn seat, frightened of every car that passed. Thankfully, there were only two, and neither slowed when the driver saw us. After a couple of miles, we came to a sign that read, PALO DURO PARK ROAD. “Palo Duro,” muttered Alex. “Wait a minute. That sounds familiar.” He took the turn.
“What is it?” I asked.
“A canyon,” he said. “A really big one. Cully told me about it; he used to come camping here. People go hiking here a lot — we might be able to find something.” The narrow paved road twisted and turned for a mile or so; there was dry, open grassland to either side. Then all at once . . . there wasn’t. “Oh!” I breathed in, straightening up as the canyon came into view. Like a film I’d once seen of the Grand Canyon, it was suddenly just there, the land opening up before us into a soaring, silent expanse of depth and space and red rock.
Alex’s face had hardened as he looked out at it. My eyebrows drew together; his expression was the same one I’d seen once before, the time I’d asked about his brother. Before I could wonder about it too much, we came to a wide curve in the road with the canyon sloping steeply away from us in a scrabble of dust and loose rock.
“There!” I said, pointing. “That one’ll do; it’s old enough.” Parked just off the side of the road was a boatlike gray Chevy, its owners presumably hiking on the dirt path that wound downward.
Alex pulled in behind the Chevy and killed the engine. “OK, be careful. I’ll keep an eye out for cars.”
Angel Burn Page 18
