Bone Music (Burning Girl #1)(70)

“OK. I guess that’s fair. But, seriously, I can’t—”

“Look, I still want to help. What do you want to do, Charley?”

When she doesn’t answer, he says nothing for several minutes, allows her to gaze out at the empty field, the lone oak, the mountains that should be beautiful and awe inspiring. Instead they feel like looming barricades between her and any bright future.

“Whatever you want to do,” he says, “I’ll help. I’ll make Bailey help, if I can.”

“You could lose your job.”

“Boo-hoo,” he says.

He allows her another long silence.

The sight of the dashboard clock puts her back inside her body: 2:20 p.m.

“I guess I could try to disappear. But he says there’s no outrunning them.”

“Bailey could give you some pointers on that, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” she says, “but I don’t want to. This is my name. The name I picked for myself. I don’t want to give it up.”

“I understand.”

Another silence.

“You thirsty?” he asks.

She’s so startled by his question, she locks eyes with him.

“I keep an ice chest in the back with some bottled water. You want one?”

Why is she blinking back tears all of a sudden? How is it that this simple offer has exposed the chink in her armor? Is she really about to break down over a bottle of water?

It’s not that, she realizes.

It’s what he’s not doing. He’s not turning the car around. He’s not ordering her off onto the side of the road. He’s not recoiling from her history, from her terrible burdens, from the darkness that’s dogged her every step. Instead he’s settling in, making plans with her, starting with a bottle of water.

“Hey.” His whisper makes the brusque little word sound gentle, soothing.

She holds up one hand and turns her face to the window again so she can deep-breathe the threat of tears away.

“Hey,” he whispers again. His hand comes to rest on the gearshift. Not touching her, but maybe getting ready to the minute she gives him the OK.

Once she’s steadied her breath, she reaches over and pats his hand gently. “Hey,” she whispers back.

He nods, watching her closely, and for a second there’s the tension of wondering whether he’ll grip her shoulder or her knee, or try to comfort her in some other physical way that might spin quickly out of control given the emotions already roiling inside her. And this tension, however unpleasant, is a delicious contrast to everything she was feeling just moments before.

“So, um, no on the water?” he asks with a smile.

“I really appreciate the offer,” she whispers.

“It still stands whenever you’re ready. Or thirsty.”

“Luke?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you walked out of that meeting with . . . What was his name? The agent who tried to—”

“Rohm. Agent Rohm.”

“What did you do when you walked out of that meeting? I mean, you must have felt like your life was over, right? The life you’d planned anyway . . . How did you keep from . . . I don’t know . . . giving up?”

“I made the choice in the middle,” he says.

“The choice in the middle? Is that like a Buddhist thing?”

“Maybe. I wouldn’t know. What I know is moments like that suck because you feel like there are only two choices, and they’re both horrible. On the right, you go after the person who’s kicked your teeth out until you’ve destroyed your life trying to destroy them. And on the left, you give up completely. Find some cheap-ass apartment and some bullshit punch-the-clock job, and drink your feelings away in your spare time. Or smoke weed, if that’s your thing.”

“Is it your thing?”

“No. Hate the smell.”

“So Altamira Sheriff’s. That was the choice in the middle?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not complete surrender. But it’s not exactly revenge, either.”

She nods. She likes his logic, and she likes the phrase.

The choice in the middle . . .

When the idea comes to her, she flushes from head to toe, and for a second or two, she wonders if the drug has kicked into gear, if the accumulation of stress has triggered it in some new, residual way. But when she grips the door handle next to her, it doesn’t crack or bend or warp. This really is just adrenaline. The adrenaline rush of someone who’s just seen a narrow band of light resolve at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

“Drive,” she says.

“Where to?”

“The library. Like we planned.”

Luke starts the Jeep.

She stares at the road ahead. Just a glance into Luke’s eyes might turn her sudden burst of confidence to dust. It’s crazy, this idea. It’s absolutely crazy, but it’s got something else wrapped through it, something that felt entirely elusive just seconds before. Hope. Not for complete freedom, but for some version of it. Hope that she might be able to disrupt Dylan’s plan to send her out into the world as his guinea pig, if not spin it to her advantage. To someone’s advantage.