Wild Fire (Chaos #6.5)(9)

In other words, he’d been trained well.

So when he saw the bag she’d clocked, he moved. And when she reached for it, he shouldered her out of the way and nabbed it.

“You did not just—” she began to hiss.

He strolled away, pulling her bag behind him, and saying, “Protest to the other libbers who give a shit. Let’s just get out of here.”

He felt her following him mostly because he couldn’t miss she did it seething.

Dutch further did not miss the irony—and if he wasn’t so pissed, he’d laugh at it—that her bag was a goddamn carry-on.

When they made it to his truck (fortunately, the way there was silent), he stowed it in the cab behind her seat.

He then nearly broke her hand when she made a show of reaching for her door to close it after she’d gotten in, but he was making a show of standing there, holding it, waiting for her to get her round ass in, then he made a further show of throwing it to.

Luckily, she had quick reflexes and got her hand out of the way.

They were headed to the parking booths when she declared, “I’m paying for parking.”

And he would admit, though never to her, that it was plain stubbornness when he replied, “Absolutely not.”

“Caveman,” she snapped.

“Battle-axe,” he returned.

She gasped.

He hit the button to roll down his window to pay for parking.

Of course, her being her, she did not let it go and they were barely riding free on Pe?a Boulevard when she stated, “You could have just swung through arrivals and avoided parking fees altogether.”

“I was picking up someone for my brother, woman or not, and my momma and daddy, both Chaos through and through, raised me better.”

He heard her huff.

But she said not a word.

Yeah.

That shut her damned mouth.

In fact, it shut her mouth so good, she was silent for so long, he got tweaked enough to look her way.

She had her head turned and was staring out her side window.

And she was a serious pain in the ass, but the look on her face that he caught even in profile, which wasn’t annoyed, frustrated, obstinate or haughty, but something softer, and definitely something concerning, made him wonder what she’d been doing in DC.

And if maybe something that happened there, or was the reason why she went there, was not only putting that look on her face, but also putting her in a shit mood.

These thoughts being why he asked, “You okay?”

He’d turned back to the road, but he glanced and saw she’d done the same and was looking out the windshield when she answered, “I will be when you drop me off.”

Right.

No.

“We don’t get along,” he pointed out the obvious. “And we don’t have to. This is a one-shot deal, this time we’re spending together. It’s soon gonna be over, so set that aside because I’m asking genuinely. You okay?”

She didn’t answer.

“Right. Whatever,” he muttered.

She said nothing for so long, they were nearing the highway when she finally spoke.

“My trip was unfun. And I’m supposed to compartmentalize, and usually, I can do that. But this time, I’m not finding it easy.”

“I know you’re Carolyn’s sister. I know you don’t let shit go. I know you got serious issues with the way people deal with their carry-ons. But other than that, I don’t know dick about you, Georgiana, so gotta say, I don’t know what any of that means.”

“The story I’m on,” she explained. “The story I have to write tonight and turn in so they can post it in the morning. It’s not a fun story. And I should lock it tight where it’s supposed to be, until I let it out to write it, and then lock it back up and move on. I can do that, normally. I’ve actually been on worse stories, and I could do it. This time, for some reason, it’s messing with me.”

“Story you’re on?”

“I’m a journalist.”

That explained the not-letting-go part of her personality.

“The Post? The News?” he asked. “Westword?”

“No. Online. National. Or international. The Worldist. We’re redefining news. Or bringing it back to its roots. Like Vice on HBO. Where it’s about news, information. Not graphics and makeup and hairstyles and graying men with bushy mustaches standing up in front of screens with attractive women thirty years younger than them who’ll be cast out the second they reach a certain age, but the guy will be up there until he keels over. News that is not news because it’s shaping a narrative, even if that narrative is hooey crafted carefully to gain ratings. But a narrative isn’t news. Isn’t information. It’s a point of view. And news does not have a point of view.”

Well, shit.

He’d heard of The Worldist, and after getting over its relatively stupid name, he’d checked it out. When he did, not only for their video reports, but their written ones, for the last year or so, if he wanted the real story, he went there. To the point he had a subscription.

“That’s the problem,” she carried on. “My job is not to have a point of view. My job is to gather facts and write them in a manner they’re relayed in a way that people can understand them. The end. But this story, I have a point of view. It happens. I’m human. But this one…”