"Let's just say that I was forcefully retired."
I hear her suck in a breath to speak; I make her swallow it as I weave into the passing lane unexpectedly and start to speed up.
Her arms constrict around my abdomen to let me know she doesn't like being cut off just as much as the driver who lays on the horn behind us.
"What does that even mean, to be forcefully retired?" she demands, raising her voice to be heard over the noise of the road. "Did your shareholders push you out or something?"
"You have no idea what you're talking about," I respond as we weave in and out of cars. My road acrobatics aren't as effective at distracting her the second time around; she soldiers on, and I can feel my back muscles tense increasingly as she carries me down a line of conversation that I have yet to tread with anyone.
"I know that Flynn Carter disappeared," she corrects me. "And that there was a media shitstorm for almost a year about you before it tapered off with the next big thing. You were the CEO of Green Star, for Pete's sake! You were young and handsome and completely self-made; you went to work in a T-shirt and jeans and dated underwear models. You were going to save the world! Everyone loved you!"
"Not everyone." The words pass my lips before I can stop myself. "There were people who wanted my company to thrive, but not in the direction I was taking it. They wanted me out of the picture. And they were willing to do anything to get what they wanted."
The memories come flooding back before I can stop them, forming a snapshot slideshow of that night, three years ago, that my life simultaneously ended and began anew. I try to drown them out with thoughts of the road stretched out before me, but for maybe the first time, ever, I find that it isn't working.
I force them to cycle by rapidly. I see the party; the riverbank at midnight; three of my most trusted friends moving toward me; the glint of moonlight off the handgun dangling at Halligan's side. A crack, and then the darkness is complete.
"Flint?"
I blink myself back into the present, and realize we're about to collide with the car in front of us. A subtle maneuver and we're out of danger. Ana's voice in my ear was surprisingly calm despite the close shave. She almost sounds concerned.
"What is it?" I grunt.
"Phew." I hear the woman gust a sigh into her helmet. "I thought you passed out for a minute there. I can't imagine you got much sleep last night…not after your little come-on."
"Keep imagining, sweetheart." I execute another quick maneuver, just to hear that sexy, breathless intake from my passenger. The thought of hearing those breaths in quick succession, growing ever more strained, turns me on like I can't even begin to describe. Maybe I have my libidinous thoughts to blame for the next words out of my mouth. "If I was coming onto you, believe me when I say that you would know it."
"I…oh."
My innuendo registers, and I feel her grip on my stomach start to loosen uncertainly. My hand comes up, and I cement it firmly back in place. This is starting to become a reoccurring dance between us. If I'm going to be forced to take her with me for the indeterminate future, the least I can do is try and break her of this habit. It only ends with that cute little ass of hers busted on the road.
"And to answer your earlier question about my forced retirement, I mean that I was ousted from my own company. I was betrayed by the very men I trusted to help in the formation of Green Star. They traded the ideals we shared for the promise of more money. They reneged on their contracts to me, and their moral obligations to the world, by putting a bullet through me."
I don't know where my impassioned explanation came from, and I'm not sure I care. It feels good to get the history off my chest, if only for a moment. Hopefully what I have in mind for the future will close it permanently behind me.
And this woman. Ana. She has no idea what she's gotten herself into by hitching a ride with me. I need her continued silence on the matter of my true identity, but I also need to ditch her for her own good.
As we churn the rain-washed road beneath my tires, I wonder how much of her posturing back at the motel was a bluff. And not just any bluff—one that I fell for wholesale. This woman was clearly on the run from something—going to the media, or even the police, about the fact that I'm still alive and kicking will bring her unwanted publicity as well. If she's as intelligent as I've gathered her to be, there's no way she could realistically risk being at the center of that sort of reveal without bringing whatever guillotine hovers over her down on her own head.
Evidently, I wasn't fully awake this morning to process the facts, and now I feel like a God damn idiot for letting her sweet talk-slash-blackmail her way into getting another ride from me. Well, two can play at this game, Ana. I haven't lived on the road for three years without learning a thing or two about losing unwanted baggage.
… even if it's baggage I can't allow myself to want.
"Where are we headed?" she asks me quietly. I realize we've been riding in silence for a long time; evidently her line of questioning about my past had been satisfied by my last answer—for now, at least.
"Omaha. We'll hit the city limits in about ten minutes," I reply. "Let's just say I have unfinished business with someone who lives there."
"One of the men who shot you," she surmises.
"Only one man shot me."
"But the others were in collusion, weren't they?" she insists. "Your friends who betrayed you? Is this what your ride across the country is all about?"
"It's really none of your business why I'm riding," I respond. "Just like I'm not sticking my nose into yours. My wheels may be at your command, but my answers sure as shit aren't."
Ana doesn't appear to notice how raw and salty our conversation up until this point has made me. "You're not seriously going to meet with one of the men who tried to kill you." It's not a question; a statement. "Besides, they all think you're dead. Obviously, my blackmailing you wouldn't have worked out so well for me if you didn't have so much staked on the fact that you need people to continue to think you are dead. None of this is adding up, to be honest."
"Not my problem." I merge into the next lane over and take the exit road that loops into the city.
Ana is almost right. I'm going to meet with someone, but that someone doesn't know I'm coming. He's going to tell me exactly where I can find the first man who left me for dead.
And after tonight, one of us will really be dead.
#
We pass most of the day on the road together, stopping only occasionally at gas stations to buy food and refuel. Night is already starting to fall, blanketing the Omaha cityscape in velvet-blue darkness.
No rain tonight, but the wind is bitterly cold as we pull into the parking lot of the bar. This bar is larger than the one where my path fatefully crossed with Ana's, and the patronage seems less feral than what you find on the outskirts of most major cities. I park the bike, and Ana slips off first. She studies the sign glowing over the entry as I study her. Even bathed in neon light, this woman is a vision. She looks like an urban goddess standing there in the flickering orange hue cast by the sign. An ill feeling tugs at my conscience, but I push it aside before it can make itself fully known and understood. I replace the feeling with the cold, calculating logic that once made me the CEO at the head of a Fortune Five Hundred company. I undertook this mission with the understanding that I have nothing left to lose; that justice, above all else, will prevail. Flynn Carter is as dead as the magazines and talking heads say he is. I am embarking on something bigger than he is now.