The car has come off the road, nested among the bushes, nose kissed up against a tree. Could have been worse. Could have smashed right into it at speed, be sitting in a crumpled ruin of a car in a broken body. Arrive alive. Don’t head-wound and drive. Dammit. How long? Trying to get visual cues from the light. But it’s that bright any time of day. Hours? A whole day? She feels clearer, though. Needed the nap.
“That’s a little out of my way,” says Nervous Nelly, the hulking hedging hedgehog.
“Help me.” Billie leans on the steering wheel for purchase so she can clamber out the trashed car. The ground swoops out from under her. Tricky. Whose side are you on?
“Yes, yes, sorry.” Nelly ducks under her arm to support her, gives a little grunt of effort at the transfer of her weight. “You want some water? I keep a bottle in the cab. Don’t worry, it’s not from the tank.”
“You got a first-aid kit?”
“No. I don’t. I should. I will. I’ll buy one.”
“Bandages?”
“No, sorry. I’ve got some paper napkins. Oh. You’re bleeding.”
No shit. She can feel the ribbon of warmth trailing down her neck. “It’s fine.”
“Did someone attack you?”
“I need to get to San Francisco. It’s an emergency.”
“Yah,” the woman sucks her teeth, looks apologetic. “That’s not on my route. But the clinic is up the way…”
Dramarama—the game she and Cole used to play in public places, improvising Jerry Springer scenarios to get a reaction for kicks. Arguing in the supermarket over their nonexistent baby daddy the one had stolen from the other, or riling up the cashier at the movies pretending to be lesbian lovers, or once, faking an undercover arrest for shoplifting, pressing her sister up against the wall, pretend-handcuffing her, which was fine until actual security tried to get involved. Cole chickened out after that, wouldn’t play anymore. Coward. Cunt.
Lest we forget.
“A police emergency. You’ll be rewarded for your assistance. Because it’s an emergency,” Billie repeats, because getting words out is like yanking an unwilling octopus out of an underwater cave. It’s the world’s worst hangover. She’s thought that before. When. Yesterday. This morning. In the dark.
“I would, I really would,” hedgehog girl sucks her teeth. “But I’m on a schedule. Sanitation.”
“I said, it’s a fucking emergency.” You useless fucking moron, Billie thinks. “You can help me or I’ll arrest you for hindering an investigation.”
“There’s no need to swear,” Hedgey murmurs.
Give me fucking strength. The pounding in her head is back. A sullen bass. “I’m sorry. I’m injured. Forgive me. I need your help. You’ll be well paid if you can get me to San Francisco. More than your deliveries are worth. I promise you that.”
“It’s sanitation. Septic tanks.”
“So I see,” Billie says. The back of the pickup is loaded with four giant plastic shit canisters. Fuck it. She’s had worse rides. Kyle Smits back in grade eleven, for example. Poor guy. Dead now, like all her former lays.
“You need a hospital.”
“Five thousand dollars to take me to San Francisco.” Mrs. Amato will pay that, surely, for her return? Or take it out of her cut. It’s negligible right now.
“That’s a lot of money, but…”
“Ten thousand. And the knowledge that you’re acting in the interests of national security.”
The woman hesitates. It’s a bad habit, she can tell. A lifetime of bad life choices. Think how far you might go if you didn’t hesitate at every opportunity gift-wrapped and presented on a silver fucking platter, Nelly. She’s going to have to push harder.
“I didn’t want to tell you this.” She lowers her voice. “I don’t want to put you at risk. It’s about a missing boy.”
“A missing boy?” parrots the hedgehog.
“The kidnappers are getting away. They ran me off the road. But they don’t know there’s a tracker in their car. Will you help me, Nelly?”
“My name’s not Nelly.”
“It’s best if I don’t know your real name. If I don’t tell you any more details. Five thousand dollars and you’ll be a hero.”
“Didn’t you say ten? You just said.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“Okay,” the big dummy says. “Okay, I’ll do it. But only if there’s proper medical care there for you.”
“There will be.” Billie tries on a smile, but her mouth tastes like bile.
9.
Miles: Tumbleweed
“That was a terrible thing to do,” Mom says, gunning out of town like a NASCAR driver, leaving the Bullhead bar behind in the dust. Like they haven’t both been grinning this whole way, high on the thrill of it. “We are never doing that again. We’re going to send money back to her, care of the bar. Or pay it forward. To someone who really needs it.”
“We really need it.” His heart was beating hard, and his hands were tingling. But it came so easily. Sleight of hand. And as soon as his fingers grazed the notes, plucked them out, it was so…pure. Everything stilled and came into focus, and he could feel the shift in reality, based on a snap decision, that moment of control.
“We do. And you did so well and I’m really proud of you, but—”
“It’s not going to be a habit,” he says. But it could be. Add it to his catalog. Drop-down menu, learn new skill: thief.
“But seriously.” Concern troll over there, brows furrowed. He wishes she wouldn’t. It’s ruining the mood. “Your dad would be so mad at me.”
“Yeah, well.” He shrugs, irritated. The endless scrublands look the same, as if they’re stuck in a loop in the same side-scrolling landscape of a 2D platformer.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mom says after a while.
“Oh no,” he groans, but at least fifty percent playful, so she knows she’s forgiven.
“We should ditch this car. Switch it up. If we’re going to outlaw, we should do it authentically. What do you think?”
“Yeah,” he says, sitting up. “Yeah, definitely.”
“And head for the Mexican border.”
“Or Canada.”
“Or New York, catch a boat back home.”
“Isn’t that a really long drive?”
“Yeah.” She shoots him an appraising look. “But it’s an option.”
“I think Mexico,” he says, settling back into the seat.
“You want to go over our cover story again?”
Miles sighs. “We’re from London, which is why our accents are funny because Americans can’t tell the difference. We’re going to Denver, Colorado, definitely not Mexico or Canada or on a boat back to South Africa, because my grandparents used to run a holiday camp just outside the city, and we want to be with our family.”
“And our name?”
“Mila Williams and your name is Nicky, and I’m fourteen years old, because that kind of small detail is what’s going to make it more difficult to track us, because they’ll be looking for a twelve-year-old. But Mom, it’s dumb. People are going to be able to see right through that.”