Page 18 of Exit Strategy
He frowned slightly again and nodded, shutting me inside the truck. I sighed and melted back into the seat, leaning against the door, resting my forehead against the warm glass, the desert wavering with the heat outside the window… or maybe that part was in my head. There really wasn’t any telling.
We only went three hundred and fifty miles or so, cruising out of, I think, California and through Arizona, before detouring north. I didn’t honestly know precisely where we were, and I didn’t really care as long as it was away from New Eden. I didn’t make any small talk. I didn’t feel well obviously, and Kurt didn’t want to push it. Rather, he decided we should find me some suitable clothing and just before leaving what I thought was Arizona, he pulled in at a second-hand store; one of those places I distantly remembered from my childhood – before New Eden.
“Keep your sunglasses on. Try to hide as much of that as possible with your hair, yeah?” he asked.
I gave him a weak smile.
“I’m an old hand at this, even when I feel like death. Don’t worry,” I said.
We went in and I held my head high but did keep the glasses on. At the first set of startled looks, I smiled and said, “Car accident.” I got a few nods and just like that, it was magically dismissed. It usually was.
I fell. I shouldn’t read and walk. I tripped over our beloved pet.People would take just about any excuse so they didn’t have to face the reality. Their favorite actor being abusive and an awful human being was a reality no one wanted to face, which is how so many Hollywood elites got away with it for years on end.
Kurt stood by as I pulled several things in varying sizes that looked like they would fit off-the-rack and I went into a fitting room.
Sizes established fairly quickly, we snatched the bare necessities and got out of there. I ended up with several worn tees that might have cost a few hundred dollars at a Rodeo boutique, but here they were a buck each. The material of the tees was thin and didn’t seem like it would hold up for very long, but by the same token, it was soft and felt good against the skin. There was a single pair of jeans, a pair of shorts, and some sandals that had the previous owner’s toe prints in them – not glamorous, but better than what I had. I wished I could change here in the store but as soon as Kurt had us hustled past the cashier, he whisked us out and back into the truck.
“I thought we were going through Arizona,” I said, and he grunted.
“Traveling in a straight line is a bad plan,” he said. “People will be looking for us, and if we don’t follow a linear path, we’re harder to track. We’re out of California. Arizona is pretty hot property, lots of development in Tucson, Phoenix, Flagstaff. I really only know because of those property flipping shows, the one Arik liked.”
“Oh, right…” I said trailing off and staring sightlessly out the window for a time.
“You alright?” he asked.
I nodded mutely.
“I’m okay,” I lied – because I wasn’t. There was nothing about this that was even remotely okay.
By the time we stopped, I was so grateful. I didn’t want to eat. I wasn’t thirsty. I just wantedsleep. Kurt let us into the roadside motel’s room and I went to one of the beds and sank onto it gratefully.
“I’ll get us some food,” he said, and I looked up at him almost beseechingly.
“Can I sleep now? Like for real sleep?” I begged.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like my husband beat the shit out of me,” I answered soberly.
He nodded and said, “I’ll wake you up when I get back. You can eat, then go back to sleep.”
I nodded miserably. I would take what I could get.
“Hey, Kurt,” I said as he went to go out the door. He looked back. “I don’t know if I’ve said thank you, yet,” I murmured, frowning slightly.
“It’s no trouble,” he said, and I felt my frown deepen.
“It’s a lot of trouble for you to go to and you don’t even know me,” I said.
“We have close to three thousand miles to resolve that last, yeah?” he said. I forced a weak smile and nodded slowly and carefully. “Be back in a bit,” he declared and shut the door.
I laid down gratefully, but the bed was as hard as a rock and didn’t provide much in the way of comfort.
* * *
The next daywas much of the same. We passed through a good portion of Utah and stopped. Most of the driving was made in silence as I tried to recover my scrambled wits which was easier said than done. I’d stared at multilayered rock formations and marveled at the oranges and reds they contained. Some of them were even more varied than that – the stone layered in tans, browns, a deep burgundy, and even greens as though the stones had been set to spinning and someone had taken a paintbrush and painted bands of colors throughout the formation. I didn’t understand how something so beautiful could be formed naturally, but I assumed it had to do with tectonic plates, and centuries upon centuries of wind erosion. I’m sure it was all very scientific, which used to be a subject I excelled at, but for the life of me, I had no interest now.
It was as though I gathered up all my thoughts and threw them at the wall and whatever stuck? Well, good, but not much was honestly sticking.
