Page 32 of Exit Strategy
“You let me worry about that now, yeah?”
I stared at his profile – the strong jaw, his thick neck, and the set of his shoulders under his plaid shirt – and I nodded slowly.
“Yeah,” I whispered and went back to staring out the window at the arid-brown flat ground meeting such a brilliant blue sky it almost hurt my eyes even from behind the dark lenses.
We were in the truck for a long, long time this time. I asked where we were going, and he said we would stop in Amarillo tonight. I felt like I should know what state Amarillo was in, but for the life of me, I couldn’t seem to recall. It was upsetting and worrying and when I asked, it must have sounded in my voice because Kurt simply chuckled and asked me where the city of Kent was located in England.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He smiled and said, “The U.S. is a lot bigger than England. You can’t be expected to know where every city is located on the map. Amarillo is in the Texas panhandle.”
“Okay, and where are we now?” I asked.
“Albuquerque,” he answered. “Just about the back side of it, really.”
“Albuquerque, that’s New Mexico,” I said, and his smile grew a bit more.
“See, not so daft as you think,” he said. “Tell me, Callie…”
“Yes?” I asked, pulling my eyes away from the city rolling by outside the window.
“Why are you really afraid of perhaps, and that’s abigperhaps, being a little forgetful?”
“You don’t want to forget things around Arik, or the rest of New Eden,” I murmured and he put his hand over mine where it rested on the seat between us and gave it a gentle squeeze.
“You aren’t going back to New Eden, or Arik, Love. I know you’ve got no reason to, but you can trust me on that.”
A time later, maybe an hour, maybe two, I didn’t really know – time was all fuzzy with the endless rush of pavement beneath his truck’s tires – we started passing through an area rippling with rough black stone in the freeway medians and to either side of the highway. I frowned slightly and leaned closer to the glass as though it would help me see better.
“Kurt,” I said, and he glanced my way.
“Ah, yeah?” he asked.
“What am I seeing out there?” I asked. “It looks like old hard lava but—”
“You would be right,” he said with a smile. “We’re driving through the New Mexico lava beds.”
“There aren’t any volcanoes in New Mexico,” I said frowning.
“Not anymore, Love. This one is extinct, from back in the time of the dinosaurs, I think. Which incidentally, there are a lot of those around these parts as well. All through Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico, they dig up old fossils and bones.”
“I vaguely knew that,” I murmured. “A footnote on the lessons about the fossil fuel industry.”
“Ah, yeah.” Kurt nodded. “Never understood that,” he said.
“Understood what?” I asked, tearing my eyes away from the rippling black stone thrusting up toward the sky in waves that reminded me of rough seas frozen in time.
“New Eden being so anti-fossil fuel and the like, and yet how many movies their poster boy has starred in with car chases and explosions.”
I smiled and it was a bitter thing.
“I pointed that out once,” I said.
“Yeah, what’d they say about it?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I said and turned to look back out the window. “Arik backhanded me in the mouth.”
I heard a squeaking, like leather twisting, and I turned back to see Kurt’s large hands all but strangling the steering wheel.
