Page 55 of Exit Strategy
“Thank you,” I said. “For telling me. I don’t want to be kept in the dark anymore.”
He nodded slowly.
“I thought that might be the case,” he said gently, and he moved his hand from over mine to tip my chin gently with his finger. I looked at him and his face was carved from stone, an almost fanatic determination to what I’d seen on Maddie’s face overtaking his expression.
“You’ll be alright, Callie,” he swore to me. “No matter what, I’ll be here, and I’ll protect you.”
I pursed my lips and nodded, but I knew better. Against Madeline?
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Kurt,” I said gently, reaching up and cradling the side of his face with my hand. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t want to watch you die, and with Madeline at the helm…” I trailed off.
He turned his head and pressed a kiss into the palm of my hand, breathing me in for a moment.
“I don’t make promises I don’t intend to keep, Love,” he told me. But as confident as he sounded, by the powers that be, I couldn’t help but still have my doubts.
* * *
The feelingof existential dread that’d overtaken me that morning had somewhat eased by the time the landscape had begun to change. We left the tobacco fields of Virginia in a beeline north, hitting an hours’-long snarl of traffic through Washington DC.
I’d been to DC on several missions as both a pre-teen and teen for New Eden, lobbying with politicians – congressmen and senators alike as one of the First Among Daughters of New Eden’s Youth Initiative Program or Y.I.P. for short. Laughingly, it was a sort of unofficial tagline that’d been printed on tee shirts that it wasTime for Y.I.P. to nip climate change and pollution in the bud.
God, I’d been so foolishly naïve back then. All the fancy parties dressed to the nines, serving and dining on sustainably sourced, vegan, and vegetarian fare to rich politicians on fancy China plates, drinking from equally fancy crystal glasses, and for what? Token efforts, a few lines here or there slipped into some bill that honestly was a drip or drop in the bucket when it came to the massive amount of carbon dumped in our atmosphere, poisoning our lungs from giant… what was the word? Not conglomerate, but that was like it. I knew it started with a “c”… militant, suit and tie, soulless…
“Shit,”I swore softly out loud.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asked, taking one hand from the wheel to put it over where mine rested on the bench seat between us.
“I can’t remember the word for something,” I said.
“Aw, yeah? What’s that?” he asked.
I frowned.
“If I knew, I would tell you,” I said and immediately felt bad for how annoyed and biting that had come out. “I’m sorry,” I apologized immediately. “I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
He chuckled and picked up my hand and brought it to his mouth. I stiffened out of reflex, and he kissed my fingertips, leaning over closer without taking his eyes from the road.
“You need to be a little more patient with yourself, Love,” he chided gently.
I sighed out in a rush and said, “It’s just so frustrating.”
“I know,” he said, and it was with all the sympathy in the world coating his tone. I smiled a bit sadly.
“I used to come here a lot, you know,” I said, staring out over the urban landscape, at the Washington Monument in the distance, stabbing its way skyward, a declaration of defiance from man, that man would conquer all… at least that was always the feeling I got from staring at the obelisk.
Obelisk… Oberisk… they had their parallels. Maddie was just as strong, just as defiant, and to be honest, for a woman, nearly as tall as the damn thing.
My mood plummeted again, and I sighed, shifting restlessly in my seat.
“We’re almost there, another couple of hours,” Kurt declared. “Are you hungry?”
I shook my head. “Just restless,” I said.
“Aye, traffic isn’t – oi! You should have thought of that back when you first saw the sign, you bloody wanker!” he shouted as a tiny Porsche cut him off just before the lane to our right ended due to construction.
I smiled and had to giggle a little. His accent became thicker, something a bit less refined when he got irritated like that.
“Bollocks,” he muttered unhappily as he had to brake hard for another such wanker.
