Drive

by Gioertz, Karina

  She felt the guilt rise up within her again and forcefully swallowed it down as she slid into the driver’s seat. It had been a while since she had sat that low to the ground and it felt nice. Part of her already anticipated how the car would hug the curves of the road while traveling at speeds she’d never dream of taking the ambulance to. With a little bad luck, she’d get her chance soon enough.

  “I don’t suppose you have a destination in mind?” Jordan asked as she steered the Honda out of her neighborhood and onto a main highway.

  “Just head south for now,” Sawyer said, still cautiously watching out the window.

  “Why south?” Jordan asked, stealing yet another glance in the rearview mirror. Paranoia was getting the better of her. She’d need to get a hold of herself and soon, if she wanted a clear head for the journey that lie ahead of her.

  “Because it gives us more options. And because the roads will be better.”

  It made sense. There wasn’t much left to explore above them unless they veered west as well…and somehow south did seem more appealing. The only question was, how far south would they wind up going? Just in case, she mentally began to recite old vocabulary lessons she had learned back in Spanish class. Not that she really thought she would need it, but it gave her mind something to focus on, and really at this point, who could say what kind of scenario was likely and which wasn’t? There wouldn’t be any harm in being prepared.

  Chapter 4: Reckless

  Jordan drove for nearly seven hours straight, stopping only once to switch cars when they ran out of gas. It seemed as good a reason as any, given their circumstances. By the time they reached West Virginia, she was both starving and exhausted. She knew exactly how many hours she’d been awake, what she couldn’t recall was the last time she had eaten a meal that consisted of more than a breath mint. She had repeatedly cursed herself over the course of their trip for not eating dinner the night before. At the time, she had filled up on coffee in anticipation of the long shift ahead of her and hadn’t been in the mood for much else. Now, she imagined her stomach to resemble something like an empty cave and an angry one at that…if that sort of thing even existed. It likely did not, but she was too tired and too malnourished to care at that point.

  When she turned her head to check on Sawyer, she wasn’t surprised to see that he hadn’t fared much better. In spite of the fact that he had at least been able to get some shut eye, recovering from a gunshot would require a bit more than a few hours of frequently interrupted sleep while sitting upright in the passenger seat of a Ford Ranger pick-up, their most recently acquired mode of transportation. Judging by the way the thing guzzled gas, it wouldn’t be long before they traded it in for something a little more fuel efficient.

  “We should stop somewhere,” Jordan said, her voice cutting through the silence causing Sawyer’s head to lift with a jerk.

  “Huh? What time is it?” he asked rubbing his temples with both hands, his eyes still closed.

  “It’s nearly noon. I think we should take the next exit and try to find a little motel somewhere off the beaten path where we can really stretch out and get some rest. Plus, I should really take a look at your wound again and change out the bandages. They’re probably soaked through by now.”

  Sawyer pulled himself out of the crease of the door in which he had been leaning while dozing and started to take in their surroundings.

  “I don’t suppose you know where we are?”

  Jordan made a face.

  “What, like I’m an idiot? I’ve been driving the whole time; you think I can’t read street signs? We passed the state line into West Virginia forty minutes ago,” she sneered in response.

  Sawyer looked briefly affronted by her tone. Then he continued on as though she hadn’t been anything but polite and accommodating.

  “West Virginia. Yeah, I think it’s safe to take a little break and get some rest, if anyone had been following us, we’d have known it by now anyway,” he said, automatically turning to inspect the contents of the side view mirror.

  “I thought we had a tail a while back, but they pulled off a few exits ago,” Jordan said when she saw him check behind them.

  “What did the car look like?” he asked, trying not to sound overly concerned.

  “Dark blue Charger. Thought it might be a cop at first. Really had me panicked when I remembered I was driving a stolen car. Thankfully, they turned off right after.”

  Sawyer nodded thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, a cop would definitely be bad.”

  “Definitely. But it got me wondering…if we wind up in a real jam with the law over this, I don’t suppose you have one of those mini badges you could whip out and show everyone?” Jordan knew it wasn’t likely, but she wasn’t ever one to leave a stone unturned, especially if it meant the difference between prison and her freedom. Sawyer just shook his head and laughed.

  “Are you kidding? I haven’t even looked at my badge in over a year. It’s locked away safely in a safe deposit box in the city. And now isn’t exactly a good time to go back and get it.”

  Jordan sighed, disappointed.

  “No, not exactly.”

  She turned on her signal and pulled into the far right lane and prepared to take the upcoming exit. It didn’t look like much, but that was probably better anyway.

  As far as motels, the choices were limited. Well, non-existent really. One motel didn’t really offer much of a choice. Jordan followed the signs and led the small truck down a long winding road until they finally reached an intersection consisting of a gas station on one corner, a fast food joint on the other and the motel on another. The remaining corner consisted of nothing but rubble, leaving Jordan no choice but to guess at what might have once stood there. Judging from their surroundings she suspected it was something along the lines of a fishing and hunting accessories store…although after giving it a second thought she concluded that they probably would not have gone out of business. Maybe it had been a fine dining establishment or a book store. Neither of those would have had a prospective customer for miles and miles.

  Jordan parked the truck at the very back of the lot along a tree line, in hopes that it’s dark green paint job would somehow blend well with the tall pines it stood up against.

  “You better stay here and wait for me,” she said when she watched Sawyer reach for the door handle. “Nothing like a guy who looks like he’s been shot to keep us from drawing any unwanted attention.”

  His mouth twitched back into a smirk, clearly amused by her dry sarcastic way with words, and he dropped his hand back to his lap.

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  Jordan just rolled her eyes at him and got out.

  The loose gravel felt strange under her feet as she walked across the parking lot and up to the front door. Somehow it added to the surreal effect the last twelve hours had drenched her in and she wondered, even as she was approaching the woman sitting at the front desk in the small lobby, why it had been so easy to flip the switch and enter into this bizarre alternate reality where she was on the run with a criminal/cop she barely knew and committing crimes along the way as they tried to escape with their lives from gunfire that would likely come flying at them from both sides of the law at some point.

  “Excuse me,” Jordan said, trying to get the woman’s attention. She was in her late forties with grey streaks running through her jet black hair that likely stemmed from fighting too many battles with the copy machine. A war she was losing from the looks of it, given that she had resorted to beating it with a broom stick, causing such a ruckus she hadn’t even heard Jordan come in. Now that they were just a few feet apart, the woman’s head flew up in a start.

  “Oh, hi there, darlin’. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there,” she said as she set down her broom and approached the desk. She had a thick southern drawl and Jordan questioned if she’d ever made it past the county line, let alone the state.

  Jordan smiled politely.

  “It’
s no problem. You looked like you had your hands full there.”

  The woman tossed her hair back laughing.

  “Oh that ol’ thing? He had it comin’! Been givin’ me nothin’ but trouble for three years now.”

  “I’m sure he deserved every bit of the beating you were giving him then. Any who, I was wondering if it would be possible to get a room?”

  The woman reached for the pen she kept stuck in her hair bun and said, “But of course! A single?”

  “No, a double actually if you have it,” Jordan corrected her.

  “Oh, so then there’s someone travelin’ with you?” the woman asked curiously.

  Jordan nodded, wondering how much of a lie would be necessary to appease the woman’s need to know her business.

  “My boyfriend. He fell asleep during the drive. I figured I’d get the room situation settled before I wake him…we’re headed down to Florida, going out there to see his folks.”

  Jordan made it a point to look the woman directly in the eye while she spoke. Even though people always said that liars were easy to spot when they turned away, she felt like by doing the opposite she was pointing a glaringly bright spotlight on herself. However suspicious she felt she was behaving, the woman at the desk seemed to have no such perceptions as she handed her a paper to sign and asked for her credit card. Jordan paused. She had known this moment would come.

  “Actually, I was planning on paying cash if that’s alright.”

  “Well, sure hun, but I’ll still need to run the card just so we have it on file. It’s just standard procedure, you see?”

  Jordan had been afraid of that.

  “Thing is, my crazy ex and I still share the account and the last thing I need is for him to see this place pop up on the statement and for him to find out what I’ve been up to. It’ll just cause problems for me and my boyfriend. Isn’t there anything you can do to help me? Maybe just hold onto the card while we’re here without actually running it through?” Jordan looked at the woman pleadingly and it worked.

  “Oh, alright. I suppose we can make an exception just this once,” she said as she took the cash and card from Jordan and slid them both into the register drawer under her desk.

  “Thank you so much, you’re a lifesaver!” The woman had no idea.

  “We’ve all been there hun,” she said as she handed Jordan her key card.

  Oh, I doubt that, Jordan thought, but said nothing out loud.

  Shortly after, she was back at the truck to collect her bag and Sawyer, before heading up to their room. It was small with two double sized beds against one wall, and a long rectangular dresser that barely reached two feet in height and served double duty as a TV stand, along the other. The walk space in between each of the pieces of furniture was barely wide enough for them to walk through in most places and caused Jordan to turn sideways in order to get through in others. Since there wasn’t much else to discover in the room, Jordan tossed her bag onto the bed closest to the door and then turned toward Sawyer.

  “Time to strip hot shot,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” He looked back at her with a raised brow.

  “I need to take a look at your shoulder. Why? What’d you think I meant?” She looked at him probingly, daring him to say out loud the thoughts that had crossed his mind the moment she mentioned him undressing, but he just pushed out his lower lip and nodded, “No, that’s exactly what I thought you meant.”

  Jordan smirked and shook her head, but said nothing more. She watched as he took his seat on the bed and then went to help him out of the jacket and shirt, or at least what had been left of it after she had started cutting chunks out of it the last go around.

  Given that their set up was considerably more favorable than it had been previously, Jordan took the time to carefully slide off the entire sleeve this time, helping Sawyer take off the jacket completely before dropping it on the floor beside her and then continuing to undress his upper body. Jordan’s inner chatter was a mess of rambling as her thoughts traveled from the shredded jacket to the blood stained shirt, realizing that neither would be wearable beyond this point and wondering where on earth the man was going to get another set of clothes now that they had decided to stop in ‘The Place That Time Forgot’, West Virginia. The mindless dialogue going on within her head didn’t deter her from working meticulously. Gently removing the bandages and efficiently tending to the wound, checking it for any signs of infection before re-bandaging it. It also did nothing to distract her from the fact that she was hovering only inches from a half-naked man whose effects on her were slowly causing her to come unglued.

  Jordan had noticed two tattoos on Sawyer’s hands early on. He had the word ‘DARE’ spelled out across his knuckles and she had wondered if it served as some sort of inspiration to him as he spent day in and day out daring to do a job most people would be too afraid to leave the house for. On the other hand, he had a small symbol she didn’t recognize. It reminded her of a strange looking tree, or maybe a T that had been crossed a few too many times. Jordan had half expected to find Sawyer displaying a wide variety of tats beneath his clothes and found herself half hoping he was, just so she’d have something else to focus on once his shirt came off. Unfortunately, the only thing covering Sawyer’s tan, smooth skin was a blond patch of chest hair that traveled the length of his torso, narrowing as it descended and offering no suitable distraction to her whatsoever. On the contrary, Sawyer exuded a raw masculinity Jordan hadn’t been confronted with in a long time. Seemed every man she had met or dated over the last few years had somehow been lacking in testosterone. It had made her wonder how boys were making the transition into manhood, or if they were transitioning at all. Because the guys she was being exposed to didn’t appear to be capable of much of anything and often made her feel as though she was the man among them, simply because of the things she had to do. Like changing a tire when her date’s Nissan Altima had wound up with a flat on the side of the highway. Or the time she had helped push a friend’s truck out of the deep mud it had gotten stuck in while her boyfriend at the time stood idly by and watched, unwilling to get his shoes dirty. And there was the whole grooming approach so many men had taken on. Not that Jordan didn’t appreciate someone practicing proper hygiene, but the way some of these boys were primping and plucking and waxing it was enough to give her a complex regarding her own femininity. However this was not the case with Sawyer. Even wounded and at her mercy, she felt an intense strength about him that made her want to curl up next to him just for a moment, so that she might know what it felt like to be truly sheltered and protected.

  “Is everything okay?”

  It was Sawyer.

  “Huh?” Jordan snapped back to the present only to find that she had been frozen in place, holding up the spare bandaging in one hand and the scissors she had used to cut them with in the other, whilst staring directly at him, and not in a way that could be considered even remotely appropriate. “Yeah, everything’s fine,” she stammered as she averted her eyes and rushed to put her things away. Jordan zipped up her bag and bent down to retrieve the shirt and jacket she had dropped on the floor earlier. Returning to an upright position she moved to reach the end of the room where the sink and trash can were located. She had barely taken a step when she felt Sawyer’s hand clasp around her wrist. When she turned back to face him, she found him standing directly in front of her. There was a moment of silence as they stood there, Jordan feeding off of his energy and drinking it in until she thought she might burst. No man had ever made her feel this way. She felt reckless and not in the way that made her unafraid of dying, but in a way that made her want to feel the savage burn of being alive. When Jordan’s eyes met Sawyer’s, she saw the same building need in them, as if their desire for each other was trying to claw its way to freedom from the inside out. Dizzy from the heightened emotions and the lack of sleep, Jordan felt her knees go weak just as Sawyer caught her in his arms. Gone were any signs of his pain as he steadied her against
him, his face charging down to meet Jordan’s until the moment his lips found hers.

  Jordan’s mind began to race again, but she pushed every thought that told her to stop what she was doing out of her mind almost the instant it came in. Even as Sawyer began to lower her down to the bed, she blew caution to the wind and gave in to her body’s overwhelming need to be with him.

  Chapter 5: Simple

  It was pitch black out when Jordan awoke. She let her hand slide out from under the covers to search the mattress beside her. The bed was empty. Startled by the realization that she was alone, she lifted her head from the pillow to look around the room. There was Sawyer, standing in the corner beside the window and staring out into the night as though he was keeping watch. Unnerved by his behavior, Jordan sat up straight and moved her legs over the edge of the bed preparing to stand.

  “Is someone out there?” she whispered, annoyed by the quiver of fear she heard as she spoke.

  Sawyer shook his head.

  “No.” His tone was normal and unlike her, he hadn’t lowered his voice. He was telling the truth. Jordan breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the dark outline of his body move through the room and back toward the bed.