by TJ Klune
Havre, Montana.
“We’ll stop here,” Alex said. “In and out. We’ll be quick. Find somewhere down the road to stop for the night.”
Nate didn’t say a thing.
It was cooler here than it’d been at Herschel Lake. There were still patches of snow on the ground, dirty and gray. Havre itself wasn’t anything spectacular. It looked like any other small town they’d driven through over the past week. The sun was weak overhead, and the clouds were thin and wispy.
They stopped at the first gas station they came to. Art was on the floor of the truck, her head lying against Nate’s knee, her focus still on her book. Nate brushed a hand through her hair. She hummed a little and leaned into it.
The station had four pumps. Unleaded was a buck twenty, something Alex grumbled about. It’d gotten more expensive the farther north they’d gone. Nate had asked about money, asked how their impromptu trip was being funded a few days before. Alex had stared at him for a long moment before showing him the contents of a secret pocket in his duffel. Inside were rolled bundles of cash, held together by thick rubber bands. It’d been quick, just a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t, but it’d been enough.
“You planned this,” Nate had told him, trying to keep his voice even. “Her. You planned it.”
Alex had shaken his head. “Not intentionally. Not at first. But once I started, I had to be careful. They’d have gotten suspicious. Ended up taking a year.”
Nate hadn’t said much after that, still stuck on they’d have gotten suspicious. The ever-omnipotent they. Those in the Mountain. The ones who’d held Art. They were the ones chasing after them, most likely in the form of the water guy. They wanted her back.
Nate understood why.
They pulled up to the pump, the gas tank on the passenger side.
Alex turned off the truck. “I’ll be quick.”
Nate smiled tightly at him. These stops always soured his stomach. Rattled his nerves a bit. Nothing ever happened, but he was paranoid. He’d earned the right after everything.
Alex opened the door and slid out of the truck. He paused for a moment, raising his arms over his head as he stretched. Nate absolutely did not look at the thin sliver of the skin on his back as his flannel shirt rose above his jeans.
Alex closed the door behind him.
Nate watched as he glanced around, taking in the gas station. There was a car parked in front of the small convenience store. Their truck was the only one at the pumps.
Quick and easy.
Alex rounded the front of the truck and headed toward the store.
The truck’s engine ticked as it cooled.
The air in the cab felt stuffy. Nate cracked the window and took in a deep breath of cool air.
Art turned another page. Then she said, “Alex likes you.”
“So you’ve said,” Nate told her, hand still in her hair.
“I know. Just wanted to remind you in case you forgot.”
“I didn’t.”
“Okay. It’s just he can act like he doesn’t sometimes.”
“I know.”
“He doesn’t know how to show emotions.”
Nate snorted. “That might be an understatement.”
She squinted up at him. “Just don’t give up on him.”
“I wasn’t—what do you mean?”
“He’s going to need someone… after.”
Nate didn’t like the sound of that. “After what?”
She bit her bottom lip. “After I go home. He’s… he thinks he can be alone. But it’s not good for him. He’s… he needs someone. Like you.”
Nate hadn’t really thought that far ahead, aside from that night in the motel. He wondered if it was because he still didn’t necessarily believe it. Oh sure, he knew something was going on. After all, he’d seen Humvees being thrown into helicopters. But the idea of there being an after was nebulous at best. They had been almost aimless as they’d driven on, Alex asking Art every now and then if she was getting anything. She’d shake her head and say something about how it wasn’t time yet, that she’d know when it was and where it was. What that meant… well. Nate didn’t know if he was prepared to find out yet.
So, no. He hadn’t thought about after. He was barely thinking about tomorrow. It’d have been like he was in a fugue state if everything wasn’t so startlingly sharp around him, as if he were seeing colors for the first time.
“I don’t think he’ll need anything,” Nate said slowly.
She shook her head. “You’re wrong. He’s not like he was before. Things have changed. He’ll need someone like you. No. You know what? Not someone like you. Just… you.”
Nate looked out the window toward the store. He could see inside. Alex was at the drink coolers, probably getting Art her juice and Nate his Gatorade. Nate had asked for one once the first time they’d stopped, and every time after, Alex had made sure to buy one. It wasn’t—it wasn’t anything. It was probably just to shut Nate up so Alex wouldn’t have to listen to him bitch and moan about being thirsty. It was fine. Everything was fine.
“I don’t know if that’s true,” Nate finally said. “He’s going to be fine on his own.”
Art wasn’t happy with that. “Why won’t you believe me?”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s that—oh shit.”
“What?”
He ignored her, focus on the brown car that had just pulled up in front of the store.
Three words were emblazoned on the side.
HILL COUNTY SHERIFF
“Stay down,” Nate hissed at her. “Don’t move.”
“Is it him? The water guy?”
The fact that she’d picked up on what Nate had called the Enforcer would have been hysterical if Nate hadn’t suddenly felt like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on his head. “No. Cop.”
“Alex?”
“Still inside.” And he hadn’t seen the new arrival. He was moving toward the front counter, plastic bottles in his hand. Nate screamed in his head, trying to force him to look over, to just turn his fucking head so he could—
And Alex did just that. One moment his attention was focused on the store clerk. The next, his head jerked toward the window, eyes narrowed in time to see the deputy pull himself from the sedan.
The deputy was a squat man with thinning blond hair. His cheeks were flushed a little, mirror shades covering his eyes. He wasn’t looking into the store. No, his attention was focused on the truck. He stared at it for a moment, head cocked. He nodded at Nate when he saw him inside, and it looked like he was going to walk over.
Instead, he turned back toward the store, closing the door to the sedan behind him.
Nate felt a hand tightening on his knee.
He looked down.
Art’s forehead was resting against his thigh, her fingers digging into his jeans. She was breathing shallowly, these quick little breaths like she was on the verge of a panic attack.
“Art,” he whispered. “Art.”
She didn’t answer him.
“Shit,” he muttered, glancing back up at the store. The deputy was inside. Alex was at the counter. The store clerk was ringing him up. The deputy was moving toward the coolers, but then he stopped. His shoulders stiffened slightly. He glanced back over his shoulder at Alex. Then he looked out the window at the truck.
“Come on,” Nate said. “Come on, hurry up, hurry up.”
Art continued to breathe quickly.
Nate pressed his hand against her head.
His thoughts were racing. They were get out and what’s taking so long and it’s fine, it’s fine, everything is fine. And then came a voice that wasn’t his, and it felt intrusive and clawing and bright, and it said, Alex, Alex, Alex, please don’t leave me, please be safe.
Nate knew that voice.
He turned slowly to look down at the little girl sitting on the floor of the truck.
Her eyes
were closed. Her chest rose and fell.
And then he heard a third voice, rough and deep in his head, and it said, be ready, be ready in case we need to move. If you have to, you leave with him. He’ll keep you safe. Nate is—
There was a complicated flurry of images in his head. The cabin. The lake. A field of flowers. A woman with black hair. A little boy with bright blue eyes. And Nate, Nate, Nate. Nate in the kitchen in the morning looking sleepy as he sipped a cup of coffee. Nate standing by the lake. Nate sleeping against the window of the truck. Nate angry, Nate scared, Nate laughing, and he’d never seen himself this way. He looked wild and fierce and vital. It was too much too soon, and Nate was drowning under the onslaught. The images were accompanied by shifting emotions, from anger and grief to tentative trust and heartache like Nate had never felt before. He was overwhelmed by the intense loneliness of it all, like he was alone and had been for a very long time.
He blinked, a lump lodged firmly in his throat. “What’s happening?” he managed to croak.
Then: a clear, unambiguous thought.
Nate?
He said, Yes.
The door to the convenience store opened.
Alex, whose voice he’d heard in his head, was walking toward them, a hardened look on his face.
Nate’s skin was crawling.
Art sighed against Nate’s leg.
She said, “You felt it, didn’t you?”
Before Nate could answer, another voice called out, “Hey, you there. Hold up a minute.”
The deputy had followed Alex out the door. Alex was only halfway across the parking lot. He stopped, the plastic bag in his hand bouncing on his thigh. He squared his shoulders and turned around toward the deputy. “Yes?”
The deputy wasn’t smiling, but his hand wasn’t on his gun, either. “That your truck?”
“Yes.”
“Nice rig.”
“Thanks.”
“Thinking about getting myself a truck like that.”
“That right.”
“Sure is. Got a Ford right now, but my daddy had a Chevy when I was a kid. I loved that truck.”
Alex shrugged. “Don’t have any complaints.”
“Washington, huh?”
Alex didn’t respond.
The deputy stood a few feet away from him. “License plate. Washington.”
“Yeah.”
“On a trip?”
“Me and a buddy.”
“Where ya headed?”
“South Dakota.”
The deputy nodded. “Strange route to take from Washington. All the way up here.”
“We went through Glacier.”
“Pretty, right?”
“Sure,” Alex said, and Nate decided right then and there that if they got out of this, if they managed to escape without seeing the inside of a prison cell, he was going to make Alex work on his small talk.
“What’s in South Dakota?”
“What the heck,” Art muttered. “Is every human this nosy?”
Nate felt like screaming.
“Badlands,” Alex said.
“Oh yeah!” the deputy said. “Great park, if you’ve never been.”
“First time.”
“Camping?”
Alex nodded.
“Sounds like a good time.” The cop glanced over Alex’s shoulder at the truck. Nate almost waved at him but decided against it at the last moment. “You and a buddy. That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Alex sounded as if he were done with the conversation. Nate should know. He’d heard that tone of voice many times in the past couple of weeks.
“Well, y’all have a safe trip, all right?”
“Thank you.”
The deputy turned back toward the store.
Alex turned toward the truck.
Nate’s stomach flipped.
Then, “One more thing.”
Alex’s jaw clenched before he glanced back at the deputy.
“You serve?” the deputy asked.
Nate wondered if the deputy had a death wish. The gun was sitting in the glove compartment. All he had to do was grab it. Sure, he didn’t know the first fucking thing about guns, but it couldn’t be that hard, right? Safety off, finger on the trigger. Point and shoot. He didn’t need to kill anyone. Just a warning. That’s all it’d have to be.
“It’s just you carry yourself like a soldier,” the deputy said. “My daddy was in Korea. Had almost the same haircut and everything.”
And Nate could feel how much that rankled Alex. Somehow, he knew that Alex wanted to correct him, telling him that he wasn’t a soldier, he was a Marine, and there was a goddamn difference.
Instead, he said, “Long time ago. Old habits are hard to break.”
The deputy nodded. “Thank you for your service. Never did myself, but I know what kind of man it takes to enlist. My daddy taught me that.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Sure. All right, then. Best let you get on your way. Have a good day, sir.” The deputy gave a jaunty salute and turned back toward his car.
Alex was moving even as the deputy did. He went to the pump and started filling the truck.
The deputy’s car didn’t move.
It took perhaps two minutes for the truck’s tank to fill.
It felt like it went on for hours.
Eventually, Nate heard the telltale click on the pump’s handle.
Alex screwed the gas cap back on as he put the nozzle back.
He was around the front of the truck and opening the door. He tossed the bag inside before he sat down. He wasn’t looking at either of them.
He reached down and grabbed the exposed wires, rubbing them together.
Nothing.
The truck didn’t start.
He pressed the wires together again.
No spark.
Alex grunted and tried a third time.
Nothing.
“Fuck,” Nate breathed.
“Art,” Alex snapped. “Let go.”
Art looked up. Her eyes were wide.
“Let go,” Alex said again, and Nate knew the moment she did, even though he didn’t know what she was doing. One moment his head was stuffed full of voices that didn’t belong there, and the next, there was only his own thoughts. It felt like he’d breached the surface after being under for far too long. He gasped in a deep breath as Alex pressed the wires together again. They sparked. The truck roared to life.
He put it in drive and pulled away from the pump, heading toward the road.
“What the fuck was that?” Nate demanded. “What the hell—”
“Why?” Alex growled, and it took Nate a moment to realize the question wasn’t directed toward him, but at Art. “Why did you—”
“Because he fits,” Art said. “Like you. It’s not quite the same, but you know it as well as I do.”
“He didn’t want this. He doesn’t want any of this.”
“Have you asked him?”
“I don’t have to. He’s told us both enough that he—shit.”
“What?” Nate asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
“He’s following us.”
Nate looked out the rear window.
The deputy was behind them.
“He’s in this,” Art said, still seated at Nate’s feet. “You know he is. He’s here. With us. He hasn’t left. He won’t leave us. He won’t leave you.”
“Don’t,” Alex said, the warning clear in his voice. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you need to stop. You hear me?”
“Just because you can’t see it yet, doesn’t mean—”
The light bar on the deputy’s car flared to life, flashing red and blue.
“Fuck,” Alex snarled, banging a hand against the steering wheel. “Art, get back up on the seat. And don’t you say a goddamn word, you hear me? Nate, get the gun. Keep it hidden.”
&n
bsp; Art moved.
Nate did not.
“Now, Nate.”
Nate moved. He popped open the glove compartment. Alex’s gun was sitting on a pile of paperwork. “If he runs the plate, we’re—”
“I know.”
“You can’t just kill him.”
Alex wouldn’t look at him. He pulled the truck to the side of the road. He broke apart the exposed wires and shoved them back into the dash as the truck fell silent. He put the panel back in place, banging on it with his fist.
Nate took the gun and set it in his lap. Art handed him her coat, and he laid it over the gun. “We’ll be okay,” she told him. “You’ll see.”
He tried not to flinch. “I thought you said you couldn’t read minds.”
“I can’t.”
“I heard—”
“That wasn’t mind reading, Nate. Jeez. Give me some credit. Even if I could, I wouldn’t do that to you without your consent. That was just me forming a connection with you so you could hear what Alex and I were talking about in our heads. I wanted to keep you in the loop so you would—why are you staring at me like that?”
“Do you not hear yourself when you talk?” Nate demanded. “What the hell do you mean connection?”
She frowned. “I don’t know how I can be any clearer. I simplified it as much as I could so your smaller—but nonetheless fascinating—human brain could have a basic understanding of—”
“Both of you shut the hell up,” Alex snapped. “Not a word, you hear me? He’s coming.”
Alex rolled down his window.
Sure enough, the deputy walked up to the side of the truck.
“Hey,” he said, a smile on his face. “I hope I didn’t startle you. I just—well, well, well, who do we have here?” His smile widened at the sight of Art. “Hello. I didn’t see you at the gas station.”
“I was lying down,” Art told him, voice sticky-sweet. “I was so tired. I was still wearing my seat belt, though, because that’s the law.”
“Aren’t you just precious,” the deputy said. “Good girl. Always wear your seat belt.”
“I want to be a police officer when I grow up, so I know the law very well,” Art said. “My daddy said you have to be very brave to do that, so you must be very brave too.”
“Well,” the deputy said, blushing slightly. “I don’t know about that. That’s very nice of you to say. This big guy your daddy?”