He corrected and locked his grip.
The road ahead rippled. The trees on either side were a continuous wall of dark and white, the detail bleeding away, the world reducing to the center line and the sound of Harper’s voice.
“Pav, you need to pull over. Let me drive.”
Her hand moved from his arm to his face. Her palm against his cheek. Warm. Soft. She was fuzzy, but there. Her eyes were bright with fear and something tender he didn’t have a name for.
“I’ve got you,” she said. “Let me drive.” She didn’t wait for permission, she took the wheel.
The road split again. Pav blinked—and it didn’t come back together. He couldn’t keep them on it. He released the wheel.
“Brake.Now.Pav—brake.”
He stamped on the brake pedal and the UAZ skidded to a halt. Harper was already out of the passenger seat, running around the front, opening his door.
The rush of the world abated.
“Slide over. Don’t get out. Just move.”
The passenger seat received him, as his vision swam, came into focus, and swam again.
She was in the driver’s seat. Adjusting the mirror. “Pav. Tell me where we’re going. The directions. All of them. Now.”
He dug his hand into his pants pocket and pulled out his map. He spread it on his knees. Squiggles danced across the page.Hell. He squeezed his eyes shut, gritted his teeth.
Focus.
He opened his eyes, and the world popped in lurid technicolor.
He ran his finger across the paper, locating their position. Fifty miles to the border. But Katya. Only thirty. He stabbed with his forefinger, marking the spot with a smudge of blood. “Here. My friend Katya. Her guesthouse is unmarked, but left at the birch fork. Yellow door. She’ll have meds.” He exhaled. “If anyone does.”
The gears ground as Harper found first, and the UAZ lurched forward.
She looked over at him and grimaced. “Sorry. It’s been a while since I drove stick.”
He almost laughed. The sound died in his throat, but the impulse was there. He was half-delirious from infection in a stolen car, and she was apologizing for her clutch work.
“You’re doing fine,” he thought he said. The words might not have made it out.
The UAZ grumbled beneath him.
“Stay with me, Pav.”
He tried to hold on to her voice the way he’d held on to the steering wheel. The road faded to nothing and everything else with it as his eyes closed.
The last thing to go was her voice saying his name as if it mattered.
Like he might not answer next time.
28
Harper white-knuckled the steering wheel.If she let go, even for a second, everything would come apart. She’d wedged the map between her legs, blood smudge facing up, his fingerprint showing her where to go.
In her rearview mirror, there was only desolate road. For now, no pursuers.
The UAZ smelled like diesel and old cigarettes and the metallic undertone of Pav’s blood.
She split her attention between the map and the road—a narrow strip of frozen mud and ice cutting through forest that looked identical in every direction. Snow. Trees. Rock. More snow. More trees. The landscape repeated itself with a monotony that was meditative or maddening, depending on how close to hysteria she was.
