Page 40 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

“No way,” I argue. “We can’t separate in an abandoned town. That’s horror movie 101.”

“I’m not so sure it’s abandoned,” he murmurs, gaze sweeping behind us like he thinks someone’s following. “If you’re coming, be ready to run. We’re about to commit a felony.”

Thirteen

“We’re stealing a car?” I ask Luke as we stroll through the junkyard.

“Assuming there’s someone to steal from, yes.”

On either side of us, decrepit vehicles line the narrow stretch of dirt path we walk along. Some are missing doors or windshields or bumpers. Others are so rusted I can’t make out the original color. The overall trend is they’re all in subpar condition, looking as if they might crumble if anyone sits in them, let alone hits the gas. That’s assuming they even run on gas and not on, like, the screams of tortured orphans or some equally dark shit.

“Not that I want to walk all the way to Death Valley, but I’m kind of doubting these will get us there any faster,” I say as we pass an exceptionally rough-looking truck that is more of a steel skeleton than anything else.

“All we need is four wheels and an engine.” Luke turns down one of the many rows. I go one over from him to cover more ground.

“Even that’s a tall order,” I mutter. Most vehicles have two or three tires or none, and are propped up on cinder blocks. “How do you plan on starting it?”

“Using a key?”

“I thought maybe you’d have to hot-wire it.” The visual of him leaning under the hood of one of these beaters with his brows scrunched in concentration makes a wave of something I’d rather ignore sweep through my lower body.

“Maybe I will. But a key is preferable.”

I move on to the next row, but each option is worse than the one before it. By the time Luke and I make it through half the yard, the sky has darkened past the point of the clouds. Night crept up.

“What’s the verdict?” I ask, shivering as the crisp air turns biting.

“We keep looking.”

“Here?”

“We have to find something,” Luke says, the patience in his voice wearing thin. “I don’t want to go to the Night Market on foot.”

“You want a car in case we need to make a quick getaway?”

It’s mostly a joke, but he hesitates before saying, “As long as we’re not detected, a quick getaway shouldn’t be necessary.”

A realization hits as I lose him behind the van separating us. “You want a car so you can leave me in it, don’t you?”

We emerge on the other side of the van. He stops and turns to me. “I want to be in and out. No scenes. The Night Market is full of deception and tricks. If you don’t escape it by dawn, when it disappears, you disappear with it until the next night when it reappears. We don’t have time to waste a day stuck in it.”

“I already told you splitting up is a bad idea,” I remind him, trying to keep my tone office-pleasant and not betray the frustration brewing within. “If you get stuck in there while I’m sitting in the passenger seat of one of these rust buckets waiting for your return, we’ll be no better off.”

Luke’s eyes light up. “Perfect.”

“What?” I ask. But he’s not paying attention to me. I turn in the direction he’s heading. “What are you— No.”

“You’ve never ridden a motorcycle before?” he asks as we stop at a black bike.

“No, and I don’t plan to. Besides, we can’t make it all the way across the country on that.”

“Why not?”

“We’d get permanent crotch cramps! Not to mention back issues. There has to be something with more than two wheels.”

He sweeps a hand at the junkyard surrounding us. “Take your pick. Everything needing four wheels only has three or less. At least this can run on two and they’re in decent condition.”

“It probably won’t start,” I say with equal parts hope and dread. The latter intensifies as Luke plucks a chain with a key dangling from it off the left handlebar.