Page 27

I have nothing to say to that. He’s right, I know, but the ups and downs of the mountain roads never make sense to me. Which is why it’s probably stupid of me to be doing this, getting in this rust bucket of a car with him with no guarantees I’m going to arrive at my destination.

Well, not no guarantees, I guess. He let me send my texts: to Mom and Callie, of course, but also to Chloe and Abi, apologizing to them that I missed our Zoom call. And to Adrian, who had jumped straight to the code we decided on before I left Chicago, using Walt Whitman as the key.

Adrian

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much?

Penelope

I have heard what the talkers were talking, but I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

This evening.

Adrian had asked if I was still safe. I told him I was. Then I told him my ETA. If I’m not in Clifwell tonight, he’ll know something’s wrong. No need for me to mention Victor’s name at all.

The car rumbles down the highway, and I walk through all my old training in my head: What to do if I find myself locked in a car trunk. How to jump out of a moving vehicle as safely as possible. The best way to wrench control of a car by killing the driver without also killing myself.

But so far, Victor isn’t suggesting that I’ll need to do any of it. He drives exactly the speed limit, his hands at ten and two, his intense eyes fixed on the road ahead. I try not to look at him, at his strong and interesting profile, with his aquiline nose and heavy brow and those full lips that felt like fire on my skin.

“Do you want to drive straight there?” he asks, and I jerk my gaze away from him and fix it on the road up ahead, grey asphalt vanishing abruptly into the pinkish-white morning sky. “Or do you want to break it up?”

“Why?” I ask. “It’s not that far.”

“Over four hours.” He shrugs. “Well, closer to five. We can take a break if you want.”

I shift around in my seat, leaning against the door so I can look at him again. I tell myself I have an excuse this time. “And why don’t you want to drive straight there?” I ask. “You got plans to kill me at some scenic lookout?”

“I told you I’m not going to kill you.” He looks sideways at me, the first time he’s looked away from the road since we left. “I just think five hours is a long time in a car.”

He’s not wrong, of course. “Well, maybe we can stop for lunch. I just don’t want to get on camera.”

“I thought your whole plan was to get arrested,” Victor says. “What do you care if the cops see you?”

I scowl at him. “The cops need to know as little about me as possible. I would think a Hunter would understand that.”

“Ah. So this is something you learned from your mother.” Another sideways glance. “Like how you learned to use that knife of yours?”

“Yeah.” I fiddle with the hem of my shirt, grateful Victor brought in my suitcase when he brought my phone. Yesterday’s clothes were filthy from our little escapade in the woods. “Same way she taught me how to jump out of a moving car, by the way. Just in case you think to try anything.”

And to my surprise, Victor smiles. Not a huge smile or anything, but his mouth quirks up a little. “I’d almost want to see that,” he says. “It’d be trivial for your mother to pull that kind of trick. But as a human, you’re much more likely to get hurt.”

“Better hurt than dead.” Mom drilled those words into me when I was a child; they’re as much a prayer as the actual prayers I learned. Anytime I came up to her, crying because I skinned my knee or Callie cut me on accident, that’s what she would say as she patched me up. Better hurt than dead, Penny. Always remember that.

“Suppose that’s true,” Victor says.

Silence fills the car, the kind of awkward silence you only get when you’re alone with a hookup, and you’re both trying to avoid talking about it. I hate it.

Which is probably why I blurt out, “What year were you born?”

Victor chokes back a sound that might be a laugh. Then he actually looks at me—turns his head and looks—and I don’t like how it feels having those hazel eyes fixed on me. “You don’t dance around things, do you?”

I shrug. “What’s the point? I’m curious. I want to know.” I pause. “I know you’re old.”

“Yeah, you accused me of that already.” He’s looking at the road, a responsible driver once again, although I think I hear humor in his voice. “What gave it away?”

“Don’t avoid the question.”

“You answer, then I’ll answer.” His eyes flick over to me, just for a second. “How old do you think I am?”