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“I need to let him know where I’m going.” She dug through the drawers in the kitchen. “Why don’t we have any paper? I can’t remember the last time I wrote a note that wasn’t on my phone.”
Tessa leaned back outside, thankful she had a direct line of sight to Old Blue. There’d be time for healing later, but she needed to get out of here soon and she wasn’t leaving Robin behind to face the dangers of this world alone. “Write it in sharpie on the wall. Tell him you’re with HM2 Ward’s wife. He’ll know where to find us.”
Robin left bowls of food and water on the small back porch, calling for Minerva a final time and then promising she’d be back in a few days. Tessa didn’t point out the obvious. The woman had already been through enough. For the first time Tessa noticed the slight limp in Robin’s walk. She hiked for miles after that. She swallowed down the feral rage that was building inside her. It didn’t matter if she was a stranger. The men they loved were together somewhere and Tessa silently vowed no one would ever hurt this woman again.
“I don’t have much to offer you.” Robin’s shoulders hunched after she’d scanned the parking lot one more time to check for the runaway cat.
“You can help me keep a look out.” Tessa shifted into drive and tried to come up with a reason to not make Robin feel like she was a burden. “I don’t know if I can watch everything while taking care of the kids.”
“Two kids. A boy and girl,” Robin whispered as if this simple conversation was perfectly normal and the world wasn’t falling down around them. Was it only a few days ago that Tessa was trying to do the same? She didn’t know anymore. Everything was happening too fast.
“Mason is my son and Emily is my daughter. They’re going to love having you stay with us.”
The smoke thinned in the sky the further north they went on the freeway. Tessa glanced in her rearview mirror as they crested the ridge. The burnt sun in its fiery red hue distorted by the smoke hung low in the west, shining down on the thousands of people migrating in the distance behind them. She passed a group of people with their thumbs in the air, and forced herself to block out their desperation and pleading eyes. There was no way to help everyone. She wasn’t even sure if she could help herself.
“Why are they staying on the freeway? Why not take a side road?” Robin wondered aloud as they passed a family setting up a tent on the shoulder of I-15.
Tessa thought about it for a minute. “I once read this article on how humans will take what they perceive as the shortest path even if it’s longer. Maybe they don’t know any better. Or it’s possible that freeways symbolize escape.” She thought back to her mistake of going to the main gate with the kids that day. “Or maybe they are doing what they’ve always known and sticking to the same paths they’ve driven before.”
Robin slumped back against the seat and slid her sunglasses onto her face. “I hate to say it, but I would have done the same thing if this were to get any worse.”
How much worse can it get? Tessa pressed her foot down hard on the gas pedal and willed Old Blue to move faster.
She breathed a sigh of relief as she finally got off the freeway and turned down the familiar roads. There were more cars jammed onto the interstate than she’d counted before and it dawned on her that there would be even more when everyone ran out of gas. Old Blue was almost on empty too. The gas can in the garage would help, but she needed to get more.
“Is this your neighborhood?” Robin watched the two-story houses and tidy lawns of the subdivision pass them by. “It’s so quiet here. Did everyone leave?”
Tessa glanced at the closed curtains on each of the homes and shook her head. “Don’t let appearances fool you.”
