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But her face crumples, eyes shifting out the window, resting on the drive-thru line of cars wrapping the building.
Oh man.
She walks back to the truck under her own steam, but I stay close. I fear she could topple at any moment.
I hope this is normal.
Probably so. Sepsis is a big stinkin’ deal.
While I eat my burger, she ignores everything I bought her except for the water, which she sips in a why-bother way.
She eyes me over the straw. “Where are we going anyway?”
“New Mexico.” I take a bite of my burger and chew slowly, watching her reaction, which is basically nonexistent. “I take it that’s alright with you?”
Gaze quietly shifting, she lowers the cup to her lap. “To your mother’s house, right?”
“Yep.” I don’t fill the silence with words. I’ll follow her lead, but I use the moment to digest this weird reality. Me and Tripp’s little sis, on the lam.
“Okay.”
Crazy as it is, I don’t take the opportunity to insist on a saner plan.
“Alrighty then. The desert it is.” I pop the last hunk of burger into my mouth, scuff my salty hands on my shorts, and crinkle wrappers into the empty bag, which I then pitch into the backseat. Annalise doesn’t so much as lift a brow at my manners. This worries me. The woman has serious attitude when she’s on her game.
Not kidding here. I am worried, though I’m gratified when she finally sips the chocolate shake. In the process, I notice her hands tremble every time she lifts the cup to her lips. She can’t have drunk but a fraction of its contents when she sets it in the cupholder and stares, zombielike, through the windshield. After far too long of that, she curls against the door and closes her eyes, but unlike before, she’s twitchy and restless. She dozes periodically, only to jerk awake within minutes, confusion and fear in her eyes every time.
My anxiety builds as we reach San Antonio and then leave the big city behind, winding through scenic hill country. I’m in need of another pitstop before she cops to one. She needs to be drinking, lots. That’s important when you’ve been sick.
The most lady-friendly place I can find is nothing to write home about. I keep my eye on a pair of bad dudes who are eyeing Annalise’s every step. I’m well acquainted with their greasy, face-tattoo type, so I paint on my most epic, bad-A face as I trail her into the grimy convenience store. Inside, I spy two more guys, college types, clean-cut on the exterior, but they’re not fooling me. They too eye her, piece by piece and part by part. I know what they’re thinking, and I’m more than willing to take both of them out back if they so much as blink funny. I catch their eyes—and they scurry to the drink cooler at the opposite end of the store.
I take care of business ASAP, but somehow Annalise has beaten me. I see her through the plate glass, stepping off the curb. Dang it. I run after her, my intent to buy something in lieu of use of the establishment’s facilities abandoned.
A split second before I reach her, she stumbles, catching herself on the old beater the gang dudes got out of. Yeah, I recognized the tattoos. I take her arm, which feels thin and weak beneath my palm. “Hey, wait for me next time.”
She scowls up, but it looks half-hearted.
“Take a look around, Lise…Annalise.”
She does, frowning as if seeing the dump and its patrons for the first time. Oh, brother. My sympathies go out to Tripp all over again.
No. No, they do not. He gets nothing from me, the Brutus.
She’s huffing and puffing again as I open the passenger door. “You alright?”
Her palm is pressed to her sternum. “I just…need to sit.”
At the very least that’s what she needs. What if she’s having a heart attack or something? A blood clot maybe? That can happen after a hospital stay, right? We’re so far from anywhere should something go wrong.
She doesn’t protest this time when I place the seat belt in her fumbling fingers. “Did the doctor prescribe any meds, Annalise?”
She nods. “There are a couple of prescriptions I’m supposed to fill.”
Right away, no doubt. “Why didn’t you say something?” Now we’re in the middle of nowhere.
She shrugs.
Great. “Okay, be on the lookout for a pharmacy.”
