Page 22 of God of War

“Except for my bike out front,” I reply.

Ares stops short. This time I’m able to avoid a full on collision, but I can’t avoid the look on his face as he turns to look at me. Disbelief. Anger. Something else that looks an awful lot like the way a parent looks at a kid who just told them they crashed the car their first time out.

“It’s not like I knew they were coming after me,” I protest weakly. “Nobody saw me take the drugs, okay? No cameras, no witnesses.”

Ares’ jaw tics. “That you know of.”

He’s right. But I’m not going to admit that he’s right because he’s also an ass. I just shrug and motion ahead to the path. “Well, then I guess we’d better get a move on.”

Once Flores realizes I’m not at the Wastelander compound, he’ll leave. Look for me somewhere else. They don’t have proof that I have the drugs at all, Dad just probably wants to make sure.

That’s what I keep repeating in my head, anyway. My little chant as Ares and I trek through the woods. Sweat starts to run down my spine and more gathers under my boobs. I’m cooking in my thick hoodie.

“Are we there yet?”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ares sighs, before ignoring me entirely.

A few minutes later, we enter a dirt clearing. There are three cars parked in a semi-circle, all of them covered by tarps. Ares seems to pick one at random, yanks the tarp off and sends fallen leaves and twigs and dried bird crap swirling to the ground. The car is a plain looking tan sedan — a little dusty, but otherwise it looks like any normal car you’d see and forget about a second later.

“In.” He jabs a finger to the passenger side.

I puff out my cheeks. The last thing I want to do right now is be stuck in a car with Ares, going God-knows-where. I look back the way we came, the dirt track twisting through the woods. I can’t even see the compound from here, can’t hear voices or cars or the roar of motorcycles.

“Delaney!” Ares’ bark snaps me back to him. He arcs a dark blonde eyebrow. “Get. In.”

“Fine. Fuck.”

Swinging my backpack off my shoulder, I toss it into the footwell and climb in. The inside of the car is like a sauna. Ares gets behind the wheel.

“Do you have the—“

He flips down the visor and a set of car keys falls neatly into his palm. “Oh,” I say. “Guess you guys are prepared for this, huh?”

He looks at me. A quick glance, really, and then he starts the engine. It sputters at first, then roars to life.

“No,” he replies, his body tense. “Not prepared for this.”

As Ares pulls out of the clearing and turns down a wider, drivable track, I wonder if he means that he wasn’t prepared for me.

***

We’re climbing. It’s easy to figure out where we’re headed, at least at first. The forested mountain ranges are east of town and the only thing that breaches the flat fields of nothing. You can see them easily from the bottom of Main Street and the last few years there’s even been a little smattering of snow in winter, right at the peaks. Climate change making itself known.

Now, in the depths of summer, everything is green and lush and hot — so, so hot. The air streaming through my open window smells like earth and pine. The breeze cools my sweat-damp skin, at least the parts of me not hidden beneath my hoodie.

Ares doesn’t seem bothered by the heat. About fifteen minutes into our drive, he shrugged off his Wastelander cut and draped it in the backseat, so now he’s just in a white t-shirt that hugs his biceps way tighter than seems appropriate. I’m tempted to suggest he try a size up next time, but then he’d notice me noticing. And I do not want to notice Ares. Not even a little bit.

“How much longer?” I ask as we take a winding turn. Ares squints against the glare of the lowering sun and says nothing. I pull out the bottom of my hoodie and fan in air.

“Can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

Another turn. This one Ares takes a little sharper. My stomach rebels and my mouth floods with saliva. I swallow and wonder if I can risk a search of my bag. I think I had some water in there. A few mouthfuls, anyway. But then I’d have to take my eyes off the road and that will no doubt lead to me puking all over the dashboard.

“Ares?”

“Jesus Christ, can you shut up for two seconds?”

He yanks the wheel. We screech around another bend and my guts feel like they’re flipping inside out. I haven’t eaten much today — hardly anything at all — yet it feels like everything I’ve ever eaten is about to come back up in spectacular fashion.

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