Page 31 of The Girl Who Should Be Dead

The answer to that is no, but it’s not difficult to get if you can teleport through walls.

9

After the briefest of stints where Ambra teleports them into a bank vault and then back out before Gurlien can yell about surveillance cameras and police, they sit outside in a temperate area, deep in a woods that Ambra doesn’t know the name of.

Gurlien shakily counts the money, and Ambra perches herself on a gnarled tree stump, pulling her knees into her chest.

It’s not a safe spot, per se, but it is comfortably warm. The ground is dry, the dirt halfway between sand and clay, and wiry trees with spikes instead of leaves twist their way up to the brilliantly blue sky.

Once, Ambra had gotten obsessed with learning all the different types of plants in the world, but besides ‘low water, drought resistant,’ she couldn’t remember exactly what these types were.

Gurlien finishes counting, then types into his phone, sitting back. “How many times have you stolen from a bank?”

“Not many,” Ambra replies truthfully. “The body didn’t like it.”

Those words were unintentional, and she scowls at the dirt the moment they leave her mouth.

“Right,” Gurlien drawls. “The body.”

Ambra flinches, before she stands herself up as Gurlien carefully folds a few of the dollars into his pocket, then stores the rest in the backpack.

“At least this will help if we get separated,” Gurlien mutters. “I’ll just rent a car and go somewhere else.”

“Do you have coordinates for the shops?”

He’s already nodding, holding out his phone, where incredibly precise coordinates are pre-typed into a note.

“My phone tells me we’re in the mountains above Hemet in Southern California,” Gurlien says, glancing around them, as if for the first time. “You commonly come here?”

“No,” Ambra replies, still staring at the coordinates, trying to settle them in her mind. It’s less easy while within a body, much less one that aches and shivers with each wrong movement. “Three times before, as just an in between spot to think and read.”

His lips twitch with interest, but he doesn’t ask, and only a small part of her is disappointed.

“Late summer it’s beautiful,” she continues, as if she could tease out more of his interest. “There’s a lake with a pier, I sat there for a day and a half and read, and the sun hits the water enough to light up the trees around it.”

If possible, she’ll go back. Again. After all of this, take a book from her library and sit and read on the pier for a day or two. Take a soft sweater and some snacks, and lay there.

He hmms, something thoughtful and impatient, before showing her the coordinates again. “These are close and will have most of what we need.”

Before he hesitates, obvious, his eyes slating over to her. “Have you been shopping before? While in the…body?”

She flinches, then nods. “We did for all the food, before the merge.”

He hmms again, then holds out his hand.

It’s the arm with the bandages, still pristine, but she grabs his warm skin anyways and teleports to the coordinates.

And it dumps them in a parking lot behind a behemoth of a building.

The pavement is dry, blisteringly so, and wind pushes fine dust across it in small waves. It’s not much warmer, but the breeze dries up any moisture in Ambra’s skin, rendering her eyes crunchy.

The very air smells almost foul. Like smoke and burning plastic and something else Ambra can’t place.

“Bleh,” Gurlien mutters, as if the scent is just as distasteful to him, before he adjusts the backpack on his shoulder.

It’s out of place on him, rendering him more youthful than he probably appreciated.

“How old are you?” she asks, and he squeezes his eyes shut.

---