Page 15 of Exit Strategy

“Fluent in that?” I asked.

“I kinda know what some of those words mean, but I don’t really know what they are,” she said.

“Look, go take a bloody shower. I’ll leave you some clean clothes on the bed. While I’m out, I’ll find us some food, and see if I can find you some clean clothes more suited to you. If you want to run away while I’m gone, the phone is right there but I’m not sure if the line works. Like I said earlier, if you want me to take you somewhere, you say the place, and I’ll take you.”

“Except back to the mansion,” she said.

“I can’t go back, I choked Arik Rex unconscious in the middle of a shattered table. If I poke my head back up in Hollywood, I’m pretty sure the police will have me in cuffs faster than you can blink,” I said. “I would rather take my chances on the run.”

She nodded.

“While I’m gone, maybe don’t take a nap. You took a hard enough hit to knock you out, and while your pupil response looks okay, and you don’t seem to be exhibiting any signs of brain trauma, I don’t trust it. I will see about finding you an anti-inflammatory for the pain and potential swelling.”

Her expression reminded me of some Afghan children I remembered. The other side of the Yank’s shock-and-awe campaign. Their homes had been hit by bombs bigger than anything this side of a plutonium-fueled weapon, and they had that same glazed expression, that same contained trauma. Most of them had been okay, and I thought that Callie would be too. There were some who weren’t okay, and that would take time to sort out.

I left her alone, somewhat reluctantly, to go get the things we needed. She probably didn’t need to be left alone, but there was no way I could drag her out into whatever this nameless stain on the side of the road was. No matter how jaded and numb people in Los Angeles were, people outside of the city would look twice at a woman covered in blood and bruises and the questions would begin, blame would be assigned. I sighed and found the thrift store closed – maybe tomorrow, maybe somewhere else down the road. I did manage to grab some food from a burger joint with a cracked yellow sign, and a bag of medical supplies from the gas station. The clerk seemed as bombproof as the horses on one of Rex’s action movie sets.

I would have killed to find a dive bar, maybe grab a beer or two, and to be able to sit and watch a television news broadcast. I didn’t know how hot the authorities were on us, and that was a concern. It would dictate what direction I needed to take. It was probably more important that I talk to Callie though. We had to have a plan, an understanding. Fuck, if it turned into something like abduction or kidnapping, crossing state lines, it would make assaulting Arik Rex look like flirting with prison.

The restaurant didn’t offer much, so I took a paper bag of hamburgers and fries back to the room.

Calanthe was sitting on the foot of the bed when I came in. She immediately flinched away as I opened the door, but relaxed when she saw it was just me. “Hey.” She gave me a lump of a smile. “I was wondering if you were coming back.”

“I didn’t think I was gone that long,” I said.

“It wasn’t that long, no. I was just worried that this wasn’t real.” I sat the paper bag down on the aged table, opened it, and handed her one of the burgers, and a paper cup of fries. “I was worried that eventually I was going to wake up with my face mashed into the carpet, and everything tasting like blood.”

“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “It took me way too long to figure out what was going on.”

“No worries,” she said. “Arik was very good at being discrete, probably better at hiding his temper than his infidelity.”

“You know about that?” I asked.

“I have known. I’m a lot of things, but neither dumb nor blind.” She gave me a half-smile.

“I take it you are feeling more yourself?” I asked.

“I am, and I have a single question.”

“Shoot.”

“Why Indigo City?”

“I have a cabin there,” I answered.

“You said that already.” She looked at me. Her eyes were sharp now.

“I bought a cabin there, awhile back. My last job paid really well, and I wasn’t overly fond of living in the city itself.”

“What happened to that job?”

“Well, I found out I was working for bad people, and had to resign.”

“Worse than Arik?”

“Yeah, you could say that. They were into heroin trafficking, gun smuggling, international terrorism, all that. The people in charge had a change in management, and then things got interesting. A lot of people ended up getting shot. Hard to keep a job when your employers have been filled with bullets.”

“That’s frightening,” she said.

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