Page 57 of Ride Hard
Sloane
It wasthe second day after the confrontation at the gasstation.
The cedar trees had faded away hours ago, and now we were passing brown-ish grasslands devoid of life, as we knew it. The Oklahomaprairie.
Mountains and trees gave way to an open swath of grass, which dried out into dust bowls littered with scrappy bushes and boulders the size of elephants. It could only mean one thing. The desert was looming, which meant we were halfwaythere.
We were on a highway to hell,literally, and it wasn’t at all like thesong.
I hadn’t spoken to Chaser since we left the motel. There was nothing to say that had any hope attached to it, so why bother? My spirit was shriveling up and dying the closer we got to Fortitude…and so was my hope he would change his mind and ditch the tricycle tyrants for me and my magicalpussy.
I dozed, the heat inside the car sending me off into a restlesssleep.
It was midmorning when I realized we’d left the main road and were speeding down a dirt track. We went over a bump, and I knocked my head against the window. Rubbing my temple, Iscowled.
Chaser turned off the engine and nodded toward thelake.
“What are you doing?” I asked, images of being murdered and thrown into the water flashing through mymind.
“Get out of the car,Sloane.”
“Why?”
“You’ve been sulking allmorning.”
“Have not.” I totally had, but I wasn’t going to admit it tohim.
“Get out of thecar.”
I rolled my eyes and unclipped my seat belt.Always with the bitingcommands.
Opening the door, I was slapped in the face with a wall of heat, and I felt sweat pooling in my pores, ready to erupt and soak me through. I’d grown soft living on the East Coast. Squishy like melting ice cream sitting in direct sunlight. Summer had been an almost year-round experience growing up in LA, so when I escaped and went west, I came to know all the many virtues of the humble wintercoat.
Standing, I slammed the car door closed behind me and walked over to the side of the dirt road. The sky stretched on and on, blue like the color of my mood. Stepping up onto a boulder, I looked down at what I’d thought was a valley andsighed.
A lake stretched out before me, bordered by rocks, orange-tinged dirt, and scrappy bushes that looked half-dead. The water was pretty enough with its turquoise hue and promise of washing off the sweat already running down myspine.
“It’s not very appealing,” I said, shielding my eyes from thesun.
“We’re at the border,” Chaser said, standing beside me. “Green that way. Desert and shit thatway.”
“What are we doinghere?”
“We need abreak.”
I raised my eyebrows and snorted. “Aren’t you afraid of our murderous friends catching us out in theopen?”
“I’m not afraid,” he said, not even twitching. “They’ll anticipate our route but can’t know we’ve stoppedhere.”
“Not unless they stuck a GPS tracker on the car,” Idrawled.
Chaser gave me a look, and my mouth fellopen.
“They can’t do that, canthey?”
“We’d know if they had,” hereplied.
“This story just keeps getting better andbetter.”
