Page 48 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
Blaze just grunted.
"We'll go as soon as Shudder has his skimmer ready. He'll follow us." Damien stepped out of Blaze's arms to stow the jar of jalapeño jelly in the back that Shudder had given him. In a rare moment of fey humor, he asked, "Did you like the underwear choice this morning?"
"Oh, hell yes. The blue velvet's one of my favorites." A bit of heat sparked in Blaze's eyes. Then he tilted his head to the side. "You know, I think you're having way too much fun dressing me. I do believe you're a pervert, Mr. Hazelwood."
Damien laughed, and the air felt breathable again.
7
THE FREDAMINE DATA PROJECT
It was early afternoon before Damien was sure of his trail again. They'd had to backtrack farther than he had originally guessed, and exhaustion shadowed his eyes when he finally sat up straight in his seat and pointed north.
"That way."
"Tara?"
"Yes."
Blaze powered up the maglev and veered off-road without warning. Behind them, Shudder never missed a beat, his one-man hover skimmer executing the sharp turn flawlessly.For a kid who was afraid to learn to drive, he's turned into a damn good pilot.
"You're sure?"
"It's either there or it's not."
"Got it. You all right still?"
"Yes."
"Would you say if you weren't?"
Damien actually appeared to consider this, the corners of his mouth drawing down. "Depends."
Blaze got that, too. When Damien started getting terrible readings from a trail, as he had with the dead kids, he most likely couldn't stop. This trail wasn't making him frantic, though, or giving him a vicious headache, so Blaze let it go.
They corrected course several times that afternoon, heading into the deserted areas of Idaho. Boise still had a respectable population. East of that, only the burned-out and abandoned shells of cities and smaller towns dotted the landscape, eerie reminders of terrible violence that had gripped this part of the continent.
The sun had just come to rest atop a long ridge of mountains when Damien finally spoke up. "Blaze."
"Enough for today?"
Damien nodded, hollow eyed and subdued.
Probably more than he should be doing. He knew Damien was desperate to unravel this mess, though, so he kept his snarky comments to himself. Instead, he searched for reasonable cover for the night. Shudder accelerated to hover beside his door, pointing to the left. In the evening gloom, Blaze could barely make out a stand of trees in front of a slight rise in the landscape. Shudder's years on the run had given him practice at this kind of thing, after all.
Blaze let the Raptor settle to the ground behind the hill while Shudder landed his skimmer a few yards away to give them both room to maneuver if for any reason a hasty departure became necessary. Damien immediately folded his seat flat and crawled into the back to do his evening rummaging. Since it always resulted in the digging out of dinner as well, Blaze refrained from commenting and slid out of the vehicle to do a quick scout of the immediate area.
When he strode back around the hill, certain they were alone and safe, Shudder blocked his path to the Raptor.
"You push him too hard."
"The fuck are you talking about?"
Shudder poked a finger at the center of Blaze's chest. "He's exhausted. He's crawling around the back of that damn car muttering to himself."
"That's normal. He needs to do that."
"He's got rings around his eyes bigger than Saturn's!"
