“What’s not entirely mean when a biker gang is slaughtered?”

“This isn’t going how I thought it would. Telling you all this.”

“Just ignore me,” he says. “Just keep going. I’m sorry. Keep going. So the bikers?”

“Dylan got the rest.”

“Who’s Dylan?”

“The psychiatrist. My psychiatrist. Or so I thought.”

“A psychiatrist who kills biker gangs.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And the stalker guy? What happened to him?”

“Dylan killed him.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that Dylan isn’t just a psychiatrist.”

“No. He isn’t. He’s a scientist with some sort of military background. When he just called me to find out why I wasn’t out in the world using the other pills he gave me, he described the heat signature of every living thing in this field. Including you.”

“I see.”

“He also identified you by name.”

“Probably from my license plate,” he says calmly.

“I figured that part of the story would freak you out more than all the others, but instead it’s knowing I might be able to trounce you that’s got you sweating.”

“I’m not sweating. Am I sweating?” He angles the rearview mirror to look at himself. “Yeah. OK. Well, male privilege being called into question. Whatever. I went to college. I get it.”

“I’m not sure it’s your license plate that did it. He says he’s working with a company that made twenty-five billion dollars last year, and they hire the best private security firms in the world. I wouldn’t put it past them to have some kind of facial-recognition software.”

He grunts, nods, and looks at the empty road. But she’s more taken with what he doesn’t do. He doesn’t jump from the car and run for the nearest cover. He doesn’t even look to the sky for the tiny blip of a drone that might have been circling overhead this whole time. Instead he’s processing. Absorbing all she’s told him.

He’s into this, she realizes.

Maybe because he doesn’t know the half of it. Wait until he watches the footage. Right now he’s probably imagining her doling out superpowered high kicks and crippling uppercuts, not bending metal with her bare hands.

“Twenty-five billion dollars a year,” he finally says. “What kind of company makes twenty-five billion dollars a year?”

“I feel like this is a rhetorical question.”

“I can think of two kinds off the bat. Defense contractors and pharmaceutical companies. One’s good at surveillance; the other makes antianxiety drugs.”

“I didn’t realize drug companies made that much money,” she says.

“It’s one of the most profitable businesses in the world.”

“Is there one that does both?”

“Not that I know of. Not that anyone knows about. But nobody knew about this drug, right?”

And the fact that you could see that right off the bat is part of why I need your help right now. But she doesn’t say it. Because he’s smiling.

Why is he smiling?

“Why are you smiling?” she asks.

“Because my brother is going to have so much fun fucking with these people.”

“Wait. What? No!”

“Well, that’s what you’re gonna ask him to do, right?”

“No. I . . . I was going to ask him to get background on Dylan so that I had some idea of who he was and why he was doing it. But I don’t need it now because I know what I’m up against, and it’s fucking terrifying.”

“You didn’t even know their names.”

“I know they can see us from space. That’s enough to know I shouldn’t send your brother after them.”

“I think you’re underestimating my brother.”

“We’re not talking about the dean of a corrupt community college.”

“I know. That’s why I think Bailey’s gonna be pumped.”

“Luke, you are being completely insane right now.”

“You just brought me a story about a drug that gives you enough strength to pound biker gangs into the pavement. Maybe slow your roll when it comes to handing out the crazy label. Just sayin’.”

“OK. I guess that’s fair. But, seriously, I can’t—”

“Look, I still want to help. What do you want to do, Charley?”

When she doesn’t answer, he says nothing for several minutes, allows her to gaze out at the empty field, the lone oak, the mountains that should be beautiful and awe inspiring. Instead they feel like looming barricades between her and any bright future.

“Whatever you want to do,” he says, “I’ll help. I’ll make Bailey help, if I can.”

“You could lose your job.”

“Boo-hoo,” he says.

He allows her another long silence.

The sight of the dashboard clock puts her back inside her body: 2:20 p.m.

“I guess I could try to disappear. But he says there’s no outrunning them.”

“Bailey could give you some pointers on that, I’m sure.”

“Maybe,” she says, “but I don’t want to. This is my name. The name I picked for myself. I don’t want to give it up.”

“I understand.”

Another silence.

“You thirsty?” he asks.

She’s so startled by his question, she locks eyes with him.

“I keep an ice chest in the back with some bottled water. You want one?”

Why is she blinking back tears all of a sudden? How is it that this simple offer has exposed the chink in her armor? Is she really about to break down over a bottle of water?

It’s not that, she realizes.

It’s what he’s not doing. He’s not turning the car around. He’s not ordering her off onto the side of the road. He’s not recoiling from her history, from her terrible burdens, from the darkness that’s dogged her every step. Instead he’s settling in, making plans with her, starting with a bottle of water.

“Hey.” His whisper makes the brusque little word sound gentle, soothing.

She holds up one hand and turns her face to the window again so she can deep-breathe the threat of tears away.

“Hey,” he whispers again. His hand comes to rest on the gearshift. Not touching her, but maybe getting ready to the minute she gives him the OK.

Once she’s steadied her breath, she reaches over and pats his hand gently. “Hey,” she whispers back.

He nods, watching her closely, and for a second there’s the tension of wondering whether he’ll grip her shoulder or her knee, or try to comfort her in some other physical way that might spin quickly out of control given the emotions already roiling inside her. And this tension, however unpleasant, is a delicious contrast to everything she was feeling just moments before.

“So, um, no on the water?” he asks with a smile.

“I really appreciate the offer,” she whispers.

“It still stands whenever you’re ready. Or thirsty.”

“Luke?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“When you walked out of that meeting with . . . What was his name? The agent who tried to—”

“Rohm. Agent Rohm.”

“What did you do when you walked out of that meeting? I mean, you must have felt like your life was over, right? The life you’d planned anyway . . . How did you keep from . . . I don’t know . . . giving up?”

“I made the choice in the middle,” he says.

“The choice in the middle? Is that like a Buddhist thing?”

“Maybe. I wouldn’t know. What I know is moments like that suck because you feel like there are only two choices, and they’re both horrible. On the right, you go after the person who’s kicked your teeth out until you’ve destroyed your life trying to destroy them. And on the left, you give up completely. Find some cheap-ass apartment and some bullshit punch-the-clock job, and drink your feelings away in your spare time. Or smoke weed, if that’s your thing.”

“Is it your thing?”

“No. Hate the smell.”

“So Altamira Sheriff’s. That was the choice in the middle?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not complete surrender. But it’s not exactly revenge, either.”

She nods. She likes his logic, and she likes the phrase.

The choice in the middle . . .

When the idea comes to her, she flushes from head to toe, and for a second or two, she wonders if the drug has kicked into gear, if the accumulation of stress has triggered it in some new, residual way. But when she grips the door handle next to her, it doesn’t crack or bend or warp. This really is just adrenaline. The adrenaline rush of someone who’s just seen a narrow band of light resolve at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

“Drive,” she says.

“Where to?”

“The library. Like we planned.”

Luke starts the Jeep.

She stares at the road ahead. Just a glance into Luke’s eyes might turn her sudden burst of confidence to dust. It’s crazy, this idea. It’s absolutely crazy, but it’s got something else wrapped through it, something that felt entirely elusive just seconds before. Hope. Not for complete freedom, but for some version of it. Hope that she might be able to disrupt Dylan’s plan to send her out into the world as his guinea pig, if not spin it to her advantage. To someone’s advantage.

She’s not sure how much time has passed when Luke says, “Are you gonna tell me what—”

“No. Not till we get there. I may have reconsidered by then anyway.”

“OK.”