Lars rented an SUV from the rental company in Silver City. They could probably have done with a sedan, but he seemed eager for space after the cramped hour-long cab ride. Or maybe it had just been the silence; no one had spoken the entire time during that trip down to Silver City. He and Lars flipped a coin, and Finn lost. He climbed into the driver’s seat, watching Cora and Lars in the rearview mirror as they slid into the back.

They stopped off for food at a greasy roadside drive-through.

Lars and Cora spent the next thirty minutes of the trip comparing notes about their meals. Cora exchanged a bite of her burger for some of Lars’s onion rings, and he gave her all his lettuce and tomatoes for gratis. Then Finn had to listen to a fifteen-minute argument about the perfect burger.

He turned up the radio loud enough that Lars complained, and then turned it up a little more.

As much as he wanted to slam his foot on the accelerator and speed off to Texas as fast as the SUV could manage, he stuck to within a mile of the speed limit all the way down the 180. Getting pulled over for speeding wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to them, but it ranked at least in the top five.

Soon, he managed to lose himself to the drive. Mind empty. Beast silent. It was almost peaceful, if he didn’t think too hard about where he was headed. If he could, for one moment, stop cataloging every car within sight of them, making a mental note of the color, model, and license plate. Because ever since they’d left the rental company in Silver City, he’d had the feel of eyes on him.

And he was long past the point of blaming his imagination. He knew he had some intuitive sense about these things; and the last time he’d ignored it, Syrians had captured him and used him to alleviate their boredom.

“We should switch cars,” Finn said, looking at the rearview mirror.

“Shh,” Lars whispered.

Finn’s eyes flickered over the mirror. Cora had her head on Lars’s shoulder, fast asleep. When his eyes met Lars in the mirror, the man gave him a humorless smile.

“Next chance you get, we’ll switch,” Lars murmured. “Leave the car in a parking lot somewhere close to the rental office.”

“Won’t that raise flags?”

“I told them we need it until Friday,” Lars said dryly. “So unless we’re driving around until then, no.”

Cora stirred, her eyelids fluttering. Lars took her shoulders and guided her gently to the other side of the car, slipping off his parka and wadding it into a makeshift pillow for her. She murmured something unintelligible before shoving her hand under her head and letting out a heavy sigh.

Lars moved to the middle of the back seat, wrapping his arms around both headrests. “Why’s some rival cartel got such a hard on for this chick?” he asked quietly.

“Leverage,” Finn said.

“But they’ve got the father, don’t they?”

“Could be another cartel that has him.”

“You suddenly start believing in coincidence, Milo?” Lars shook his head. “Nah. Worst case scenario, the same people that have Swan are the ones coming after Bunny. And only reason I can think that is, is because Swan didn’t prove as useful as they’d thought.”

“You think he’s dead?”

“50/50,” Lars said, dropping his voice to barely more than a whisper. He tapped Finn’s shoulder. “What if she knows something? I mean, if there’s been a rat at her place, they could have killed her the same night daddy dearest left for Mexico.”

Finn’s mind flashed back to Cora’s hushed retelling of the day her father arrived home unexpectedly with two bullet wounds. “Think she’s involved in cartel business?”

Lars shrugged. “She’s a cartel princess. Daddy could have given her the combination to a safe filled with dirty drug money. The GPS co-ords to an island where they keep all their coke.”

“Then we’ll just have to make sure they don’t get hold of her.”

“No…” Lars said, trailing off with meaning. “All we gotta do is get her to Texas.”

Finn was silent for a few seconds, feigning intense interest in an upcoming intersection. “That’s what I meant.”

Lars made a noise that sounded like disagreement, but didn’t speak again until they came to Las Cruces. They turned into Mesilla Valley mall, woke Cora, and went inside so she could use the restroom. Weighed down with water and soda for the next leg of the trip, they ditched their SUV in the parking lot and went to the rental office to hire a new one, this one a sedan.

Finn drove shotgun, and Cora sprawled in the back seat, legs up and staring out the opposite window. Every now and then, he’d feel her eyes on him, but he never turned to meet her gaze. But as the drive went on, and the day turned from late afternoon to the suggestion of twilight, his anger faded. Melancholy replaced it, and then that too familiar swarming anticipation that usually came before his beast became restless. Before it demanded violence or—lately—a virginal sacrifice to appease it.

He spent the rest of the car ride to Texas hoping that someone from the cartel would catch up with them so he could rid himself of that itch.