32
ORLANDO
I didn’t know who Maurice was, except that he seemed cool with the entire situation and never asked any suspicious questions. We dropped him off in front of a little house outside St. Louis. Cassie got out of the car to say goodbye, giving him a long hug.
“You two make a beautiful couple,” he said, giving me a wink through the car window. “Though I’m sure you hear that a lot.”
“Actually, you’re literally the first person to say that to us.” She hugged him one more time. “Say hi to the grandkids for me.”
The door to the house opened and three little boys came running down the walkway screaming, “Paw Paw! Paw Paw is here!”
They surrounded him like jackals eager to grab chunks of flesh, and he ran his hands through their hair.
“These are actually my great grandkids,” he said, then nodded at the door. “My grandchildren are adults. Take care, dear.”
He allowed himself to be ushered toward the front door. Cassie watched him for a few moments, then turned back to the car.
“Hey, wait!” she shouted. “You forgot the knife!”
“I don’t want it,” he called over his shoulder without looking. “Too dangerous around these little guys!”
I reached into the back seat to grab the blade; the hilt was made of a dull black material, with leather wrapped around the grip. The blade itself was a wicked curve on one side, with three notches on the other that ended in points.
“It’s shaped like a dragon wing,” I muttered.
Cassie fell into the front seat and closed the door. “That’s what Sebastian had.”
The blade felt powerful in my hands—almost like it had a mind of its own. I shivered in spite of myself, tossed it in the glove compartment, and slammed it closed.
“I don’t want to look at that thing until we’ve put a few states between us and the dragon.”
Cassie squeezed my hand tight. “That sounds like a good plan to me.”
We drove south-west out of St. Louis until we saw signs for a Wal-Mart. Using the backup credit cards from my apartment we stocked up on supplies: a disposable cell phone, a cheap Chromebook laptop, toiletries for the trip. A pack of energy drinks to help with the drive. We both needed clothes; even though I’d stopped by my apartment I’d been too flustered to grab anything in my scramble to get to Cassie as quickly as possible. She made a joke about how only low-end escorts bought their wardrobe at Wal-Mart, and I joked back that maybe now I’d be able to afford her services full-time. She shot back that she rarely took on repeat customers, so I pointed out that technically I hadn’t received the full weekend with her that I’d paid for.
It was all light-hearted. The kind of dark banter you made after a traumatic event. It was comforting that way.
A quick pit-stop in the Wal-Mart coffee shop to turn on our new Chromebook and look up directions. I also took the opportunity to give Ethan my new cell phone number and to let him know we were alive. The reality of that fact crashed on me as I typed the words: we were alive. That had been in doubt today. Cassie and I could have died. It didn’t help that the TV in the coffee shop was showing footage of the many Chicago fires being put out by firemen. There was a body count, and it was a non-zero number. I forced myself to stop watching after that.
We returned to the road, fleeing south-west on I-44. The first sign said 422 miles to Oklahoma City. The sun was beginning to set, so I cracked open one of the energy drinks and guzzled half of it. Now that I was with Cassie I was hitting my second wind.
We drove for an hour before she broke the silence.
“I thought I’d lost you.”
She spoke in a whisper, more to herself than to me. She was staring out the window at the trees passing by.
Her words were almost identical to what I’d been thinking about her, so I said, “Me too.”
She turned to face me. Tears were in her eyes. “Is this really possible?”
She could have meant anything: the totem pulsing in her lap, the ability we shared, or the dragon that had nearly killed us both. But what she said was something I didn’t expect.
“To love someone this much after only a few days?”
Warmth blossomed in my chest. That was a truth I’d been struggling to accept myself: that I cared deeply for Cassie, bordering on love. I would have been afraid to say that word, love, but she didn’t have any reluctance.
She wasn’t afraid.
“It’s not crazier than everything else,” I said carefully. I could feel her gaze on me while I stared at the white lines of the interstate flashing by. “Yeah. I think it’s possible.”
I finally met her gaze, her beautiful round eyes and diamond-shaped face that was already more familiar and comforting than anything else in my life up to this point. Her full lips twitched in a hopeful smile; the relief that I felt the same way she did.
God, she was beautiful. The way she looked at me literally made me weak in the chest.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was pulling off on the side of the road.