Half of me wanted to tell him to slow down. The other half wanted him to speed up, to go so damn fast that the car actually took flight and we could soar over the highway.

All of me was too distracted trying to calm my insane cat to say anything. Purrloin scratched and screamed like she was still in imminent danger. Which, for all I knew, she still was.

How long had we been driving? At least twenty minutes, judging by the time on the dashboard. Long enough to have hit the interstate and leave Sorghum Bend behind. I kept a weather eye on the cars at our back – but at this point, none of them seemed to be following us. Rev was still driving like they were hot on our tails, and I guess I trusted him to know better than me. This was, after all, his job...

“Okay,” he finally said, and with this word I noticed the needle on the speedometer drift left for the first time since we took to the road. “Okay. I think…I think we’re alright.”

I sighed, releasing a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. The news didn’t make any difference to Purrloin, though, and she was still shouting and meowling and trying to get a paw free so she could drive another claw into my arm. She never cared much for car rides to begin with, and this one was no exception.

“Jesus, Rev,” I said as she finally began to calm down, perhaps picking up on my own easing tension. “Jesus…”

“Fuck,” he growled. We were having two different conversations. I looked at him from the corner of my eye and tried to figure out what to say to him. Hallmark sure didn’t make a card that said thanks for running into an active crime scene to save my cat.

“You alright?” he asked, turning his attention to Purrloin and I. I nodded.

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he grunted. Shit. So he wasn’t alright. But he was too damn macho to come out and tell me. He was gonna make me ask.

“Did you get shot?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, shit,” I said. “Pull over. Where? Where’s the wound? I’ve got a first aid kit…”

“No fucking way,” he said. “Not until we’ve got a good thirty miles between us and those fucks. You know, they tried to shoot her. Big fuckin’ men, shooting at a damn cat…”

“Well…you stopped them,” I said. “Thank you, Rev. Thanks for…”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said. He glanced at me, face unreadable. “Right? Don’t thank me, Misty. I told you to trust me. Thank me by starting to trust me for real.”

My breath caught in my throat, my words dying on my lips. Alright. Alright. He’d earned it, now. My trust. He’d run into a house that might as well have been on fire, during a tornado, on the edge of a cliff, to save my cat. He wouldn’t take my gratitude. He just wanted my trust. The least I could do was give it to him.

“Right,” I said softly. “Rev…please. Pull over. Let me see where they shot you. You could pass out at the wheel, and what good would that do any of us?”

I scanned him for any signs of the wound, but it was too dark to see where blood might be staining his clothes. And he didn’t seem to be favoring any part of his body. I only saw him clearly in the fluid and infrequent splashes of light thrown across the front seat by other cars. Each of those momentary glimpses revealed less than the one before it. He was stone-faced and sturdy.

“Thirty minutes,” he said. “I just want another half hour…”

“There’s no way to convince you, is there?”

“Not really,” he said, and now he offered me a thin smile. “Misty, it feels good to be behind the wheel again. Good enough to keep me going. Give me thirty minutes.”

I wasn’t going to rip the steering wheel from his hands, and I didn’t have much leverage. I leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes and listening to the hum of the tires matching my own thrumming heart. Purrloin finally calmed to a manageable state. I had an extra carrier cage in the backseat, a helpful thing to have around if I ever spotted a stray. But for now, I wanted her warm and alive in my arms.

“Where are we going, Rev?” I asked. For all I knew, we were driving to Mexico. Wouldn’t that be nice. All the nachos and tequila I could possibly want in a place far from anyone who wanted to do me harm. I bet Rev looked great with a tan, in board shorts. The two of us living on the beach or something…

Um. What? I opened my eyes fast to dispel the dangerously seductive image my mind had cooked up. Stress was not my friend. I’d been acting and feeling weird ever since this whole mess started. It was making me seek shelter in a man. I was confusing adrenaline and affection. My body was confused, and my mind was just going along for the ride.

“…mountains. No one knows about it. We’ll be safe there,” he was saying. I missed the first part. He glanced at me and seemed to see how quickly my mind was working, trying to figure it out. “A safe house, Misty. My old man’s place.”

“Right,” I said. Sure; my dad had one of those, too. But it was gone now, sold off when the cops found him there and it wasn’t a safe house anymore. All successful criminals have something like it. I guess I was lucky that Rev was going to let me into his.

The next thirty minutes rolled by without saying a word. We all needed the silence, even Purrloin. I turned to Rev when we passed a sign advertising a rest stop, but he was already signaling to move into the right lane, then pulling across to the exit ramp.

We sat in the mostly-empty parking lot, under a radiating halo of cold off-white light. The truck stop had a McDonalds, a Starbucks, and a Sheetz, but we parked far from any of them. I thought we could use some food, but not before I finally got a look at the wound Rev was hiding from me.

He blinked in my direction, then shoved his arm forward, towards me. The whole thing shook. His shirt was soaked in pink, the whole sleeve and down the side of his ribs. The wound carved into the muscle of his bicep. It was ugly and I knew it would scar, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the blood made it seem. The bullet had grazed him, cutting a deep line. I sighed in mixed relief and frustration. I could see how pale he was. He’d lost plenty of blood and it must hurt like hell. He had to be feeling weak. Why didn’t he just let me sew him up a half hour ago?

I took his shaking arm in my hands, marveling at its weight. Supporting it in my hands, I watched him wince as he let the muscles go slack. Blood trickled down into the spaces between my fingers.

“Not so bad,” I said, pulling the sleeve of his shirt up, careful not to touch the raw flesh. His tattoos were hidden now. The bullet had scraped right through one of them, a pin-up chick straddling a rocket. Her face was blown clear off. Better hers than his. Or mine. “Wait here.”

It wasn’t like he planned to go anywhere, but I found myself watching him as I went to the trunk and dug around for the first-aid kit I knew was stored back there. It was military-grade. A sensible option for men like my father. I kept it all these years out of respect more than anything. It was as much a part of this car as the driver’s seat. To my frustration, I watched the driver’s side door open, Rev hauling himself out of the car, his arm dangling now as he started to favor it and really feel the sting of his wound.

“Rev, get back in the car,” I said, slamming the trunk.

“It’s nice out,” he replied as though I hadn’t spoken at all, and eased himself onto the Bel Aire’s hood, waiting for me. I glanced at the fresh holes burned into the car’s blue exterior on my way over to him. I was surprised at how much I didn’t fucking care.

For a stubborn, stupid, macho man, Rev was right. It was nice out. A lovely night to sew up someone’s bicep. In the unforgiving lamplight, the circles under his eyes and the pallor of his skin looked even worse, and I bit my lip while scrubbing my hands with sanitizer.

“You don’t look good,” I mumbled. “Maybe I should drive…”

“I’ll be fine,” he said, watching me pull out the sewing kit and a thick curved needle. “I’ve driven through worse.”

I believed him. He didn’t hiss or shake when I doused the wound in alcohol and rubbed the surrounding skin clear of blood. I paused with the needle against his skin. He was staring at the needle’s point. I was staring at him.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

I didn’t know. I hadn’t planned to apologize. For getting him into this mess? For what had happened the night before? For the fact that I needed to stitch him up? For the pain he was feeling, and about to feel?

He looked at me for a long, full moment. The air between us felt humid and heavy. I held his bicep in my free hand, my fingers still and certain around the thin metal needle. He was warm despite the blood loss. He smelled like gunpowder and sweat and the bite of aftershave. The lamplight glanced off the Bel Aire’s hood, defining the hard edges of his face.

My heart pounded dully behind my ribs. I was touching him again, and it was like touching something forbidden, something forgotten for a long time and then found. It was like touching myself for the first time. Being fifteen and finding those places on my body that wouldn’t be ignored.

“Just…sorry,” I said.

He licked his lips, and my own fell apart, my tongue mimicking his. Weak as he was from blood loss and pain, he didn’t hesitate. He leaned in and covered me with his mouth, his uninjured arm winding around my waist and tugging me in towards him. I let him kiss me, let his tongue probe into my mouth. But when I squeezed his bicep, I felt a fresh trickle of blood and pulled myself away.

“You gonna sew me up, Misty-Lee?” he asked, white teeth now glinting between his smirking lips. My own mouth went dry. “Or am I gonna bend you over this hood? ‘Cause one of those two things has to happen. I’m enough of a gentleman to let you choose.”

Okay. O-kay. That had me swerving right back into reality. Asshole. The needle was still poised against his wound, and now I dug it into his skin, making the first stitch. His muscle twitched but he didn’t make a sound. Just watched me. His eyes on the side of my face. On my neck. Watching me wind the thread through his skin, pulling his flesh against itself, closing him up. Making his body whole again. I barely noticed that he still had his fingers on my waist until I was half-way done with the job, and then I shook them free with a twist.

“You’re good at this,” he said, soft surprise in his voice.

“It’s not too different then sewing up a cat or a dog,” I said, then glanced at him. “In fact, in your case, I’d say it’s exactly like sewing up a dog.”

He grinned and held his free hand over his heart.

“You gonna sew up my feelings when you’re through with my arm? Because those cuts are just as deep…”

“Ha, ha,” I intoned, and yanked the thread a little harder than I had to. Two more stitches and he was all closed up. It wasn’t the best job I’d ever done, but it would hold. It would scar, but he had worse scars to show for his twenty-eight years of running roughshod over the earth. I cut the thread and tied it off, liberally dousing the wound in alcohol again, and wrapped it all up under gauze. He was looking a little better already. He flexed his arm a few times, making a fist and watching his muscles respond.

“Nice,” he said. “Good as new.”

“Something like that,” I said. I looked away, putting the first aid kit back together. “Rev, don’t kiss me again. Last night was a mistake. I don’t want…I don’t want that for us. For me. Whatever. Just don’t do it.”

There, I said it. Came right out with it. His jaw set tight as I blinked up at him and waited for his reaction.

“Alright,” he said.

That was all.

“Alright?” I echoed.

“Alright,” he shrugged. “No more kissing.”

He licked his lips, shoved off until he was on his feet again, towering over me. Throwing all that hard, rushing heat of his body against my skin. Reminding me of what it felt like when he touched me.

“No kissing,” he said. “I guess that means no licking, either. Or sucking. Or nibbling. Or biting. Or holding, squeezing…”

Each word hammered against my ears, made my blood rush a little further. Each word was like a thrust against my meager barricade of willpower.

“…no thrusting. No pumping. No pushing, or pulling, or stretching. Right, Misty?”

I didn’t respond, my mouth too dry to speak, my eyes trapped in his, so dark they rivaled the sky beyond his head.

“No fucking,” he finally said, leaning in close enough that I could almost taste the salt of his skin on my lips. “That what you want, Misty?”

He took a step forward, I took a step back. My ass hit the door, cold metal on the backs of my knees. Instinctively, I spread my hands out at my sides. He pushed himself forward, found my hands and lifted them over my head, grinding his hips against mine. Everything was exploding inside me, protesting and pleading, my flesh on fire and my heart shuddering in its cage.

“Alright, Misty,” he whispered into my ear. “I can keep my lips off you. Just as long as you promise to do the same. Don’t you come looking for me in the middle of the night, Misty-Lee. Not unless you want me to break you in half. ‘Cause I can, girl. And I want to. And if you let me, I will.”

And then, just like that, he was gone. Stepping back. Releasing me. Not even looking at me. Acting like he didn’t know about the throb he’d planted between my legs. Acting like he couldn’t see the way my chest heaved. Acting like he hadn’t just taken me halfway to climax against my father’s car, using nothing but his words and his hips.

“We should get some food,” he said, pointing towards the gas station. “And then get our asses back on the road. I don’t feel good standing still right now.”

He stepped to the door and opened it; I was still pressed tightly to the metal, and had to shimmy forward to let him into the driver’s seat. I walked away with numb legs, settling into the seat beside him.

“How you doing, Purrloin?” he asked idly as the cat hopped up into my lap and he eased the car across the parking lot. “You like honeybuns? Get me some honeybuns. And, you know, snacks or whatever. We got enough gas…yeah, plenty of gas. Just load up on junk food…”

I did as he said, filling my arms with junk food (and a little something for Purrloin, too) and paying in cash. And then we were back on the road. His stitches held with no blood leaking through. We didn’t talk about what I’d said, what he’d said. We didn’t talk about anything. Just listened to the radio playing Townes Van Zandt and watched the mountains get closer and closer.

When he finally pulled off the highway, I was halfway sleeping. My head pressed against the window. I wondered how he was doing, but if anything, Rev seemed amped up. Another winding country road and we made a notable turn. We traded asphalt for dirt, pocked with bumps and dips and gulleys. Rev drove it like he knew it by heart. Even in the dark, I guess he did.

We passed barely any signs of human life for a good ten minutes. And then the headlights caught on a big, hulking mess of a house. Grinding closer over the dry dust, I could make out the two-story monster tucked behind the trees.

“Shit,” Rev hissed, and the car stopped suddenly. My blood chilled. We looked at the same thing. The bike. Not covered in dust or ivy or dirt or weeds. The bike was fresh and shiny. There was a light on in the house.

Someone was here. Someone was here.

Panic landed like a flock of birds in my chest. How? How did they know? How did they find it? How could they have known, even before I did? We had to go – we couldn’t stay here – they must have heard us pull up…

I grabbed Rev’s hand and waiting for the sound of gunshots, wondering why he wasn’t turning the damn car around and racing back down the road. He looked at me.

“It’s not what you think,” he said. He didn’t shake my hand off, but he was clearly agitated.

“What? What the hell, Rev? Who’s in there? We gotta go, we have to go…”

“No,” he said, and turned the engine off. I could have screamed. I could have ripped his eyes right out of his head. What the fuck was he doing?

“Rev! Shit on a fucking stick! Let’s…”

“It’s not what you think,” he said again, and his voice was heavy with disgust. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“Then what the fuck is it,” I hissed, one hand on the doorknob, ready to run away if Rev wasn’t going to drive away.

“It’s my brother,” he said.

.