“A few gallons is incredible!” I reached over and squeezed one of his gas-stained hands. “We can finally make it to Alabama on that. And we’ll find food tonight. I’ve got a good feeling.”
He softened somewhat, digging into his pocket. “Got you this. Might help with the hunger.” He offered me an opened pack of Juicy Fruit gum with three pieces left. The same brand my gran always loved.
Realization struck me. Every piece I enjoyed meant that there was one less in the world, never to be replenished. I met his gaze. “Thank you, Jackson.”
He shrugged uncomfortably, color flushing across his cheekbones. At that moment, he looked very much like an eighteen-year-old boy.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“It ain’t like we’re engaged or anything,” he muttered. “Now let’s get the hell out of here. Thought I saw a curtain flutter in a nearby house. We’re being watched.”
“There’re people?” I cried. Sometimes when we sourced for supplies, casing houses, I’d spy a door slamming shut or a figure running in the distance. Unlike Jackson, I didn’t believe that everyone was evil. But no one would show their faces. “Live people?”
He scowled at me. “Which are the worst kind.”
Still, I craned my head around.
“What’s your damned fixation with seeing others? I ain’t company enough for you?”
And again, he’s surly. “Of course you are, it’s just—”
“Before you go wishing for someone else to talk to, keep in mind that we’re about to drive near a big city—in other words, slaver territory. . . .”
Though we both hated backtracking, we were forced to retrace our route to get to the interstate. Jackson thought backtracking was a tactical error, and I had an OCD thing about it.
We traversed the same speed-bump corpses—buh-dunk buh-dunk—and passed the same spray-painted road sign. Someone had written Repent! in red. Beneath it, another person had painted in black Or WHAT?
Then, back on the interstate, quiet stretched between us. Blissful quiet. I pulled out a yellowing copy of Cosmopolitan from the glove compartment, but found my attention on Jackson instead.
He was lost in thought, holding the wheel with one hand, absently tracing the scars on his knuckles with the other.
Was he still angry that I’d hoped to see other people? Frustrated that we hadn’t scored food today?
How could he appear lost in thought and restless at the same time?
Over the last several days, I’d learned many new things about my Cajun bodyguard, but everything I’d discovered led to more questions.
I’d learned that he could go for long stretches in total silence. Whereas Brandon had been such an open book—thought to speech with no filter—Jackson kept his musings close to the vest.
What did a boy his age, an apocalypse survivor, think about over the course of the day? Why did he often trace the scars on his hands? Was he remembering old fights?
At other times, I suspected I was better off not knowing what went on in his mind.
I should just savor the quiet. The voices had been vanquished, which meant I was at peace. At least for a little while.
I rested my forehead against the window, staring out at the singed billboards advertising things we could never again buy—a trip to Hawaii, a new computer, permanent hair removal at a spa. Thank God Mel had made me go with her last year when she’d gotten herself lasered.
Pack of gum in hand, I closed my eyes. With each reprieve from the voices, I’d been able to center my thoughts, remembering more of my life before the clinic. During today’s lull, I smelled the familiar sweet scent of the gum, my mind drifting to that fateful drive with Gran. . . .
“I’ll return you to Haven well before your sixteenth birthday,” she said. “Once you’ve been prepared for your destiny.”
My destiny? Mint chocolate chip or butter pecan.
“There’s a Tarot pack in my pocketbook,” Gran said. “I want you to look at the cards. Really look at them.”
“Okay.” I rooted through her huge purse, past her gardenia lotion, but I got distracted by bubblegum—
“Evie, the deck.”
I nodded, pulling the cards out, slipping some off the top.
“The most elegant cards are the trump cards, the Major Arcana.”
“Major whatta?”
“Major Ar-kay-nah. It’s Latin for greater secrets. You and I will have our share.” She looked sad all of the sudden. “It’s the way of our line.” Shaking it off, she said, “The details of the images are important. They’re to be read like a map.”
I saw one card with a winged angel, one with an old man in a robe, one with a lion. A couple of cards had dogs on them.
I was struck by one picture of a fair-haired woman dressed in a poppy-red gown. She had a crown atop her head with twelve stars. Behind her, green and red hills rolled on and on.
Her arms were opened wide as if she wanted a hug, but her gaze looked mean.
Gran changed lanes, peering down at the card. “That’s you, Evie. You’re the Empress. One day, you’ll control all things that root or bloom. You’ll smell like them, and they’ll recognize your scent.”
I half frowned/half grinned up at her. Sometimes Gran said the strangest things. Then I shuffled through another couple of cards . . . until I saw him—a knight in black armor atop a creamy-white mount. The poor horse had bloodshot eyes. I loved horses—
“The details, Evie,” Gran said in a sterner voice, checking her rearview mirror again.
People were kneeling before the knight, crying and pleading. He raised some kind of stick over their heads, and they were scared.
“That one of Death frightens you, doesn’t it, sweetheart?” Gran asked. “Or maybe you get really angry when you look at it . . . ?”
“Evie, you awake?” Jackson asked me.
I blinked open my eyes, the memory fading. “Yeah, what’s up?” God, I could hardly wait to see Gran once more! At last all my maddening questions would be answered.
Jackson opened his mouth to speak. Closed it. Opened it. “Forget it,” he finally said.
I shrugged, gazing out the window once more. It hadn’t escaped me that Jackson was in the same situation that I was. Once we reached the Outer Banks, he’d have his puzzles solved too.
My secrets were driving him crazy. He’d continued to interrogate me about the crops and the visions. Yesterday he’d said, “If we do make it to North Carolina and we can camp somewhere for a time, what would I need to get for you? So you could make our seeds grow?”
“I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get to my grandmother’s. Until then, we need to be sourcing for silver bells and cockleshells.”
Now he asked me, “Why are you always so quiet around me? You were a chatterbox with other people.”
Chatterbox? “How can you say that? You hardly knew me.” Oh, wait. Except for the fact that he’d once possessed the source of all-things-Evie.
Brandon’s phone. How much had Jackson seen, read, heard? “In any case, I wanted to let you concentrate on driving.”
“Uh-huh. You cried out again last night, mumbled some things in your sleep. What’d you dream of? And if you answer ‘this and that’ one more time, I’m slamming on the brakes.”
“I don’t remember,” I said, even as I recollected my latest nightmare of the witch. All of them seemed to be from the same day, from nearly the same location. In this one, she’d been traveling the countryside with a besotted young admirer. He’d angered her over something. So—of course—she’d decided on murder.
“Come. Touch,” she’d murmured to him. When he’d tripped over his feet to reach her, she’d opened up her palm and a flower had grown—from her skin. With a sensual wink, she’d blown him a kiss across the bloom, releasing deadly spores.
Silence stretched between us again. Until my stomach growled.
Jackson cast me another scowl. I’d also learned that the sound of my hunger really bothered him, as if I were pestering him for food.
“We’re not eating for hours yet, princess.” He knew I hated it when he called me that. “We agreed to keep heading for Atlanta, Evie. And we knew it’d be lean.”
“I’m not complaining. I have never complained.”
“No, but that stomach of yours is. I almost wish you’d start bitching at me.” His knuckles were now white on the wheel.