AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hey, Kael… what the fuck, buddy? Get it together. You aren’t even sure what you’re doing with this walking liability. But then my hand reached out and did just that, wiping some of the moisture away from her skin and curving a little piece of her hair behind her ear before fitting the hood around her head again. For fuck’s sake. What, am I not in control of my body anymore?
Mattie’s lips parted slightly, and she watched me quietly. For once, she didn’t have something smart to say. Interesting. I cleared my throat. “We have like six hours left. You going to make it?”
“I’ll live.”
I snorted softly. “I’m pretty sure you’d live through the actual bubonic plague just to spite me.”
Mattie took the bag from my hand and shot me a coy look before sauntering away. “My favorite hobby is spiting you.”
I believed it, at this point. Mattie never did what I wanted or expected, like she’d been created with the sole purpose of throwing me off-kilter. I followed behind her and reminded her to take off her sweatshirt in the car before I fueled up. By the time I slid back into the driver’s seat, she was already asleep again, the package of bubblegum clutched in her hand.
The box of ibuprofen was open on her lap, too, so I had to assume she’d taken a dose. I popped a strawberry candy in my mouth and slapped my face a few times for good measure. I doubted I would get tired, but I had noticed more and more that my seventeen years of unrelenting physical exertion were taking a toll on me. There were only so many years a person could push themselves past their physical limit before they broke down entirely.
That said, it wasn’t like driving in a luxury SUV through the night would kill me, so I didn’t plan on stopping again until we needed gas. Unfortunately, Mattie either slept like shit when she was sick, or she slept like shit just in general, and she derailed that plan completely. She had two more nightmares within three hours, and they caused her whole body to wrack with tremors. I pulled over on the side of the road twice, shaking her awake and making sure she pulled herself out of it. Each time, she glared at me like I was the problem, and then slunk back into a fitful sleep.
I knew when I had nightmares, I usually woke up disturbed and wanting to take a breather—to readjust and find my reality before moving on from it. But not Mattie. She blinked a few times, gave me a perfunctory glare, and then nestled back down under her sweatshirt to find sleep again. I got the feeling that these weren’t just fever dreams, that she had them quite often, and she had learned to live with them.
As I pulled away from the shoulder for the third time that night, I shot her a suspicious frown, my fingers gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. I had my own share of night terrors—flashing knives, searing pain, heart-clenching fear followed by the patter of gunfire. I knew what that felt like, and the idea that spunky, clever Mattie had anything remotely like that in her life sent a wave of fury through me.
Another emotion I was better off not analyzing too closely.
Thanks to Mattie’s frequent nightmares and my spinning thoughts, six hours felt like double that, and I found myself scrubbing my eyes wearily as we finally traversed the desolate desert landscapes and made our way into Salt Lake City. The sun had risen over the snow-tipped mountains, and a sepia glow suffused the sparse, Sunday morning traffic. Mattie had woken up for good, and she adjusted her seat upright with her eyes glued to the city. “I haven’t been here, yet,” she said faintly.
I reached behind me, and despite navigating the busy freeway toward I-80, I managed to find the thermometer. I aimed it at her forehead, and she turned to give me a bored blink. “You seem awfully worried I’ll keel over and die.”
The idea that a person wouldn’t be worried about Mattie in this condition only added to the stack of “what the hell is going on with this chick?” cards I was carefully balancing into a tower. The thermometer filled the car with annoying, blaring beeps to let me know she was still at 103. Sighing, I tossed it aside. “Your fever isn’t breaking.”
“It’s the first twenty-four hours,” she replied, clearly unconcerned. She returned her curious gaze to the city. “The febrile phase can last anywhere from hours to days. Just depends on the person’s immune system.”
“Well, your immune system blows. You should take vitamins.”
Her lips fought against a smile. “Is coffee a vitamin?”
I scratched above my mouth. “Oh, for sure. If you’re drinking inhuman amounts of coffee every day, then forget I said anything.”
Mattie rotated an amused look my way. “Science.”
“Science,” I agreed.
I followed my GPS to the waypoint Tabitha had sent me, but when we were five minutes out, a call came through my phone. I recognized the number and darted an uncertain glance at Mattie. She caught on immediately. “It’s them, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I can ignore it.”
“No, answer,” she replied, her brows furrowed. “Ask them why they want me home. Why they really want me there. I want to hear what they say.”
Shrugging, I hit the green answer button. “Ghost.”
“Uh, h-hello,” Mr. Thorne said hesitantly. “Yes, hi. This is Augustus Thorne.”
Mattie stared at the phone with her lip curling faintly. I wished I could watch her more closely, but we were taking an exit and merging onto I-80. “Mr. Thorne,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“We were just hoping to—that is, after your confirmation that you had found Mattie, we hadn’t heard anything more,” he replied tightly. For the first time, I heard the lash of anger in his tone. “Is everything… proceeding?”
Proceeding. Already, his verbiage to ask about the whereabouts of his daughter sounded more like that of a drug deal than someone bringing his baby girl home to him. “Certainly. Your daughter is psychotic and jumped into a freezing river to avoid me. I had to fish her out, and she got herself sick, so we’ve been delayed a bit.”
Silence followed that explanation. In my opinion, it was a little too long for a concerned parent. What kind of reaction was that? Finally, Augustus asked, “But you have her?”
“I do,” I replied with irritation grating on my nerves. Do I have her? Seriously? “But she isn’t in a good condition right now, so that might delay our progress.” All true.
