Page 119 of Fate, Interrupted

Then I go to the kitchen and switch off the light, and I don’t look back.

Silas holds the door open, and I walk through.

Outside, the street has gone properly dark while we talked, the houses along the block lit by porch lamps and the soft glow of windows behind curtains. The air is soft, the smell of tar pungent in the still air. He takes the rolling suitcase and the tote and puts them in the backseat of the truck. We get in and the engine starts with a low rumble that finds its rhythm.

There’s no great finality here. No fanfare. We might as well be going out to dinner. Instead, we’re about to leave the place where we have friends and family. Where we’ve built lives. For a moment neither of us speaks.

“So,” I say.

“So,” he says.

“Three hundred miles.”

“Give or take twenty.”

I look at him. “That means we’re going to have to switch off so you get a rest. It looks like I’m finally going to get to drive your precious truck.”

“Possibly,” he says.

I laugh and lean back in the seat. Silas eases the truck away from the curb, and the street slides past. The lamp-lit block gives way to the next block and the next, until we’re on the freeway heading north, out of Larkin.

As we turn the corner and the familiar streetscape falls behind us, my chest releases.

Not doubt and not exactly fear.

It’s different from either of those. This is the certainty of a decision and the feeling of a wish coming true.

The landscape opens ahead of us, and Larkin’s lights are behind us. The road goes on into the dark, and I let myself feel the reckless lightness of packing one bag and heading somewhere I’ve never been with someone I’ve only known for weeks. It is either the bravest thing I’ve ever done or the most characteristic.

Probably both.

Those two things have always overlapped.

Chapter thirty-three

Norah

By the time we leave town, I keep waiting for the panic to hit.

Like I expect bad weather when the barometric pressure drops—that creeping tightness in my chest. I wait for the voice to ask me what on earth I thought I was doing. I’m braced for it, but it doesn’t come.

The farther we drive, the lighter I feel. It’s either a sign I’ve made exactly the right call, or the part of my brain responsible for appropriate caution has taken the evening off. Regardless, I’m going with the former.

The highway is a long silver ribbon under the truck’s headlights, the city already receding in the side mirror. Dark fields roll past on either side, punctuated by the occasional cluster of farmhouse windows glowing warmly in the middle of nothing. Behind curtains, people are having dinner, living their ordinary lives while I drive past with a wolf I have decided to run away with.

It sounds insane when I put it that way.

Yet, it feels, inexplicably, like the most sensible thing I’ve done in years.

“You’re awfully serious over there,” Silas says.

I glance at him. He’s driving with a steady focus, one hand resting loosely at the top of the wheel, the other tapping absently against the radio dial—the only fidgeting I’ve ever seen from him. I find it endearing.

“I’m conducting an internal audit,” I say.

“Of what?”

“Of whether I’m panicking yet.”