I didn’t look at him. I was driving too fast for that. I said, “I can’t.” My brain had one thought in it. Get out.
He said, his voice raised to be heard over the considerable road noise, but still with that calm to it, “You’re not safe driving just now, and you’re not keeping the rest of us safe, either. Too much adrenaline. Pull over.”
The girls were silent in the back seat, as they’d been ever since I’d all but thrown them into it. Silent from shock, mostly, and the paralyzing fear of the almost-happened, but they’d be holding their breath for a different reason now. That I was defying a direct order from a man. What would it mean to them, though, if the first thing they saw in this brave new world was Gray telling me what to do, and me doing it? Besides, driving was action, and I needed action now. Action was keeping me from falling apart. I needed to get away, and get them away. I needed to …
I took the next curve too fast, and the tires squealed as the ute fishtailed again. I thought, You’re going to traumatize them more if you roll this truck, took a breath, eased my foot off the gas, and said, “Help me find a place to do it.”
Gray said, “Wait,” and thirty seconds later, “A hundred meters up, on the left. Driveway.”
I pulled off the road and braked to a sudden stop that jerked us all forward, put the truck into Park, and engaged the parking brake for good measure. I kept hold of the wheel, though, because my hands and arms had begun to shake like I was in the grip of late-stage Parkinson’s, with no control at all. And then my legs started to do the same thing.
My cold legs. My bare legs. I took a look.
Yes. I was naked from the hips down. Yes, I was. Oh, bloody hell.
Behind me, Obedience, at least, was crying softly, only the hitch in her breath giving her away. The girls would be holding each other, I was sure, and I should take care of that, should say … something, though I wasn’t sure what.
What had Dorian said to me, that night when it had been us running? What had I said to him? What had Roger, the farmer who’d picked us up on this very road, said to us before he’d taken us home to his place, to his wife, and started us on our way to the Outside? I couldn’t remember.
That wasn’t why I didn’t offer any comforting words, though, not really. It was that I was out of reserves. The girls were out of Mount Zion, and I was done.
Beside me, Gray let out a long, slow breath, like a man who was sincerely thankful that he hadn’t been in another smash tonight and hadn’t actually had to kill anybody, and I started to laugh. Just a little at first, but soon I was shaking all over with that, and as out of control as if I were sobbing.
I got a hand over my mouth, looked at him wide-eyed above it, and he twisted his face at me and said, “Really? Really?” After that, he grinned with all the punch-drunk joy of survival, started to laugh himself, released his seatbelt, and grabbed me.
“Oh,” I said when his arms were around me and his face was against my still-wet hair. “I wasn’t … wearing my seatbelt. Good thing I didn’t roll us, I guess.”
“Although you wouldn’t be ejected,” he said. “Special glass.”
“Also,” I said, “I’m naked again. Bugger. Second time tonight. I’m glad you didn’t fry any important bits off on that fence, jumping over. I would’ve felt bad, cutting your manhood down in your prime like that.”
“Didn’t lose the wedding tackle to the dog, either,” he said. “The dog, now … that was the extra touch. Yeh, I’d call that moment the icing on the cake. Although the nakedness is pretty special, too. Your bum, running away, all white in the dark …”
That made us both laugh harder. I said, “And the shovel. You with that shovel over your shoulder … Reckon you were surprised to find yourself doing that. Should’ve let me drown, eh.”
“What, and miss out on all this?” He was still laughing when he took my head in his hands, kissed the top of it, then sat back with his hands on my shoulders. “You,” he