Chapter 7

ZAHIRA DRIVES FOR one solid hour before she finally speaks up. 

“Just so we’re clear,” she says. Quiet, like her mind is floating somewhere far away, afraid of the answer. “You have…superpowers.”

I watch her from the corner of my eye. I didn’t really think about it before, but she has an accent. A foreign one, all fancy and cursive.

Outside the dry, warm bubble of Zahira’s car, the rain has started up again, and the windshield wipers are like a metronome, telling me to sleep, sleep, sleep. I blink away my tiredness and sit straighter.

“Superpowers,” I say. “Yeah.”

“And you’re…in some kind of trouble?”

“No.”

“So you were at a truck stop all alone in the middle of the night because…?”

It doesn’t matter, I want to snap. You just have to drive.

I guess she can tell I’m not interested in an interrogation because she shuts up, leaving only the radio chittering away. It’s tuned to the soft rock station. Good. The last thing I need is for her to hear a news report about The High School Incident and put two and two together and realize I’m the kid every cop in the province is looking for.

A few kilometers of rain splattering against the windshield and the wipers swishing their soggy lullaby later, she says, “If we pass a motel, I think we should stop for the night. I’m…” A pause as she holds back a bad word. Useless, because I don’t care. “…tired. And I don’t think I can keep driving for long like this. Not without driving us into a ditch.”

She says it like a suggestion, but I can tell she wouldn’t change her mind even if I had objections.

Before I can say whatever, she asks, “What’s your name?”

The question comes so quick my mouth is still trying to form an answer to what she said before. What comes out is a stuttering, “Uh.”

“And how old are you anyway?”

I scowl. She doesn’t need to know any of this.

“Well?” she presses. Why is she brave enough to be grilling me all of a sudden? An hour ago she was crying because she was so scared of me. “You’re, what, nine?”

“Eleven.”

“Oh, yeah?” She says it like she doesn’t believe me, but it’s true. I turned eleven yesterday.

“And my name is Dany,” I add crossly.

“I’m Zahira.”

“I know that.”

“Well, good then.” She does that thing again, where she looks like she wants to roll her eyes but doesn’t. “And where did this…” Superpower, she means, but what she actually does is waggle her fingers. “Where did this come from? How did that happen?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, it does.” Her eyes are wide to drive home the point. “If I’m going to be taking you all the way to Ornament County, I deserve to know at least an iota of what I’m dealing with.”

I scrape a sigh through my teeth and sink my head against the seat. She’s not going to give up until she gets an answer. I just know it. If an answer could make her shut up until we reach a motel, then I would gladly throw her one.

But I don’t know how I got the sparks. Marisa never had the chance to really explain it to me before she—well, she just never had the chance, and what she did tell me is mangled with the memory of us lying back-to-back, cold to our bones, her breathing all rocky and thick from being sick, and I don’t want to think about that, so I try to focus on one thing. One name.

Suddence.

A little town in the middle of nowhere.

The town where Marisa grew up.

The town where I was born.

The town I’m trying to reach. The town I need to reach.

Where did my power come from? How did it happen? Maybe I’ll find answers there. Maybe I won’t. But I need to try to get there. It’s the least I can do.

The wipers swish against the windshield and thud to a stop. Swish, thud. Swish, thud.

I have no answers to give Zahira. So I say the thing I hate the most.

“I don’t know.”

That can’t possibly be enough for her, but she doesn’t ask any more questions.

Swish, thud. Swish, thud.

I don’t want to fall asleep next to a stranger. But the passing streetlights smear into the streaks of rain, and I close my eyes.