Chapter 11

EVENTUALLY I STOP CRYING, but the rest of my body doesn’t get the hint. My chest feels prickly and empty and my brain feels like it’s full of electric worms.

I wipe my tears and snot and stand up to wash my hands. The water is burning cold. In the mirror, my red and splotchy cheeks are even redder and splotchier from crying. I hate it. I wish my skin was smooth like—

No, I can’t think about Marisa. Not unless I want to start crying again.

I take a deep breath and press my cold fingers to my eyes. Be calm, Dany. If you come out of the bathroom looking like crap, you’ll get bombarded with questions again.

When I feel better, I put my backpack on the counter and take inventory of it, even though I haven’t taken anything out or put anything in since I last checked it. A change of clothes. A plastic bag of toothpaste and toothbrush and a comb. My army knife. A collection of tiny hotel soaps.

There are a few other things, all rattling loose because I never bothered to organize any of it. But what matters is the plastic candy tube at the bottom, still there, still intact. I don’t take inventory of what’s inside that. I can’t bear it right now.

I fish the first aid kit from the side pocket and take a deep breath. Time for the ordeal.

I slowly take off my wet and grimy outer clothes. My red hoodie definitely needs washing. So do my jeans, really, but I know they’ll take too long to dry. I toss them both to the ground for now, but I keep the key on a string around my neck. I don’t want to put it down and have it fall down a drain pipe.

And then, carefully, I tug off my T-shirt and peek at the bandages around my waist.

Good thing: the bandages haven’t soaked through. At least, I think that’s a good thing. I snip the gauze away with the little scissor attachment on my army knife and force myself to actually look at the wound. It’s not deep, but it looks bad. It smells bad. That’s not a good sign.

I shouldn’t, but I squeeze and pull at the swollen mess, just a little bit. Sure enough, there’s still a sharp pain under the constant ache. I’m almost 100% sure there are splinters stuck inside. But the thought of digging into it with the army knife makes my knees turn to jelly, so I just soak the oozing wound with an iodine pad and cover it all up with fresh bandages.

It doesn’t matter, anyway. I just have to make it to Suddence. Then everything will be okay.

Now that that’s out of the way, I swallow one of my carefully-rationed painkiller pills and turn on the shower. The sputtering motel water has trouble getting hot, but once it does, letting it run over my hands almost makes me forget the pain.

Or maybe that’s the medicine kicking in.

I’m too chicken to get water on my wound, so I just scrub my hair and wipe my body down with a wet towel and while I rinse out my hoodie, I try to figure out a way to break the news to Zahira.

I don’t know where Suddence is.

I can imagine her response already. You’re telling me to drive you somewhere, and you don’t even know where it is? And her eyes would be all big and her thick eyebrows squashed down like she’s one of those bad actors on TV.

But that’s not totvolitially true. I do know where it is approximately. If I could get my hands on a map, I’m sure I can find it. How hard could it be? Ornament County can’t be that big. I just have to look for a big blob of absolutely nothing, and smack in the middle of it, that’s where Suddence will be. I think. I hope.

But I could be wrong. And I could look stupid. And I don’t want to tell her that I don’t know.

But I don’t need to tell her I don’t know.

I hold on hard to that. I don’t need to tell her. Because I never wanted her to come with me, anyway. I only wanted her to get me close enough, and I’ll figure out the rest from there. On my own, as it should be.

I squeeze out the water from my hoodie and hang it on the curtain rod to dry along with my rain-damp jeans and T-shirt. When I come out of the bathroom in my clean clothes, Zahira is sprawled on the bed, one arm over her eyes. I was hoping she might be asleep, but then she lifts her arm and squints at me.

“Finally,” she grumbles, and sits up. On the bedside desk, she has already emptied the wallets we took from Man #1 and Man #2 and sorted the cash into bills and coins. “Oi. Before you go to sleep. Where in Ornament are we going?”

Uh oh. The dreaded question. Good thing I already figured this out in the bathroom. “You can drop me off anywhere,” I say, hooking my backpack on the footboard.

She gives me a look. “Ornament’s pretty big.”

“I know.” I didn’t.

“And you want me to drop you off…anywhere.”

I act confused about why she’s confused. “…Yeah?”

“And then you’re going to, what, walk?” She juts a finger at the front door. “With those shoes?”

I glance at my sorry excuse for sneakers. The wet duct tape is limp on the doormat like a dead animal.

I nod. “Yeah.”

She huffs and says, “No way.”

I scowl. Why not? is just on the tip of my tongue, but why would I ask? I don’t need her permission. “I’ll just fix them again,” I say. “Duct tape’s not that expensive.”

“You think that’s what I’m worried about?”

“I don’t need you to worry.”

It comes out so mean I instantly feel bad, even if Zahira doesn’t look hurt by it, just surprised. I curl my fists and squeeze my eyes shut for a second. Be calm, Dany. If you make her mad, she might just run off with the money.

“You just need to drive me and drop me off,” I say. Slowly, because I can feel the urge to snap bubbling up again. “That’s all you have to do.”

Zahira takes in a breath like she’s about to say something, but then pauses for so long she might have given up on saying it.

I can’t help my impatience. “What?”

Carefully, she says, “I didn’t want to ask you before because it seemed personal, and you seemed upset.” I still am, but clearly that’s not stopping her. “But are you…alright? Are you safe?”

I don’t say anything, which is apparently an answer all on its own.

“If you’re in trouble,” she says, “you need to tell me.”

“Or what?”

Her eyebrows snap down, like she can’t believe I have to ask. “Or I won’t know how to properly help you.”

“I’m not in trouble.”

“So, all this.” She circles her cheekbone. I know she’s talking about the red scratches and already-fading bruise on my face. “You, what, fell down the stairs?”

I didn’t. I didn’t get hit, either, which I know is what she’s thinking.

“It was an accident,” I say, and goddamn hope this is the last thing she’s going to grill me about. “Nobody did this to me.”

She sighs. Not in a sad way, but in an angry way. No, not quite angry. Frustrated, like she doesn’t believe me, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell her. Oh, I got caught in an explosion, no big deal. Yeah. Like that’ll make her shut up.

“Look,” she says. “I’m asking because it’s the middle of the night, and you were all alone in that diner. Is there nobody traveling with you? Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead.” I try to keep my mind on my real parents, the ones I never knew. “It was a long time ago.”

Zahira looks sad and unsurprised. It makes my chest burn.

“Like I said. You don’t have to worry about me.” I push the blanket down the bed with too much force and climb in. I don’t like the idea of sleeping beside a stranger, but one bed was all we could afford, and I’m absolutely not sleeping on the ground. “And I’m not alone. Someone’s waiting for me in Ornament. Someone who can protect me. So you don’t have to worry. I’m safe. I’ll be safe.” And even if I wasn’t, what’s she going to do? Run Them over with her janky pink truck? I don’t think so.

Zahira stares at me like she can’t decide if she wants to believe me. But it’s not long before she lifts her shoulders and says, “Okay,” and begins gathering up the cash on the desk. “I’ll be level with you. I don’t know how to get to Ornament. So first thing tomorrow, we’re going to find a map, and we’re going to figure this out. Got it?”

I roll my eyes but say, “Got it.”

“This should be enough to get us there. For petrol and motels and food.” She eyes the doormat. “And a pair of shoes.”

“I said I’ll fix them.”

“And I said we’re buying you a pair of shoes,” she says, like that settles it.

“Fine.” I roll over and pull the blanket up to my ears. “Your loss, anyway.”