Jade ate her burger, her head lowered, half-hiding behind her hair.
“What’s wrong?”
“You make it sound so easy. I just can’t believe it will be.”
“Hey,” I said softly, getting her attention. “Itwillbe. Arnaud has no clue where we are. If he does, there’s nothing hecan do, not after that storm. We have the entire eastern United States to get lost in. Once we hit the road, we’ll take the scenic routes to Washington. Stay off the interstates. Once we get into Washington, my dad’s ass is grass.”
Chapter Twenty
Jade
I dipped a french fry in ketchup and asked, “So what’s the plan, Stan?”
Magnus lowered his burger before taking a bite. “Stan? Are we falling back into the seventies?”
Pointing another fry at him, I added, “That’s what I’m naming my cat. Stanley.”
“He telepathed that to you from this distance?”
“Yep. So what’s the plan?”
“We make like a tree and leave,” he answered, then took his bite. “Tomorrow.”
“That works. I suppose the best way is to head straight down to the freeway.”
“Yeah. The road through here dead ends a few miles beyond. Nothing out there except cabins and more mountains.”
“And bears and deer and rabbits.”
He sent me an odd look over his burger. “You’re in a weird mood today.”
“Yeah, maybe I am.” Thinking, I took a drink of my soda. “Maybe because of how close I came to being killed. I tried to take that dragon with me.”
“I saw the gun.” Magnus stared down at his meal. “There wasn’t much I could do to stop it. Maybe run over the embankment.” He smiled, lifting his head. “You kept me alive.”
“And you did the same for me.”
“Does this mean we’re good for each other?”
“Could be.”
I pondered his statement about falling in love with me, and how I couldn’t deny my feelings. The attraction was there, certainly. And attraction alone didn’t make a relationship. There had to be more. At the end of this fiasco, did I want Magnus to kiss my cheek, then fly away to a destiny without me?
No.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“What you’d said,” I answered slowly. “About the fates. And us.”
“Are you believing it now?”
“I’m not sure. But events, fate maybe, are keeping us together. We’ve each saved the other’s life. We’ve each nursed the other back to health. Does that mean something?”
“I don’t want to call it a co-dependency issue,” he answered. “I don’t believe I’m emotionally dependent on you for my well-being. I’m falling in love.”
“Good.”
“Okay, just what’s that supposed to mean?” Magnus demanded. “You said that in the car.”
