“And be happy.”
We drive for hours. The steady dark lulls me into a dream state. Pieces of the last few days flutter through my mind: kissing Ever in the storm. Kneeling before my father. Burning the church. Barry’s shock when I told him he should run. The look on Barry’s face. The things he told me…
“Hey, look.” Ever points to a lone gas station up ahead, barely more than a sign and two pumps. “We need more gas.” We pull into it and refuel, Ever leaning against the convertible while the gasoline chugs.
Barry said he had Everett all figured out, and almost everything he claimed had turned out to be true…
The gas clicks off. After a minute, Ever opens the door and drops back into the driver’s seat.
I turn to him. There’s one lamp in this gas station and it’s flickering, turning his face from light to dark, dark to light. “Ever. I have a question. Why’d you never settle in one place?”
He smiles. His sharp canines glint. “Oh, I don’t know.”
“Barry guessed it’s because you kill people everywhere you live. Not just men from Bottom Springs. But it’s Barry, so…”
For a long time, Everett doesn’t answer. Finally, he rests his hands on the steering wheel and eyes me. His words are as taut as the rope on a noose. “There are a lot of bad men in the world, Ruth.”
A bead of sweat rolls down my neck.
“A lot of men whose punishments will never come unless someone takes it into their own hands.”
“I see.”
Barry was right.
“Are you afraid now?” he whispers. In the flickering light, I can’t read his face. But it doesn’t matter. It’s my heart on the scale, not his. The chains are tilting back and forth, asking,Who are you?
If this scene were a painting in my father’s office, it might be calledThe Final Corruption of Ruth Cornier. In one of my mother’s cautionary tales, this would be the moment she leaned in and whispered,And the girl signed her soul away. If we were in one of the books I loved, those literary classics, it would be the moment the reader knew I was doomed.
I cover Ever’s hands on the steering wheel. “How about this. We goto school and work and read and be happy. And sometimes, when the time is right, we’ll take care of the people who need it.” My voice is low. “We’ll be a law unto ourselves.”
His eyes shine back. “Two Low Men, prowling the dark.”
“Bonnie and Clyde,” I whisper, and he seizes and kisses me.
The scale tips.
I taste the sweet heat of his mouth, feel our teeth scrape together, losing myself until I hear something faint in the distant, something that tugs at me. I shake Everett, and he pulls away. We twist in our seats and stare behind us.
That’s when my mind makes sense of the sound.
Sirens.
“Start the car,” I urge. “Hurry.”
Ever’s ahead of me, twisting the key and revving the engine until it roars. We race backward, swerve in a giant V, and launch forward. The sirens grow a decibel louder. I turn to watch the road, heart thundering.
“It won’t be for us,” Ever murmurs, his eyes on the rearview. “It’s a coincidence.”
Red and blue lights appear in the murky distance. “Drive faster.”
He jams the gas, fingers clutching the steering wheel so hard they turn red. The arrow on his odometer is shaking, hitting the max. At this speed, the wind brings tears to my eyes, but I can still see the lights grow bigger, loom closer.
“We’re almost to the border,” Ever shouts, pointing in the distance. “There’ll be a bridge, and on the other side’s Texas. We’ll lose them.”
My hair, my dress—the wind whips them up like sails. The cars are close enough now that I can see they’re a caravan. I can just make out the Trufayette Parish Sheriff’s logo on the car in the lead. Sheriff Theriot’s found us. He must’ve recruited cops from the next parish like Barry warned. There are too many.
“They’re gaining on us!” I can barely hear myself over the thunder of the tires.
