“Matches yours,” I say.
She touches her own cheek. Finds blood.
“God.” She leans back against the seat, closing her eyes. “My mother would be horrified. ‘Cassandra, grand theft auto plus breaking and entering? That is not how we raised you.’”
“Your mother isn’t getting shot at.”
“True.” She opens her eyes. Turns her head to look at me. “You were right.”
“About what?”
“The chaos. The instinct.” She picks a shard of glass off her leg. “If we had hesitated … If we had debated the morality of it …”
“He would have blown our heads off.”
“Yeah.”
She goes quiet. Watching the road.
“Where are we going?”
“West,” I say. “We ditch this thing as soon as we find a town with a parking lot. It’s too conspicuous now. Bullet holes tend to draw attention.”
“And then?”
“Then we disappear again.”
She nods. She wraps her arms around herself, shivering in the draft from the broken window.
“Cold?” I ask.
“Freezing.”
I reach down. Turn the heater knob.
A blast of hot, dusty air roars from the vents.
She leans forward, putting her hands in front of the vent. “Oh my God. Heat.”
“Civilization.”
She smiles. It’s a small, tired thing, but it’s real.
“Thank you, Halo.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Chevy.”
I keep my eyes on the road. But her presence is palpable. The heat of her body. The shared adrenaline.
The “Ghost” wall is crumbling. Cracks widen.
I told her Diego was dead.
But looking at her, bathed in sunlight and smelling of dust and survival …
Diego feels dangerously alive.
SEVEN
