“So, you have…” She tilts her head, squinting. “Erm, sixty-three minutes left.”
“Twenty-three,” I correct. “There’s only sixty minutes in an hour.”
“That’s stupid,” she spits. “Everything else is in hundreds.”
I have one more day until I’ll have Delilah, so I don’t argue with her as she drives. Back in her rotting mask, she almost looks normal with her hair covering the edges. She doesn’t speed or drive through heavy traffic areas as she searches for something to eat. A fucked up part of me wishes I kept my severed limb. At least she wouldn’t be hungry, and it would have a use rather than being a trophy for the Wards to keep.
The car is equipped with everything we’ll need since Decker was feeling charitable. I wince as I reach into the backseat for a protein bar. I have to use my teeth to open it before passing it to my driver. She’s cute as fuck, humming as she bites into it. “Chocolate cake.”
As per my new compulsion, I check my pocket to make sure the card is still there. I haven’t been able to see what the location is but the bloody puddle the bitch put it in activated the chemicals, so it’ll be waiting for me.
We turn towards a row of rundown warehouses as Sasha whispers, “Is this okay?”
“Yeah. Park anywhere. Climb in the back to go to sleep.”
She pulls into a warehouse lot, drives around the familiar grey building, then parks at the back. Her seat smoothly lowers until it’s flat. She’s so excited about all the luxury she presses random buttons on the dash until she turns on the massage function.
“Having fun, crazy pants?”
“It’s warm.” She quickly nods, pushing back in the seat. “The first time you turned it on, I thought I pissed myself.”
“Do you piss yourself often?” I laugh as I recline my seat, staring at my phone.
“No.” She lifts her hand to punch me, then thinks better of it to avoid my injured arm. “You piss yourself.”
“No, I fucking don’t. That was you when you grabbed the steering wheel.” I make my voice high-pitched and squeaky. “Kane. I need to stop.”
“I don’t sound like that,” she says, deepening her voice.
“You do. Especially when you say you’re hungry.”
“Well, well, erm,” she stutters, searching the ceiling for an insult. “You look stupid.” She turns over, facing the door. “And your voice tastes like shit.”
“How would you know how my voice tastes?”
Excitement fills her bright eyes as she whips around, staring at me over her shoulder. “I can taste sounds, but your voice changes a lot.”
“It does?”
“Yeah.” Laying on her back, she explains, “When you’re like this, it tastes like caramel. Sometimes, when you’re talking to yourself, it tastes like cigarettes.”
“Smoke?”
“No, like eating the ashy part. Remember when I drank out of the bottle you put the stub in?”
I nod.
“It tastes like that. When you talk about Delilah, it’s a new taste, like all the sugar in the world has been mixed with salt so I can’t tell what’s sweet and what’s bitter.”
“Neither can I,” I whisper, rolling the window down an inch. The heated seats will stop her from being cold, but I can’t sleep in case I miss the location of the auction, so I clumsily take a cigarette out and dip my head to light it since I can’t cup the flame to protect it from the breeze.
Sasha turns off the massage function as she turns on her side, facing me. “Can I try?”
“No. It’s bad for you.” I roll the window down a little more, holding the cigarette out of the car. “You can get cancer and shit.”
“Why do you do it then?”
“Because I do.”
