He hands the bottle back.
“How much farther?” I say.
“Four or five hours.”
“Can you make that?”
Malcolm doesn’t even open his eyes as he answers. “Yes, but I need to sleep. And so do you.”
The weight of my eyelids is becoming unbearable, unconsciousness beckoning me like the sweetest lullaby. I do need to sleep. My brain feels like it’s full of cotton, and even the simplest decision is beyond me. I hurt all over too: my head, from smashing into both the window with Mom and the pavement at the motel; my hips, hands, and knees, from falling out the window; my ribs, from Malcolm kicking me. We need to lie down somewhere that won’t have us panicking at the slightestsound.
But I force my eyes open wide. I’d let them close once while Malcolm was driving and almost immediately had a vision of Mom with bruises like his. I can’t sleep if it means seeing that again. “Then I’ll drive. I don’t think I can sleep.”
He stops my hand when I reach for the keys and shakes his head.
“We can’t go in until afternoon anyway, so we either kill time now while it’s dark and no one’s around or we hole up somewhere during the day, when someone is much more likely to notice us.”
“Why afternoon?”
Malcolm’s eyes have drifted shut again. “Can’t you just trust that I know what I’m doing here? I’ve got a hundred thousand reasons to want this to work.”
If I had the energy, I’d laugh. “It doesn’t seem like you need the money, based on what you were keeping in your shoe.”
“That was every dime I had to my name. This”—he gestures at the rusted-out car—“is not what I was going to spend it on.”
A fresh wave of weariness washes over me. “Enough okay? I’m not going to feel sorry for you. You got into this with both eyes open, and I’m the last person you want to be complaining to. So stop.”
I’m actually surprised when he does.
After a few minutes of silence, I glance over to find his eyes still open and his frowning gaze trained out the window. When I hear his stomach growl, I pass him some of the protein bars before grabbing two for myself. I watch as he inhales three of them before I’ve finished my first.
Right. He’s been in a trunk. I offer him another bar, and he takes it.
“We have to wait because there’s a shift change at five. Employees in, employees out. Plus visiting hours end at six, so there will be a lot of unknown people to keep track of.”
An actual answer. And it makes sense. I nod and look back at the things we bought and still need to use: hair dye, scissors, a razor, clothes. And makeup—most of which is for him so we can try and hide the damage done to his face. “We’ll just slip in?”
“Something like that.”
“So tell me. I need to know exactly—”
“No, you don’t. Youwantto know. There’s a difference.”
Irritation tightens my lips. “Just because I’m not holding a knife on you anymore doesn’t mean I’m not in charge.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what it means.” Malcolm crumples up the wrappers and tosses the empty water bottles into the backseat before pushing his door open.
Panic courses through me, and I’m ready to lunge for him when he announces that he’s just going to pee.
I went at the gas station, but Malcolm was done with walking by then and opted out. Still, I find myself counting the seconds until he returns.
Malcolm studies me warily when he settles against his seat and reclines it as far as it’ll go. After a minute of watching me jump at the slightest noise, he hits the recline lever of my seat, and the back drops out behind me. I’m reaching for the blade in an instant.
“You’re making my ribs hurt just from watching you. Worry tomorrow. Relax tonight.”
“I can’t relax.” The muscles in my neck tense as I speak. I don’t want to list all the reasons why, but that doesn’t stop them from zipping through my mind again and again and again.
“You’re different than I thought you’d be,” Malcolm says, eyeing the blade that I have to force myself to set down again. “The girl in the picture looked less homicidal.”
