“You didn’t ask where we’re going.”
“I assumed you’d tell me when you felt like it.”
Correct.
The car hums beneath us. Tires eat up the miles. Trees close in tighter the farther we go, branches reaching toward the road like they want a look at her too.
I tap my fingers against the steering wheel. Once. Twice.
“You know,” I say, almost conversational, “most people start asking questions by now.”
“I’m not most people.”
No.
She’s not.
I glance at her again. She’s staring straight ahead, eyes alert, cataloging. Exits. Landmarks. The absence of both.
Her breathing is steady, but her pulse gives her away. I can see it in her throat.
“You look good,” I add.
She doesn’t thank me.
“That’s why you made me change, right?” she says. “So I’d be a pretty corpse.”
I laugh. A short sound. Real.
“If I wanted you dead, Ayla, you wouldn’t be sitting in my car.”
Silence snaps back into place, heavier than before.
She swallows.
I let it sit there. Let her chew on it. Let her wonder which answer would scare her more. We drive another mile.
Then another. She shifts in her seat, fingers flexing once, like she’s resisting the urge to reach for her weapon. Her little knife.
“You braided your hair,” I murmur.
Her head turns this time. Sharp. Caught.
I smile without looking at her.
“Good instinct,” I continue. “Most people don’t think that far ahead.”
“What are you going to do to me?” she asks.
There it is.
I slow the car just enough that she notices.
“Depends,” I say. “On how well you move.”
Her breath catches. Just once. I press the accelerator. The trees close in the farther we go.
The road narrows, dirt replacing asphalt, branches arching overhead like ribs. The headlights catch nothing but trunks and shadow, dark shapes stacked against a darker sky. I feel her tension before I hear it—the way her breathing shifts, the way her body goes still in the seat beside me.
