We were about an hour outside of Fallon.
I needed a drink. I didn’t have anything, though. Nothing in the car or my pack.
My fingers were white, I gripped the steering wheel so tight. I peeled my hands away one at a time and wiped the sweat on my jeans.
“Have you ever killed anyone?” Stella’s voice was timid, meek. “Point blank like that?”
I shook my head.
“I’ve only killed bad men. Men like Leo.” She turned to me. “It’s important you understand I killed Leo, not you. I don’t want him on your conscience. Your knife may have put him down, but he was already dead. There’s no saving someone like that. He had another minute at best. You shouldn’t fret about about the ones today, either. The one you shot in the gut, he’ll live. And the man on the stairwell, he was bad. Like Leo.”
“How do you know? What if he had a wife or kids? We don’t know anything about him.”
“He was bad. I know. Even worse, he was with them.”
She said this as if it were enough, and maybe it was. I had no idea what these people did to her, what they represented.
I killed a man.
The thought sunk down into my gut, and my stomach churned.
“The police will be looking for us.”
“They won’t find any bodies,” she said.
I killed multiple men.
Stella went on. “They pointed guns at you and me and would have shot one or both of us.”
Would they? Or were they really just trying to get Stella back? The gun was nothing but a bluff. If one of them pulled the trigger on me, would it have even worked?
My breathing quickened. Icy sweat covered my face and neck. Tiny blotches appeared in my vision, floating clouds of white obscuring my view of the road, the interior of the car.
The right front tire left the pavement, followed quickly by the back, the rough shoulder grabbing and tugging the Jeep away from the road.
Stella yelped.
My left hand, slick with sweat again, slipped on the steering wheel as I pulled hard left. Gravel, rocks, and dirt sputtered against the undercarriage. Weeds smacked against the front grill, swallowed beneath. I smashed my foot down hard on the brake, too hard, and we fishtailed off the pavement entirely, skidding through the dirt, the steering wheel useless. The Jeep began to spin to the left, so I tugged the wheel to the right, in hopes of gaining control. With such a high center of gravity, Jeeps flipped easily, and I felt the right side lift off the ground. I pulled the wheel back in the other direction. The front wheels caught, gained traction, and the back fell in line. I brought the Jeep to a clunky stop, ripped off my seat belt, jumped out, and bent over in the grass.
I couldn’t remember the last time I ate, and what came up was a sickly yellow, so acidic it burned my tongue even as my stomach clenched, heaved, and I buckled further over with more.
I felt Stella’s hand on the small of my back, her other on my shoulder, squeezing through my shirt. With the last of it, I stood and wiped my mouth. “God, I’m a fucking mess.”
“You took a life. You’re human. I’d be worried if it didn’t upset you.”
When I turned back to her, I realized how pale she had become. Both her hands quivered now, not just her right. “Is that because of what just happened, or…”
“I’ll be okay.”
I ran my hand through my hair. “You need to…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. I wasn’t sure what word even fit—feed? Eat? Drain? Absorb?
Stella understood, though. She said, “No. Not anymore.”
“I shouldn’t have shot that guy. You needed him. You could have fed on him.”
She was already shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have done it. I was just trying to scare him.”
“You have to, though. Don’t you?” I took a step closer. “What’s the longest you’ve ever gone…between?”
