Tires scread over cracked asphalt as the sedan tore down the main road.
Dust kicked up behind her in long dirty clouds. Loose gravel pinged the undercarriage. The steering wheel shook in Naomi’s hands every ti the car hit a pothole, but she kept her foot hard on the gas anyway.
Inside the car, cheerful music filled the cabin at a volu that felt insulting.
So..hippie reggae love song she wouldn’t listen to under any circumstances.
Naomi gritted her teeth.
She reached one hand off the wheel and slapped at the radio.
Nothing.
The song kept going.
She jabbed buttons blindly.
SCAN.
AM/FM.
CD.
EJECT.
The music crackled for half a second, then returned even louder.
"Oh, co on."
She hit the dashboard with the heel of her palm.
Plastic rattled. A vent popped loose.
The lyrics continued.
"Jesus Christ!"
She yanked the knob. It ca off in her hand.
She stared at it.
Then threw it across the passenger seat.
The song continued like it was mocking her.
Naomi laughed once. A short, ugly sound.
"Of course."
She drove faster.
The road ahead cut through dead farmland and abandoned gas stations. Telephone poles leaned like drunks. A billboard advertising life insurance had been half-burned away, leaving only the word LIFE hanging over the road.
She pressed her lips together and focused on the lane.
Didn’t work.
The image ca anyway.
Lila’s mouth buried into Hailey’s arm.
Sharp.
Animal.
Hailey screaming, trying to wrench free while blood ran down to her fingertips.
Naomi inhaled sharply and blinked hard.
The road returned.
Then another flash.
The man at camp on the ground, clutching his bitten wrist, eyes wide with disbelief.
That fucking bitch— She bit —!
Lila smiling with blood on her lips.
Naomi’s fingers tightened so hard around the wheel her knuckles whitened.
Stop thinking about it.
It felt like the music had been growing louder.
She scread and punched the horn.
The car blared wildly for two seconds.
Birds lifted out of a tree line ahead.
Her breathing turned shallow.
She glanced in the rearview mirror.
No headlights.
No one chasing.
Still she checked again ten seconds later.
Then again.
Then again.
She knew what panic looked like. She’d seen it on strangers. Seen it on people seconds before getting torn apart.
Now it sat in her own chest.
Naomi dragged a hand down her face.
"You’re fine."
Her voice sounded small in the car.
You’re alone. Good. You wanted that.
Wanted distance.
Wanted quiet.
Wanted away from Lila.
Wanted away from Adrian too, if she was honest enough to say it.
That thought hurt more than it should have.
She’d left because staying around them felt like standing next to leaking gas while soone played with matches.
Adrian always thinking he could talk wolves into becoming dogs.
Lila pretending love and violence were the sa thing.
And Naomi—
Naomi always staying long enough to get burned.
She swallowed.
Another flash.
—
Samuel in the kitchen of that house months ago.
Sweating.
One eye red.
The other almost there.
Hands shaking as he begged her not to do this.
"Babe... Naomi... please..."
Her pistol aid at his forehead.
She rembered the way the barrel shook more than the gunshot itself.
Then blood on the cabinet.
Then silence.
—
She blinked hard.
In the passenger seat, for half a second, Adrian sat there instead.
Head slumped.
Bullet hole above the brow.
Dead eyes open.
Naomi jerked the wheel.
The sedan swerved across lanes and nearly hit the ditch.
"Fuck!"
She corrected hard, tires sliding before catching grip again.
Her chest heaved.
The seat beside her was empty.
Empty.
Empty.
She wiped tears she hadn’t noticed forming.
Get it together.
The song kept playing.
Naomi started laughing again.
This ti she couldn’t stop.
It ca out cracked and wet and wrong.
She laughed until it turned into sobbing.
Her shoulders shook as she drove.
The map lay unfolded on the dashboard, fluttering in the air from the broken vent.
A thick marker line showed the route north.
Detroit.
Crossing point.
Canada.
Safe haven.
That was the story anyway.
Walls. Order. Food lines. Doctors.
People said all kinds of things when they needed hope.
She thought of Adrian insisting they could make it.
Thought of the way he still tried to save people who wanted him dead.
Thought of him looking at Lila like she was both poison and dicine.
"You idiot," Naomi whispered.
She didn’t know if she ant him or herself.
The road curved.
A stalled truck blocked half the lane ahead.
Naomi swerved around it, clipping a side mirror that exploded in glass.
She barely reacted.
Her body had begun to numb itself.
That scared her more than crying.
She reached for the glove compartnt, found a half-full bottle of water, drank greedily, then poured the rest over her face.
Cold rivulets ran down her neck.
Good.
Sothing real.
Another mory ca softer this ti.
Adrian by the fire two nights ago, trying to teach her a card trick he didn’t even know how to do.
Smiling like the world wasn’t ending.
Lila watching them from the dark with dead-still eyes.
Naomi had noticed.
Of course she had.
She always noticed danger too late.
"I should’ve left sooner."
But if she had, Adrian would still be there alone with her.
Unless he chose it.
Unless he always chose chaos because it felt familiar.
Naomi slamd her palm into the dashboard again.
The radio finally died.
Silence flooded the car so suddenly it rang in her ears.
She froze.
Then whispered:
"Thank you."
For a minute, only the engine and tires spoke.
The quiet let thoughts in deeper.
She imagined turning around.
Going back.
Finding them.
Maybe dragging Adrian out by force.
Maybe putting a bullet in Lila if she had to.
The fact that she considered it so calmly made her stomach turn.
That wasn’t who she used to be.
Used to be.
There was no used to be anymore.
A sign appeared ahead, green and weathered.
DETROIT - 34 MILES
Naomi stared at it as she passed.
Thirty-four miles to the crossing.
Thirty-four miles to whatever ca next.
Her eyes burned.
She tightened both hands on the wheel.
Then, in the empty passenger seat, she could almost hear Samuel.
Then Hailey.
Then Adrian.
Then Lila laughing softly.
Naomi pressed harder on the gas.
She drove like she could outrun all of them.
—
Harry stared straight ahead with his one good eye.
The other had swollen shut soti during the night, purple and black beneath the crusted blood. His face was caked in dirt, sweat, and dried streaks where tears had mixed with gri hours ago. Rope cut into his wrists where they’d tied him to the rear fra of the truck.
He stood because the rope forced him to.
Not because he had the strength.
Camp moved around him like he wasn’t there.
People loaded canned food into crates. Checked tires. Rolled tents. Secured rifles in the backs of vehicles. Boots crossed mud. Engines coughed to life one by one.
No one looked at him long.
Most people had learned not to.
Except Bill.
Bill stepped away from the fire with a cigarette burning between two fingers. He took a drag as he walked, smoke slipping from his nose in thin streams. Calm. Rested. Like yesterday hadn’t happened at all.
Harry tracked him without moving his head.
Bill stopped in front of him, boots inches away.
For a mont he just looked.
At the bruises. The split lip. The swelling. The blood dried in Harry’s hairline.
Then Bill chuckled softly and glanced at the dirt.
"What do I even say to you, huh?"
Harry said nothing.
Bill crouched until they were eye level.
"What can a man say to sobody so determined to ruin his own life?" He shrugged. "You forced my hand. You did this to yourself."
Still nothing.
Bill smiled a little wider.
"Guess I’m the villain now."
Harry finally turned his head and looked at him directly.
There was no fear there.
That irritated Bill more than shouting ever had.
"You wanna play the quiet ga?" Bill asked.
He reached forward and pressed the lit end of the cigarette into Harry’s thigh.
The flesh hissed.
The sll ca first.
Harry’s jaw tightened once.
That was all.
No cry.
No flinch.
No sound.
Bill pulled the cigarette back slowly, studying him.
He wanted pain.
He wanted panic.
He wanted to see the boy beco what boys beca when they understood powerlessness.
Instead, Harry just stared.
Then he leaned forward as far as the rope allowed until his mouth hovered near Bill’s ear.
His voice ca rough and low.
"Screw you, asshole."
Bill didn’t move.
"You can’t break ."
Harry’s breathing touched his ear now.
"You never will."
The camp noise seed to dull around them.
Bill stayed still for a beat.
Then smiled.
Not amused.
Sothing colder.
He stood, brushed dirt from one knee, and bent back down enough to speak quietly so only Harry could hear.
"You think breaking you ans making you scream?"
Harry’s good eye narrowed.
Bill’s smile deepened.
"No. That’s easy."
He tapped Harry once on the cheek.
"Breaking you is making your mother choose."
Harry’s expression shifted for the first ti.
Small.
But real.
Bill saw it and kept going.
"Breaking you is putting food in her hands and asking whether she wants to feed her son... or feed the people who keep her alive."
Harry’s breathing changed.
Bill’s voice stayed soft.
"Breaking you is watching her stop defending you because defending you costs too much."
He leaned closer.
"Breaking you is the day she thanks for doing what your father never could."
Harry jerked hard against the rope.
Bill caught his chin in one hand.
"And when we reach Canada," he said, "I’ll have walls, guards, heat, beds."
His thumb pressed into Harry’s split lip until blood welled fresh.
"You’ll still have that eye."
Harry tried to bite him.
Bill pulled back in ti and laughed once.
Then the smile vanished.
"And if you keep barking?"
He looked toward Sheryl across camp, where she was loading blankets into a truck bed with trembling hands.
"I’ll tie you where you can hear it."
Harry went feral.
He lunged so violently the truck rocked on its suspension. Rope burned deeper into his wrists. He kicked, snarled, tried to throw himself bodily into Bill.
Two nearby n rushed over.
"Hold him!"
They grabbed Harry by the shoulders and midsection as he thrashed.
"I’ll kill you!" Harry roared, voice cracking raw. "I’ll kill you, you piece of shit!"
Bill stepped back, unfazed, adjusting his jacket.
"You hear that?" he asked the n casually. "Still got fight in him."
Harry spat blood at his boots.
Bill looked down at the spit, then back up.
"Good."
He took one final drag from the cigarette, then flicked it into the mud beside Harry’s feet.
"Need him alive."
He turned toward the camp and raised his voice.
"Everybody in the vehicles!"
Movent sharpened instantly.
Crates slamd shut. Doors opened. Packs were thrown into truck beds.
Bill looked over his shoulder at Harry.
"We leave in fifteen."
Then he added, loud enough for everyone:
"And sobody wash that boy off. He slls dead already."
A few nervous laughs ca from the camp.
Harry stopped struggling.
Not because he was beaten.
Because he was thinking.
His chest heaved. Blood ran from his lip to his chin. His wrists burned.
Across camp, his mother wouldn’t look at him.
Bill walked away giving orders like nothing had happened.
Harry watched him go with one swollen eye.
And for the first ti since being tied there, he smiled. Small. an. Dangerous.
Because now he understood sothing.
Bill thought humiliation was the end of this.
It was only the beginning.
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