Stained (7 page)

While she gathered their few belongings, Cayne "borrowed" a sleek black Infiniti. She met him in the parking lot and whistled.

"Wow."

"You like my ride?"

Julia rolled her eyes and opened the passenger door. She wondered, as she buckled in, when the owner would realize his or her car was missing. She thought about asking Cayne, but he was intent on figuring out his seatbelt, so she closed her eyes, folded her arms, and relished that new car smell.

Then her head banged into the window. Julia shrieked as the car shot out the parking deck and jumped a curb. A glance at Cayne showed him wide-eyed with teeth bared, wresting with the steering wheel like it was a living thing.

"STOP!"

The car spun past an open-mouthed valet and barely missed a limo.

"Crap! The breaks! Hit the breaks!"

But he stomped the pedal again, and they lurched through a gate and crashed into Union Avenue.

Like a lightning bolt, it struck her that he didn't know gas from breaks. "The one on the left!" she shouted. "Left!"

Cars, trucks, and vans sped toward them, and as their horns blared Julia went limp. She clamped her eyes shut and screamed, "ON THE LEFT!"

Their car spun, breaks squealed, metal crunched metal. Nothing touched them.

When Julia opened her eyes they were parallel with the curb on the other side of the street, facing a stream of oncoming traffic. Cayne seemed confused; he was peering at the speedometer. Julia couldn't stop shaking. Even her teeth knocked together.

The wailing sirens snapped her out of it.

"Crap."

Cayne glanced at her. "Did I do it wrong?"

"Yes!" Julia threw her door open, heedless of the van beside her. It swerved into the other lane, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the nose of a black Mustang kiss the trunk of a beige Corolla. The sirens were closer. "Crap!"

She ran around the car, flung Cayne's door open, and grabbed his arm, slinging him out of the seat. "Other side! Put it in park first!"

He opened his mouth, but Julia shoved him. "Go around! Get in the passenger's seat!"

He did, and she slid behind the wheel. "Listen," she said, waving at the trail of cars before shifting into reverse. "We want to get let into traffic. Then we need to get out of here fast."

Cayne nodded, and the cars did what she wanted. What he desired. Everyone stopped to let them in, and then moved to the right lane, leaving the left open for Julia. To fly. She didn't breathe again until I-55 North, and when she did, she had to refrain from screaming.

"Cayne," she said, breaking a long, tired silence, "when exactly is the last time you drove?"

"I don't think I ever have."

"
Never
?"

He looked chagrinned. "Yeah."

She shook her head, unable for a moment to comprehend. "You have never driven a car? Never ever. Ever. Driven a car."

Cayne rubbed his head.

If she hadn't been driving, Julia would have stared. Heck, she stared anyway. And he stared back. Face innocent. Eyes challenging. For a moment, she was speechless. Then she was rambling--cruel, sarcastic. And then she started laughing. The giggles bubbled through her body, soothing her nerves, loosening the knots in her chest. Cayne chuckled with her.

"I didn't think it would be that hard," he admitted.

Julia cackled again. It went on longer than it should have--nerves.

"How is it," she asked when her cheeks stopped hurting and she could breathe again, "that you never learned to drive?"

He shrugged. "Just never learned."

Chapter 10

The sun was almost kissing the horizon; it painted the road pink, like cotton candy. Carnival tents sprung up to the right, outside a small strip mall, just far enough away to be tempting. Julia ignored them. She had her own freak show.

"So you don't ever eat
anything
but crap? No fruits and veggies?"

"Nope."

"Not even apples?"

"Nope."

"What's wrong with apples?"

Cayne's lip curled. "They taste like sweet tree bark."

Julia laughed. "You eat bark, do you?"

"Who doesn't?"

"Um, normal people. They eat fruit, too. And salads.
And
they drive."

"What are you trying to say?"

"That you're a strange one, bark boy."

Cayne frowned. "Leaf me alone."

It was laugh-out-loud corny, and Julia giggled for a full minute. She sighed when she finally got herself under control. She was comfortable. Things were okay. Maybe that was why she hadn't yet pressed Cayne about any of her pressing questions that remained unanswered. She wanted things to go on as they were.

After they'd escaped Memphis, they spent four mostly silent hours in the car, and the craziness of what Julia was doing hit home. She was going who-knew-where with who-knew-who--who couldn't drive but could control people's minds--in search of a demon that had tried to kill her, and would probably love to try again. Wasn't that enough to swallow? She didn't really need to know more, at least not quite yet.

Julia drove faster than she ever had, counting on Cayne to keep the cops away. When her energy finally waned, somewhere in Southern Missouri, she pulled off the Interstate and into the almost-empty parking lot of a hotel called the Lucky Deuce. She was going to have to teach Cayne how to drive.

Julia explained the pedals, the blinkers, ten and two, stoplights and stop signs, merging, even parallel parking--everything she could think of. She felt a sharp prick of sorrow when she realized she was teaching him the way Suzanne had taught her just a year before. Mr. Perceptive noticed, but he didn't press.

Fifteen minutes later, she gave him a passing grade, and after convincing him to stay under 90 miles per hour (too fast for her liking, but a whole lot better than 100), her shoulders began to unknot.

She passed the time trying to get to know Cayne. Of course, she couldn't ask any of her burning questions. Not until she buttered him up. So she spent an hour lobbing softballs. Sure, she was interested in his favorite animal (the leopard), but after an hour learning his likes--rare steak; pizza with anchovies; reading mysteries (how fitting); '60s and '70s rock, especially The Rolling Stones (and especially the song
Sympathy for the Devil
); Vilvaldi's "Four Seasons"; bagpipes; the first few weeks of Fall--and his dislikes--nearly every vegetable; every fruit; rain clouds; crossword puzzles (he claimed he didn't understand any of the pop questions); and technically television, since he didn't care enough to watch it--she was ready for something meatier.

Julia yawned through her giggles. The ride was so smooth she could have fallen asleep. It had been that way since Cayne took the wheel, and she wondered if he had some sort of put-people-to-sleep-through-driving power. He was good.
Too
good.

"So you've really never done this before?" she asked as she stretched her arms.

"Had a conversation?"

Julia rolled her eyes. "Driven."

"Never."

"Hmph. Boy Wonder."

"What?"

"You're a prodigy."

"Oh?"

"Very impressive."

Cayne nodded. "I'm forced to agree."

"You're very humble, too."

He winked. "Very."

Julia giggled, and had to resist the urge to touch his arm. It was weird.

The flashing lights of the city had faded away, and rows of fir trees shadowed the land that framed the road. Julia remembered her first Christmas with Harry and Suzanne, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth. She searched for something to clear her mental pallet, but everything brought her back to the life she'd lost. Thoughts of friends were no good, so school was out. And of course Harry and Suzanne were way off limits.

She glanced at Cayne and imagined his face covered with ice cream. He loved the stuff, and could never pass up a chance to get a few free cones.

It was their last day in Memphis, and they were at the zoo. He was being difficult--she couldn't remember how--and she'd decided to smash his cone into his face. She'd laughed at his floored expression, and he chased her, trying but failing to replicate her feat.

Julia smiled.

Of course then they'd left, and their path took them to the park where Cayne got shot. More bad memories.

She wrapped her arms around herself, remembering how helpless she'd felt.

"Cayne?"

"Mmmm?"

"About yesterday..." He tensed, but Julia was determined to get at least one question answered. She chose the one she thought was safest. "How did that guy manage to shoot you?"

"He pulled a trigger."

"That's not what I meant. How did he do something that you didn't want him to do?"

"I assume because I didn't want to be involved."

Julia waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't seem to want to do that either. She sighed. "Well, how do you feel now?"

"Fine." He stared straight out, lips pressed flat. Then took one hand off the wheel and turned to face her. "Turn on the light."

Julia did, and he pulled up his shirt. His hand rested atop a shiny pink scar just below his ribcage. "See?"

She couldn't help gaping, though she'd expected it. "Wow."

Cayne arched a brow and turned the light back off. Julia laid her head on the window. "I guess you wouldn't want to explain--"

"You guessed right."

Julia poked out her bottom lip. "You don't trust me," she said, and the hurt in her voice was more real than she meant it to be.

"I'm not
that
easy to trick."

She snorted. "I hadn't noticed."

He smiled softly. "It has nothing to do with you."

"But it affects me."

"I know it does."

His admission took Julia's curiosity to wild new levels, but what could she do? Cayne's brow furrowed.

"You know," he began, and Julia held her breath. "Now that I think about it," he said, "I like grape juice. Does that count as a fruit?"

The trees gave way to fields of moon-white corn. Julia imagined stopping at one of the brightly lit farmhouses that winked at the road. She wondered what the night would look like from behind the panes of an attic window. She on a straw mattress, Cayne a silent shadow above her.

They hadn't spoken since the moon rose, but it was a cozy kind of silence. Julia loved the way the dim light glistened on streams and tractors and grain silos. The way it turned his skin white.

"Cayne?"

"Yeah."

"Are you tired of driving?"

He shook his head.