“We've got to put some road behind us, babe.”
A rabbit paused in the middle of the road behind them, and Wiley raised his hand and pointed the pistol between its two erect ears. “Pow,” he said, and chortled. They got in the car, tires chewing grass and gravel as it slid onto the road. Sleepy again, she leaned her head against his shoulder.
The clock on the dashboard ticked off the passing of another hour. “How long you think we got? He's waking up, getting ready for his day. You left the note, right?”
“Don't worry. He'll be thrilled I left early for school. Like he finally got through to me about my grades. People'll believe anything when they think they're the ones causing all the changes.”
Flexing his fingers around the wheel, Wiley appeared to be formulating his next question rather than listening to her answer. “Your mum comes home by dinner today—”
“Trust me, it'll be tonight. They won't think to call Joyce about me sleeping over till tomorrow. Even if the police figure out what happened, we'll be long gone.”
“Twenty-four hours, baby. They wait twenty-four hours. Vanished.” He flipped down the visor, twisted it to the right to protect against the slanting morning sunlight. “And we will move through the people like fish in the sea.” A few miles later, she fell asleep again. Shadows cast by the trees raced across her face, and patches of October sunshine flattened her features, eyes closed and mouth agape, so that she appeared two-dimensional, a pie plate, a cartoon. As they drifted south, he'd steal a glance from time to time, and seeing her so, he was dumbfounded by the way she became a caricature of her waking self. He was already wondering if she had what it takes to be a true revolutionary.
2
She loved to play with his dick, and that was the beginning and end of all her trouble. The first time had been on the bus back from a school trip to Hershey late at night. She took off her sweater and laid it like a blanket across their laps, and as the wheels rolled and bumped along the turnpike, she slid her hand undercover and unzipped his fly, exposed and fondled him, all the while talking of roller coasters and Ferris wheels, how the whole town smelled of chocolate and how such sweetness was bound to cloy after the initial thrill. She kept up the conversation to throw off the other kids in the seats around them, and he kept staring at his reflection in the darkened window, enjoying her attention even more by having to feign disinterest, when every molecule was focused on her fingertips until he could stand the caresses no longer and tore his gaze from the black landscape to kiss her and gently pull her hand from beneath the cloth.
“But Wiley…”
“That was nice,” he said. “Too nice for a time like this.” He leaned his head against the glass, and Erica sidled closer, resting against his shoulder, quietly allowing time and space to roll by.