He woke up about an hour later, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Have you been up for long?”
I nodded. “I couldn’t sleep.” He frowned at me, but I shook my head. “It’s okay. There’s only about seven hours left until Mesa Verde, and I can drive that straight.”
“No way, Z,” he said. “It’s my turn to drive. You’re not driving the whole leg. You need to rest.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he reached over and grabbed the keys from the ignition before I could stop him. “We’re not going anywhere until you switch places with me.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m not going to fight you that much. If you want to drive, you can drive.”
He smiled widely at me, the first real smile I had seen from him in days, and I found myself smiling back. He got out of the car and walked over to the driver’s side as I climbed over to the passenger seat. I buckled myself in and grabbed the map from where it had fallen on the floor.
We drove for another hour before we spoke again. Ash yawned, rubbing his eyes and looked over at me. “What’s your favorite color?”
I looked at him, surprised. “Excuse me?”
“What’s your favorite color?” he repeated, yawning even bigger than the last time.
“Are you really asking my favorite color right now?” I asked, kicking off my boots and propping my legs up on the dashboard.
“Yes,” he answered. He noticed my silence and looked over at me. “I’m tired, and I don’t want to fall asleep. And I realized that there is just so much I don’t know about you, Zoey Valentine. I want to know more.”
I paused for a long moment before I nodded. “Okay. Why not? My favorite color is orange.” He smiled widely, and I couldn’t help it; I had to smile back.
We played for about an hour before I fell asleep, right in the middle of a story about Ash’s most embarrassing moment. My sleep was restless, so I woke easily when I heard the sound of Ash’s hurried voice. “Zoey. Zoey, wake up!”
I came to with a start, looking around. “What? What is it?”
“There’s a car,” he said in a hushed voice, his hands tight on the steering wheel. He was driving faster than he had been earlier, his eyes constantly darting to the mirrors.
I felt a drop in my stomach as I turned around slowly to look out the back window of the car. There, in the just near distance, I could see the pinpricks of headlights heading in the same direction as we were. “How long have they been back there?”
“About twenty minutes,” Ash answered, his voice shaking. “I thought maybe it was just someone on the road, like us. Like that couple that gave us a ride to Constance. So I started taking random roads, random turns, and they’ve remained behind us the entire time.”
“Maybe…maybe they’re just curious about another person on the road. I mean, we’ve been driving for hours and haven’t seen anyone…” I said, my voice shaking as I watched the pinpricks grow a little larger as the vehicle grew closer.
“Yeah, maybe,” Ash said softly, his eyes flashing back and forth between the road in front of him and the rearview mirror.
They were just far enough away. “Turn off your lights, and make the first turn you can,” I instructed him.
He hesitated and then turned off the headlights, throwing us into near darkness. I was never more grateful that the jeep was black; I remember my mom wanting a yellow one. He eased the jeep off the road and began driving in the opposite direction of the highway. He drove slowly, painfully so, but I concentrated on the car that was approaching us, closer and closer. I hoped it would pass us, keep driving. It had to.
“Stop,” I said, putting my hand out. He crawled to a stop, and cut the engine. We both shifted in our seats, peering over them to look behind us. The car was crawling on the highway, moving painfully slow. They slowed, impossibly, near to a crawl, as they passed near the spot where we had driven off and continued on. I breathed a sigh of relief, but it was premature.
“Zoey,” Ash said, his voice sounding strangled. I looked at the car, and saw it was backing up, making its way off the road toward us.
“Oh god,” I said, terrified. “Oh, god. What do we do?”
He turned back in his seat, his fingers fumbling with the key at the ignition. The engine popped to life and he quickly threw it in gear and took off.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he sped away.
“I don’t know, Zoey; I have no idea, But I don’t like that this car is showing way too much interest in us, and we need to go. Now.” His hands were tight on the wheel, and I could feel the jeep protesting as the speed increased.
“How on earth are we going to lose them, Ash?” I asked, watching as the car behind us sped up, matching our speed and closing the distance between us. “We’re the only cars out here. It’s not like we can get lost with all the cars out here.”