But there were also areas of obvious poverty. Trailers and trash and trailer trash. I'd be driving along admiring the scenery and suddenly there'd be a broken-down house, a graying aluminum single-wide, or a sad, pathetic excuse for a town.
As we drove slowly through the latter, at a reasonable speed to avoid a ticket-happy smoky just waiting for an out-of-state license plate to harass, Sawyer suddenly sat bolt upright, then stuck his head out the car window, let-ting the breeze smack him in the face. If he weren't human, he'd look just like a dog. As it was, he looked just like a dog.
"What is it?" I asked, but he couldn't hear me with his head out the window.
I reached for his left shoulder, steeling myself against the brush of cool ocean water and the distant scent of blood that would signal the shift to shark. I had to wonder how often Sawyer became a shark, living in the des-ert as he did.
Before my skin touched his, he fell back into the seat. "We have to stop."
"When you gotta go, you gotta go," I said.
"What?" His eyes were intent, but not on me. On something he'd seen, heard, smelled, perhaps felt. Out there.
"That way." He pointed, voice urgent, desperate—two things Sawyer rarely was—so I followed that finger down an overgrown gravel road that led away from the town.
"What is it?" I asked.
He ignored me, staring out the windshield, practically vibrating with suppressed excitement, like a hound dog that had picked up a trail.
The trees were thick at this time of year; the branches hung low, swiping the sides of the Impala. The scent of summer—shimmering heat, fresh leaves, dandelions— raced in through the open windows. The tires crunched across the stones strewn in our path, seeming to accentuate our isolation.
It was in places like this that people died badly. Serial killers, perverts, rapists, men with hooks for arms— they all lived down overgrown roads in isolated small towns with inbred law enforcement agents who weren't bright enough to write a parking ticket let alone deal with a psychopath.
I shook my head. My imagination was far too vivid sometimes. Unfortunately my life was often even more so. There was something down here that had Sawyer quivering, which only made me want to run away and never, ever come back.
"Stop," Sawyer ordered, and I did. "Turn off the engine."
I flicked the key. Silence settled over us like a misty blue fog.
Sawyer got out of the car, closing his door carefully so that it didn't make a sound. He cast me a quick glance, and I did the same.
He jerked his head to the right, beckoned me once, then took off through the overgrowth, crouching low to avoid both tree branches and easy detection. I had little choice but to follow.
Well, I had a choice; I could stay with the car. Except that would only allow whatever was out there to catch me alone.
Wasn't going to happen.
In seconds I clung to Sawyer's heels as, head down, he made a beeline for whatever or whomever he'd found.
Ahead, the brush thinned, and I caught a glimpse of a ramshackle cabin surrounded by a scrabbly bit of yard. Sawyer stopped so fast that if I'd been only human, I would have plowed right into him. As it was, my barely clad breasts brushed his scantily clothed back. He didn't seem to notice.
I opened my mouth to ask where, when, who, how— something—and he held up a hand. Into the continued silence tumbled voices.
"You're gonna be sorry you ever came here, boy."
"Yeah, sorry."
"Don't know who you think you are just settin' your-self up in this house 'tain't yours."
Though the words were childish, the voices were those of men. Teenagers, I thought, even before Sawyer and I inched closer, then a bit to the left, to bring the posse into view.
Big, farm-bred white boys. No shock there. I doubt they had many minorities this far south of Detroit. I counted four in a semicircle around a fifth.
That fifth proved my all-white theory wrong. He was most definitely part something else, like me. Tall and skinny with it; his hands were big and his feet were big-ger. His hair was long and kinky, a mixture of browns and golds reflecting every shade of the earth and sun. He hadn't yet grown into his body or his face. When he did, he was gonna be dangerous.
Right now his nose was too prominent, as were his eyebrows, and his eyes glinted startlingly light in his darker than suntanned face. From this distance I couldn't tell if they were gray, green, or blue, and it didn't matter. Those eyes made him different in one world while his skin made him different in another.
The kid didn't speak. He held himself ready, weight forward, hands loosely clenched. His gaze remained on the biggest, loudest boy. I figured that would be the one to throw the first punch. They usually are.
I was wrong again. Or maybe not so much. The big boy sneered the N-word—a more painful strike than fists could ever be—and the skinny kid popped him in the face.
Blood spurted. "You broke my nose."
The breeze kicked up, stirring my hair but not the trees.
Marbas, Ruthie whispered.