I eased in, careful of the leather seats and grateful for the shade above the gas pumps. He opened the bag to reveal packages of beef jerky, Corn Nuts, Doritos, Combos, sunflower seeds, sour berries, honey mustard pretzels, Reese’s Pieces, a few cans of Red Bull, and a banana. “The banana is for you,” he said.
“Fuck that, give me the Corn Nuts.” I reached in and snatched it out, along with the sour berries and a can of Red Bull. Who the hell eats a banana when they’re on the run?
I put The Dead Weather’s Horehound on the mp3 and the dissonant chords of “Treat Me Like Your Mother” came blaring out of the speakers.
“Getaway soundtrack?” Camden asked as we zoomed onto Highway 95 and headed north toward hills of craggy red rock.
“Gotta have fun when you can,” I told him with a smile. The getaway was the best part. It was the only time I felt remotely free. I started singing along with the song, doing my best Alison Mosshart impression, which I must say was pretty good. I’d perfected her a long time ago; seemed I was always running from something.
“Look me in the eye now, you want to try and tell a lie?” I sang.
And to my surprise, as soon as Jack White’s vocals started, Camden jumped right in. I eyed him appreciatively, impressed that he knew the words. Soon we were singing, shouting, shaking our heads, spelling out the word “Manipulate.”
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
The sing-along continued until just past the town of Needles. It was nice to pretend we were just taking a road trip or something, fiddling with a playlist and fighting over who got to eat what junk food. It some ways, it felt as natural as the date we had gone on, as natural as the friendship we once had. But, as Mosshart and White had sung, it was all a lie. And it was too late for anything else.
We pulled into a deserted rest area that consisted of a public restroom that had seen better days, a patch of brown grass, and picnic tables surrounded by a chain link fence that protected the place from the barren wasteland beyond it.
“I need to stretch my legs,” I told him, shutting off the car and walking with my arms above my head over to the picnic tables. The sun was lower in the sky but it was still hot as hell. I brought out my cell and checked to see if Jim had gotten back to me. He hadn’t. Okay, now I was starting to worry.
“What’s wrong?” Camden asked, approaching me. He looked so sincere and concerned, like a sexy, worried nerd. There weren’t too many like that.
I straightened out my back and put my phone away. “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You mean besides the very, very obvious?”
“Haven’t heard back from Uncle Jim yet,” I said softly.
He walked up to me and grabbed my hand, squeezing. He peered down at me, and with the way his eyes glinted behind his glasses, I had another one of those flashbacks to high school.
“He’ll be fine,” he told me.
“How do you know? Usually he texts me back right about now.”
“I don’t know. But I choose to believe he’ll be fine, because as selfish as this sounds, we need to worry about us right now. Worrying means nothing if we’re dead.”
“Are you scared?” I asked him.
“I’m fucking terrified, Ellie,” he said. From appearances he looked so strong and put together—tattoos will add toughness to anyone—but I knew better than that.
“Me too.”
“We might be scared of the same thing.”
“You should be afraid of the people whose money you just stole, not Javier. If he ever catches up to us, there’ll be no more us. He only wants me, and I’ll do whatever I can to keep you out of it.”
He stroked his chin in bemusement. “I was pretty sure you’d bring me down with you.”
“Believe it or not, that’s not my style.”
“Well, I haven’t seen any car for quite some time, let alone the same car. I think it’s safe to say he’s not following us. Do you mind telling me where we are going?”
“Laughlin, Nevada,” I said, deciding to trust him a little. Besides, I still had his phone and I’d keep watching him like a hawk. I pulled my hand out of his and walked back to the car. He followed behind me.
“Doing some gambling?”
“We are. Just try not to bet the house.”
***
The Avi Resort and Casino was just outside of Laughlin in Nevada at the weird corner where the state met California and Arizona. It wasn’t anything fancy, just one of those big interchangeable casino resorts that you could find on any Nevada highway. The Avi though, had a casual atmosphere and was popular with families thanks to its sprawling pool and the mighty Colorado River which swept past their private, manmade beach. The casino also paid out pretty well and was the perfect place for two ordinary twenty-somethings like ourselves to win big.