Page 78 of Senseless
Shadow and I continued to follow the winding road, he seemed none the wiser about my out-of-body experience. My aerial gaze lifted to the horizon ahead of us, where the sun was nearly disappearing behind the mountains.
There.
The shock of it sent me jolting back to my own body, my arms jerking around Shadow as I took a great, gasping breath.
“You okay?” I heard him over the wind whipping past us and felt the squeeze of his hand.
“Stop the bike.” I lifted from my seat to yell in his ear, clutching tightly to his leather jacket.
He slowed immediately, pulling us over to the shoulder, then turned around to face me when we stopped. “What’s wrong?”
“We have to go a different way,” I said, still catching my breath. The ground and sky tilted dangerously in my vision, like the sudden return to land from air had given me vertigo.
Shadow’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know if there is. We have to go through either New Ireland or Jerriton to reach Four Corners. This road is mostly abandoned—“
“It’s not,” I insisted. “There’s an army a few miles up ahead. I saw them through Horus.”
“An army?” Shadow turned more to face me head-on, his face hardening with concern. “How many, could you tell?” It was strangely comforting that he didn’t find anything weird about me seeing through the falcon.
“I dunno, thousands.” I shook my head. “They stretched all across the landscape as far as Horus could see, forming a long, unbroken line.”
“Fuck.” Shadow’s fist clenched as he realized the severity of this news. “Were they moving? Or camped out?”
“They were moving,” I said, my gut churning. “Heading west, toward Four Corners.”
Twenty-Four
SHADOW
We’d be fucked if we got within sight of that army. I cut the engine after pulling over, oppressive silence filling in the space in my head as I tried to think of our next options.
“So we have to head north or south to try to get around them,” I mused.
“South wouldn’t be good,” Mari said. “We’d have to cross into Mexico and could end up captured there too. You never know who border patrol is working for.”
“North, then.” I stroked my beard, turning my body in that direction. “Into Jerriton.”
Mari looked concerned. “How bad do you think it is up there?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “The territory only fell under General Tash’s control recently, so his hold may not be as well established as New Ireland.”
“Sounds like it’s our best chance.” Mari was looking past me to the horizon, the warm glow of the sunset on her skin slowly fading as dusk approached. “You don’t think we’re too late, do you?”
“No.” I touched her cheek, bringing her attention back to me. “If you saw them only a few miles away, they’re not in Four Corners yet. But we have to move fast.”
Mari nodded, accepting a quick kiss from me before I turned back around and started the bike up again.Thank you, Jandro,I thought to myself as I turned off the interstate, accelerating over the untamed desert wilderness.You kept my off-road tires on. I owe you, friend.
The world fell into darkness quickly, with my headlight bouncing over the landscape as the only light source. I had to find a north-bound road at some point to not totally kill my tires, but staying off the road would help us get into Jerriton undetected.
We rode north for a few hours, the cold biting hard at my nose and ears. Mari slid her arms under my shirt for extra warmth, but I could still feel her fingers trembling. As the night wore on, I felt her grip on me loosen from fatigue and knew we had to stop.
She was already nodding off, jerking up when the bike came to a complete stop with nothing but dark desert in all directions.
“Why are we stopping?” Mari mumbled against the back of my shoulder.
“Because you need to rest. I don’t need you falling off and becoming roadkill.” I swung a leg over to dismount then lifted her out of my seat by her waist. She smiled groggily and I thought back to the moment she told me she liked when I picked her up. “Can you handle unrolling the sleeping bag while I start a fire?”
“Uh-huh,” she said with a yawn.
