But he’d never said he hadn’t kissed other women. As good as he was at it, he probably had. Maybe he was the type of man who avoided commitment but was fine seeing how many women he could have a fling with.
“We can talk about something else if you want.” The corner of Enzo’s mouth lifted in a half-grin. “We could talk about waltzing.”
Nope. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say about that subject with Callum in the backseat.
Enzo’s grin grew. “When are you planning on practicing again? I could help you.”
Yep, this was all a game to him. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her but was flirting anyway. “Thanks for your offer. I’ve decided I don’t like waltzing after all.”
“Pity. You were good at it.”
She shot him a sharp look. “I doubt you mean that. I’ve never waltzed with anyone before. You, on the other hand, have probably waltzed with more women than you remember.”
“Well, I’ll always remember waltzing with you. You shouldn’t give it up so easily.”
Why was he saying these things? Was it part of the game to reject a woman and then see if he could convince her to come back for more? Did his ego need that sort of attention?
She took off her jacket and balled it up to make a pillow. “I’m going to get some sleep while I can. I didn’t get a lot last night.”
She held her jacket to the side window, shut her eyes, and leaned against it. She wouldn’t be able to sleep, but at least this way, she didn’t have to keep talking to him.
Not long after that, the phone lost service. Callum, brimming with anticipation, had a hard time sitting still in the backseat. He kept asking if they could drive faster. “Hitting a few potholes shouldn’t hurt this truck,” he said.
“You don’t need to worry,” Enzo said. “We’ll get there in plenty of time.”
They had a couple of hours of cushion just in case they ran into any problems.
Probably to distract Callum, Enzo asked him what he would do after he recovered from surgery.
Callum already had a list. Most involved spending time with his parents, getting caught up with his friends, and eating everything he’d missed over the last nine months. “I’m also going to get a gun,” he said. “And I’ll never go anywhere without it.”
“That will be hard if you plan on returning to tech school,” Enzo said. Laws didn’t allow guns on campus.
“I don’t know if I’ll go back.” Callum’s voice turned bitter. “The government needs to protect its schools better. The slavers targeted us. They needed tech support for their organization, and they knew where to get it.”
“How did they capture you?” Enzo asked.
“I was walking home from a game with a friend. And okay, we’d been out at a party and were out past curfew, but we should’ve been fine on campus. It’s supposed to be secure. A vanpulled up to us, and a bunch of men with guns jumped out. We didn’t stand a chance.” Callum’s voice dropped. “My parents say Amir still hasn’t been found.”
“I’m sorry. Maybe the information you took from the slavers will help the authorities find him.”
“Yeah. Maybe. I’d like to see if I could track them down electronically, but my mom doesn’t want me to have anything else to do with the case. She thinks it’s too dangerous. The ironic thing is she wants me to go back to school, and that’s what put me in danger in the first place. What’s to keep another group of slavers from driving onto campus? The security guards didn’t keep them away.”
He had a point. Security guards could be bribed, threatened, or killed.
Enzo tapped his thumb against the steering wheel. “I’m not saying you made the wrong decision to get in the slavers’ van. You’re alive and on your way back to your family. But in the future, if you turn and run, there’s only a fifty percent chance they’ll shoot at you. They don’t gain much by killing you. If they do shoot, their chances of hitting you are about fifty percent, and if they hit you, you’ve still got a fifty percent chance the injury won’t be fatal. Statistically, it’s almost always better to run.”
How did Enzo know things like that? Was that the sort of thing you learned when you lived in the city? She’d always been told city dwellers were safer than country folk because they had more police around. But maybe not.
“On the other hand,” Enzo went on, “if you do get a gun, you need to learn how to use it. A lot of people hesitate to shoot another human being, and criminals know that. If you let them get close enough, they’ll snatch your gun away, and they won’t have any qualms about using it on you.”
“Good to know,” Callum said. “I’ll have to make sure I don’t hesitate.”
Chilling, but understandable.
Callum went on talking about school and whether he should go back. “I’d planned to eventually work for the government. Now I’m not sure. My parents said the authorities hardly did anything to find Amir and me. They just listed us as missing persons.”
His voice turned bitter. “When my parents’ cell phone network went down, and they lost their phone numbers, they petitioned the Communications Department to have their old numbers reinstated. They knew if I ever had a chance, I’d call them. The officials had them fill out a bunch of forms, but that was six months ago, and their petition still hasn’t been granted.”