The please does it. Z snaps his mouth shut and slams back against the seat, arms crossed angrily over his chest.
Harper tilts her chair back slightly, closes her eyes, and within minutes, is snoring softly. They’re these huffing sounds that come at regular little intervals and shouldn’t be as endearing as they are.
This also effectively leaves me and Z alone in the car.
The little clock light from the second-hand stereo we rigged to fit in the dash cast everything in blue-green. I can see Harper’s face in profile—relaxed in sleep in a way she never is awake. My hands tighten on the steering wheel.
I don’t actually dare turn any music on. I don’t want to risk waking her. She does need the rest. But Z clearly doesn’t share my concern for her comfort.
“What the fuck did you people do to brainwash her?” His voice cuts through the engine’s rumble.
I glance in the rearview mirror. Z’s glaring at me, arms still crossed, his jaw tight. There’s a fresh bruise blooming under his left eye from where Frank threw him down, and blood has dried at the corner of his mouth.
“Nobody could brainwash Harper,” I say evenly. “You know her better than that.”
“I sure as fuckthoughtI did,” he mutters, bitter and low.
“We should be quiet.” I keep my voice soft. Reasonable. “Let her sleep.”
“I know what she needs a hell of a lot better than you do,” Z says, louder now, angrily. Loud enough that Harper startles awake with a sharp inhale.
“What’s going on?” She sits up fast, disoriented, eyes darting between us.
I glare in the rearview at Z.Asshole.
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “We just hit a small bump in the road.”
Harper’s eyes narrow slightly—she knows I’m lying—but she’s too tired to call me on it. She settles back, closes her eyes again, and within minutes her breathing evens out.
Z shuts his mouth after that. Smart choice.
We ride in silence for hours. Just the hum of the engine, the whisper of tires on asphalt, and the occasionalsemi blowing past in the opposite lane with a rush of displaced air that rocks the Mustang slightly.
The Texas night is endless. Dark sky, darker land, interrupted only by the occasional gas station or all-night diner glowing like a beacon. I keep the speedometer steady at five miles over the limit—fast enough to make good time, not fast enough to risk getting pulled over and having to explain why three teenagers are driving around at midnight.
I don’t regret my quick thinking back at Frank’s trailer, standing up to that piece of shit. I don’t even regret the way my hands shook afterward, or the adrenaline crash that hit me the second we made it to the tree line.
It gets Harper back home where she belongs.
My only regret is the leech hitching a ride with us.
Maybe Harper can’t see what kind of guy Z is, but I clocked him the second we all stopped long enough to catch our breath.
Angry dude. Possessive eyes.
Look, I get he was in a bad situation. But it’s Harper I care about. And she’s too soft-hearted underneath all that armor. Yeah, yeah. She’d punch me if she ever heard me describe her that way. But beneath her tough exterior and all the fuck-yous and the sarcasm and the cigarettes she smokes to look dangerous, she’s a softie. I’ve seen her with that cat and with how protective she’s been of that younger girl, Marie, who I think was having a tough time before Harper folded her into our friend group.
She’s got so much love to give.
My jaw flexes as my headlights pierce thedark, and as I hit the long stretch of highway between Lufkin and Dallas—nothing but pine trees and darkness for miles—I have to remind myself to be careful with her heart. With such a soft, generous heart hidden under all that scar tissue, I have to remember that she doesn’t see herself the way I do.
She thinks she’s so cold-hearted and hard, when really she’s the kind of person who spends all her lunch money to save up for a bus ticket to rescue her best friend. Who screamed and jumped and clawed at a window trying to protect someone she loves.
She clearly needs the rest because she sleeps the whole way back. She doesn’t stir when I adjust the temperature, or when I stop for gas in Tyler and carefully tuck my jacket over her shoulders because it’s gotten cold out. And you can believe I feel Z’s eyes burning into the side of my head at that little move.
It only takes four hours to get home when I’m not wandering back roads and stopping for long meals.
Three hours and forty-eight minutes, to be exact. 228 minutes. 13,680 seconds.