Page 102 of His to Burn

And then we were outside.

The early morning air was thick, clinging to me like a second skin. It seemed some of the fires had gone out, but smoke and soot still hung in the air.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We kept moving, the stink of rot chasing us with every step.

I breathed in shallow breaths and tried to ignore the stench.

When we were about a mile away from the body shop, the sun began to rise.

“Beautiful sunrise,” Asia said.

She sounded wistful, but I didn’t ask her to explain why.

It didn’t matter.

All that mattered was staying alive.

She walked next to me, her expression tight.

“What are we going to do, Jackson?” she said quietly.

She looked at me for a moment, her expression solemn, and then she shook her head.

“Sorry. That’s a lot to put on you.”

I shrugged. “Don’t worry about it,” I said.

And I meant it, too.

I still didn’t understand why, but making sure Asia was okay was important to me.

She would be.

I promised myself.

I knew her well enough to know that asking for help wasn’t easy for her, so the fact that she did now was a testament to her intelligence.

That’s all it was. It didn’t say anything about me.

I told myself that was good because I would be gone soon enough, nothing but a distant memory if I was lucky.

That was good enough.

“Should we check out that restaurant?”

I started to say we should keep moving, but she looked at me, and lifted her lips in a wry smile.

She cleared her throat. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said.

I nodded sharply, and we carefully made our way to the restaurant.

It was a detached building that looked like it had been a drug store in another life.

I didn’t like how close it was to the road, but it was quiet.

Too quiet.