Page 6 of Kane

“Then what’s your name, darlin’?”

I hiss. “I amnotyourbabe, or yourdarling, or yoursweetheart.” I lift my chin, square my shoulders. “I am Anjalee Sharma.”

Usually, that gets a response.

From him? Nothing.

“Okay, then, Anjalee Sharma. Let me explain some shit to you.” The shape of him moves, and I see the shadow of his paw swipe along the road, in the direction I was going. “That way? More like three hundred miles to anything that would do any good.” Another swipe, the other way. “That way? Vegas, baby. Back where you came from, and whatever andwhoeveryou’re runnin’ away from.”

I swallow. “I…oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Something rough, big, and strong wraps around my hand—his paw. And it is truly a paw, not a hand. It is all callus, all strength, and so big he could probably hold both of my hands in one of his. “So. You got three choices, way I figure. One, keep walking. But, I warn you—you’ll freeze your tits off, and then when the sun comes up in a few hours, you’ll burn to a crisp, and then you’ll die of thirst. Someone may go by and save you, but it ain’t likely they’ll get to you before you’re frozen stiff, sunburnt, and beggin’ for water.”

“How can I freeze my…” I refuse to say the word he used, so I reroute. “How can I freeze in the desert?”

“It’s a desert, Anjalee. Once the sun’s gone, the heat has nowhere to go. It’ll get cold enough to turn you into a popsicle before it gets hot again.”

“Oh.”

“Right, oh.” He turns me, his hand waving toward the Monster. “Door number two, go sit in your car and wait for rescue, likely from whoever you’re running away from.”

“Thatisnotan option.”

“Well, then, that leaves door number three.”

“Which is?”

“Me.”

I shiver—his voice is close, so close I almost feel it in my belly. “You.”

“Yeah, me.”

“And what will you do for me, Mr. Kane?”

“Just Kane, Anjalee. And what I’ll do is keep you warm, keep you safe, bring you somewhere in the mornin’ and feed you, get you where you wanna go.”

“As you pointed out, Kane, it is the desert. How do you plan to keep me warm?”

“You pickin’ door number one or two?”

I lift my chin. “No.”

He pulls me by my hand, off the road. I stumble as my feet hit dirt, and I trip over something. He keeps me upright. “Then you’re with me.”

I stumble after him. He seems able to see in the darkness, for he does not trip, but rather weaves effortlessly around shrubs and rocks.

“Where are we going?”

He does not answer. After a minute or two of walking, I see a glow, dim and orange, flickering and moving in the distance. He leads me to the glow—which, as we approach, turns out to be a very small fire burning inside a ring of rocks. It is so small I could hold it in my two cupped palms, but it is a fire, and as we near it, I feel its warmth, and I realize I am in fact quite cold. Shivering, if I am being honest.

There is a large boulder near the fire, reflecting its heat and light. Beside it, a motorcycle. I know nothing of such machines, but it appears to me to be quite old. It has large black leather bags on either side of the rear tire, with tassels of leather and bright silver rivets. It has two seats, one far forward for the rider, a second farther back over the rear wheel, with a backrest. Behind the backrest a sleeping bag is rolled up and tied down.

Kane moves into the light of the fire, bending over the motorcycle and rummaging in one of the bags; he comes up with something in his hands, turning to face me.

I gasp, audibly, when I see him in the light. He’s very tall—I am five feet and nine inches in my bare feet, and this man is several inches taller than me. But his size is not in his height. He is truly a giant. He is two of me in width, and that is all in his shoulders and chest. Thick, wide, broad, dense. This man is a walking sculpture of muscle—like a bull. His arms rival my waist, and his thighs are thicker yet. His shoulders are round and heavy. His waist is trim, narrow—from his shoulders to his waist is a sharp V, tapering from the frightening enormity of his shoulders, chest, and the thick muscles underneath his armpits down to his narrow hard hips. He’s wearing a green T-shirt that wraps like a second skin around his torso. His belly, inside the stretchy shirt, is not flat. It is not fat, I can tell, but rather so much dense abdominal muscle that it’s a thick bulging band around his middle.

He wears jeans, old and faded, clinging to his thighs, with rips above the knee, not artful or expensive but merely old. Beneath that, American cowboy boots, faded brown, scratched, dirty, faded, battered. He wears a black hat turned backward, thick wavy blond hair hanging nearly to his shoulders, curling around his neck. His beard is short on the sides and about an inch long under his chin, trimmed into a U-shape under his hard, rugged jawline. He wears a checkered scarf around his neck, like I see on men from Arabic countries on the news.