Page 75 of Never Lost

“Almost?” She laughed, and for a second, I could almost hear her brother’s sardonic voice echo in hers. “I know you’re lying, even about that, but I’ll take it.” She put a finger to her mouth quizzically. “The question is, can you do it?”

“Do what, ma’am?”

“Fuck me, without thinking of her.”

Oh.

21

HER

“Why’d you let him go?” I asked. I threw open the door and sucked in a lungful of warm, dry air. I might as well get out of this rattletrap piece of shit. It was as dead as we were about to be.

Max scanned the horizon, his jaw setting firmer by the second. “Because at this point, we’re better off without him.”

“But—”

“Even he’s not dumb enough to commit suicide out there. He knows where he’s going. And so do I now.”

“Where?”

“The old Cebolla Canyon copper mine.” His jaw tightened further.

“Why—oh, shit. The one with the uprising. Your father owned it,” I said in horror. Erica Muller’s syllabus had struck again.

He nodded. “Hell, I thinkIstill own it, technically.” His voice grated with a weariness that was utterly new from him, at least in the brief time in which we’d interacted. “He used to take methere when I was a kid so I could watch the slaves be worked to death. And sometimes tortured, if he really wanted to pull out all the stops for his number one son.”

Revulsion twisted my stomach. I stared at him, Resi’s half-brother. For fuck’s sake, this family. “Other kids get taken to ballgames,” I said. “The park. The zoo.”

“So I hear. Come on. Grab the water.”

“What about the ice packs? The?—”

“Take only what you know you can carry. I’ve got flashlights. Knives. Tools. Guns.”

“Guns, plural?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “How far is it?”

He pointed southwest. “About eight miles that way.”

“Eightmiles?” I demanded. “I don’t have any faith in my ability to go eight feet.”

“Neither do I. Remember, I had to carry you to the car. And don’t forget, thanks to our departed traveling companion, Resi will most likely be ready and waiting to kill you when we arrive.”

“Thanks for that.”

“No problem. Let’s go.”

I grabbed the water bottle from the back seat, took a quick swig, and handed it to him. He did the same, capped it, and started walking.

Sand dunes rose and fell like waves. The occasional howl of a coyote or hoot of an owl echoed as my feet sank into the sand with each step, my legs weighed down by lead. I’d brought no ice, no salve.Take only what you know you can carry.

Water. That kept me alive, so that was all I took.

A lizard skittered across a stone, the only other sign of life. The moon cast long shadows, illuminating the sharp edges of rocks and the occasional valiant patch of mesquite. Other than that, it had been drained dry of life, Max explained, leached out of it by runoff from the mine. In other words, his family legacy had basically killed everything and everyone it ever touched.

“And that’s why I’m in therapy,” he concluded.

Max walked a few paces ahead, scanning the horizon. His hand rested on his gun.