21. Utah

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

utah

“ I know you opened it,” Memphis hissed as soon as she set foot in the kitchen with us, and I spit my coffee right across the countertop.

“I didn’t,” I choked out and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth.

“What’d you open?” Indy asked.

“Nothing. I didn’t open anything.”

I absolutely had opened it.

And I had zero regrets about that.

What I had were questions, but this was most certainly not the time for that. I wasn’t going to make a habit out of lying to her. I’d come clean eventually. This just wasn’t the time to ask about her sex toys. I wanted real answers and there was no chance she’d give me those yet.

Indy had been around long enough to know he wouldn’t get anything out of me, so he turned his attention to Memphis.

“What’d he open?”

“My…box.”

And more coffee went flying across the countertop while Indy laughed.

“Well, you’re both consenting adults. I guess as long as you’re using protection, I don’t see why he can’t play with your box.”

“Indy,” she snapped, while I choked to death.

“ Indy !?” he repeated in a high-pitched screech. “I didn’t go near your…box.”

“I hate it here,” she said and slumped down into the chair next to Indy to lie her forehead down on the countertop.

“One of you is coming with me to go after Tennessee,” I said to try to get us back on track. “I’m not getting caught in the middle of your disagreements again.”

“So, Memphis then?” Indy asked. “More box time?”

She raised her head just long enough to glare at him before she stood up and went for the hallway.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To get ready to go find Tennessee. Anywhere is better than here right now.”

“I thought you weren’t leaving until tomorrow?” Indy asked.

“That was the plan,” I laughed. “Apparently, it’s happening now.”

“I will start looking for him then,” Indy added and opened his computer another time. “Really though, what box are we talking about? What’s in it?”

“Sorry, man. Not with this one.”

He looked up from his computer another time. “Boy, you do have it bad for her, huh?”

“I’m going to get ready myself. Let me know when you find him, Indy.”

We were on our way to Ohio a couple hours later.

From one corn-filled state to the next.

It usually took quite a bit to make me uncomfortable in any situation. I spent too many of my early years in constant chaos, fear, and heartbreak. I’d made a very conscious decision not to spend the rest of my life that way once I realized I was truly the only one responsible for the choices I made and the actions that I took.

But the ride in the truck this time around came with nothing but tension. Memphis hadn’t said a word to me since the conversation in the kitchen with Indy. She had her computer open in her lap and she was very much immersed in whatever she was doing on it.

“They’re not Executioners,” she whispered and slammed her computer closed a second later. She laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.

“Problem?”

She jolted back upright like I’d scared her, like she’d managed to forget that I was the one driving the vehicle she was riding in. She shook her head before she started chewing on her thumbnail.

“The trafficking side,” she finally said. “They’re not Executioners.”

“You don’t think our President is involved in it anymore?”

“He is,” she said. “Just in a way that I’m not seeing clearly yet. He’s not using our part of the organization for whatever that is. Something else entirely. Its own entity. That’s why we can’t narrow it down to a specific Executioner or Judge. It’s not them at all. That’s why none of us knew about it. It wasn’t us .”

“So, where do we start?” I asked.

“Scream into the void,” she whispered. “See what screams back.”

“Maybe don’t do that. I’m not really in the mood to play with Satan today.”

She sighed. “Me either. Summoning him takes a lot of my energy.”

She smiled at me before she laid her head back against the seat again and shifted to look out the window.

So much pressure on a single person.

And Memphis took it all so very seriously. Like everything that was happening here was deeply personal to who she was and her ability to continue existing. This girl who didn’t seem to know how to just live for the sake of being alive.

I pulled the truck into what looked like an abandoned airfield, complete with a couple of very rundown hangars.

“I don’t want to dance right now, Utah,” she said on a sigh.

I laughed while I put the truck in park and got out to go around to open her door.

“We’re not dancing. You’re going to drive.”

“I am not going to drive,” she said quickly. “We don’t have time for this. We have things to do, Utah.”

“Then you better try your hand at not being a stubborn little shit for a few minutes and try driving quickly so we can get back on schedule.”

She glared at me after that.

And when I held my hand out toward her to encourage her to get out of the truck, she unbuckled her seat belt and crawled across the middle seat to get behind the wheel rather than getting out of the truck the way that I was suggesting.

Because she didn’t actually know how to not be a stubborn little shit. Something about it was obviously hardwired right into her DNA.

I shut myself in the passenger’s side and waited for a moment while she looked across the dashboard and touched the wheel and the gearshift.

“Do we have to do this right?—”

“I am not going to sit here while you get on the Internet and research driving,” I interrupted and laughed. “You can do this, angel. You can learn as you go and just be in this moment with me. I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

“If I hear condescension in your tone one more time, I will get out and walk the rest of the way.”

I laughed again. “You can get out, but you won’t be walking anywhere, sweetheart. I’m a decent enough man, but I’m not above tying you up and tossing you in the backseat if it means keeping you safe and with me.”

The bright pink tint that her cheeks took on after that left me dumbfounded for a few seconds, while the ogre portion of my brain demanded that I ask her if she enjoyed the thought of me tying her up as much as I did.

“Just tell me what to do so we can get back on track,” Memphis demanded. I had to shake my brain loose to make it remember how to drive. I leaned across the middle seat to start pointing out the different gauges across the dash.

“You’re in park now. This P,” I said and pointed to the light. “When you’re ready to move, put your foot on the brake and grab this lever. You’ll move it down until the D lights up to go forward. Or until the R lights up if you’re going in reverse. This one is how fast you’re going?—”

“Really? The one labeled MPH? I thought that was there to tell me how happy or sad your truck was.”

When I turned my head to glare at her, she started squirming immediately just because she was suddenly aware of how close I was to her.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Please, keep going.”

“Uh huh,” I mumbled. “Brake’s on the left. Use your right foot for both it and the gas.”

“The gas?”

“The accelerator, ” I said and rolled my eyes. “The one that’s going to make you move. Call it whatever you want, sassy britches. Once you put it into gear and take your foot off the brake, the truck will start rolling.”

“The gears, the brake, the accelerator, the speed,” she said. “You’ve explained four whole things. Why are there nine million other buttons and lights?”

“They tell you how happy the truck is,” I said and reached across her to grab the seatbelt to buckle her in while she scowled at me. “I’m only kind of fucking with you,” I laughed. “Oil pressure, engine revolutions, engine temperature, tire pressure. A lot of it really is whether or not the truck needs something or if there’s an issue. You ready?”

“No,” she said instantly.

“You’re going to do it anyway, angel.”

I watched her raise both hands to grab either side of the wheel until her knuckles turned white and she forced a giant breath out of her body. I put my hand over her right one for just a second.

“You don’t have to be afraid of it just because you didn’t master it ahead of time, Memphis. Nothing out here is going to hurt you.”

“There’s no way you could know that. That’s when the worst things seem to happen. Right when you start to believe they can’t. It’s way easier to believe something terrible is always around the corner so you’re just ready for it.”

She was programmed not to live in the present.

She believed if she could see three steps ahead of the rest of the world, she could prepare for the worst before anyone else even realized it was coming.

I couldn’t imagine a more exhausting way to live.

I squeezed her hand before I let go of it.

“Whenever you’re ready, sugar.”

Apparently, I never should’ve released her hand.

Or the wheel.

She didn’t just ease down on the gas. She dropped her foot down on that bitch. The truck launched forward, Memphis screamed, and the girl threw both hands up in the air.

Why it didn’t dawn on her to simply remove her foot from the pedal that was making us move was beyond me. I lunged for the wheel to at least keep the truck moving in a straight line down that runway.

“Foot off the gas, Memphis.”

She looked down at her own foot like she was having trouble telling it what to do.

“Angel,” I tried again. “Move your foot to the brake and push down on it.”

The truck squealed to a dead stop a few seconds after that while she continued her silent panic beside me.

And I did everything I could to avoid laughing because it sure as shit wouldn’t help the situation.

“Okay,” I said quietly. “So, next time, you’re going to very gently?—”

“Next time?!” she screeched. “I did it. I tried it. I’m done now. Go ahead and tie me up if that’s your solution because I‘m not doing that again.”

She pushed the button to unlock the doors and she had the driver’s side open before I’d even blinked.

“No, no! Memphis. Wait. Put the truck—It’s not even in park!”

But she was gone, with me sprawled across the seat reaching for her as she escaped and the truck started to roll forward again.

“God dammit. Get back, Memphis. Get away from the truck.”

I scurried my way into the driver’s seat to brake and put that bitch in park. I jerked the keys out of the ignition just for good measure, like it was the truck’s fault that she’d freaked out and ran for it while it was still in gear.