Poison Princess

Morissette.

God, I miss that girl like an ache, like I miss Mom. . . .

Still stewing over my accusation of meanness, Jackson said, “You ain’t perfect yourself, peekôn. You get your feelings hurt like this”—he snapped his fingers—“and you woan tell me anything about you. Most close-lipped girl I ever knew.”

“Why am I always the one getting interrogated? You’ve rarely talked about yourself since we’ve been on the road.” Yes, I had secrets, but he had such a huge advantage over me—Brandon’s phone!

“Ask me something,” Jackson said, though his grip on the steering wheel tightened, as if he were bracing for a punch.

“Okay. Was the cage-the-rage rumor true? Did you really go to prison?” If so, he might understand some of what my experience at CLC had been like.

Anger flared in his expression. “You got to go for the slam at every opportunity.”

“What are you talking about? I asked for a reason.”

“Which is to remind me of my place!”

“Jackson, I’m astonished you can walk upright with that chip on your shoulder.”

“How about asking what my favorite book is? Or what class I liked best?”

“I figured you liked English a lot, and I thought Robinson Crusoe was your favorite book.”

In a menacingly low voice, he said, “Sometimes I forget, me, that you were in my house.”

“Fine, I’ll try again. So, Jackson, what had you planned to do after high school?”

He slid me a narrowed glance. “Open a chop shop. Steal cars for parts. Isn’t that what you expect me to say?”

“Forget I asked.”

“What were you goan to do, then?”

“Marry Brandon, have a couple of rich brats, play tennis all day. Isn’t that what you expected me to say?”

He seemed to be strangling the steering wheel. At least his hands had healed. When I’d insisted on cleaning and bandaging them last week, he’d been gruff, but I thought he secretly liked someone fussing over him.

Because it was such a rarity?

When I’d finished dressing them, he’d grumbled, “Surprised you didn’t kiss ’em better.” So I did, pressing a quick kiss to each bandage, just to shock him. Instead, his voice had grown husky as he’d called me “ma belle infirmière.” My pretty nurse . . .

His moods were so changeable. That night he’d been flirtatious. Now he was brooding, filled with tension.

It seemed like the harder I tried to be nice to him, to make him happy, the more it backfired on me.

Silence stretched between us again. Until my stomach growled.

Jackson cast me another scowl. I’d also learned that the sound of my hunger really bothered him, as if I were pestering him for food.

“We’re not eating for hours yet, princess.” He knew I hated it when he called me that. “We agreed to keep heading for Atlanta, Evie. And we knew it’d be lean.”

“I’m not complaining. I have never complained.”

“No, but that stomach of yours is. I almost wish you’d start bitching at me.” His knuckles were now white on the wheel.

“What good would that do?”

“It’s better than you sitting here seething all day.”

“Seething? Hardly!” He didn’t understand. I could roll with a lot of punches now that the voices were quieted. “I was in a great mood earlier.”

“Bullshit! Over what? You’re exhausted, starving, and you doan know where your next meal’s coming from.”

“You didn’t get decapitated by sheet metal and we scored some fuel. Win!”

“But no food.” The wipers scraped louder across the windshield. Grate, grate, grate . . .

I threw my hands up. “All right, you talked me into it. I’m officially in a pissy mood.”

“Damn it, you doan need to miss meals.” Early on, he’d been giving me the lion’s share, calling me a “growing girl.”

As he’d explained: “Hell, Evie, I like where you’re goan with this”—he’d motioned to indicate my chest—“I want to see where you end up.”

Now he muttered, “Thought I’d be shooting some game.” On occasion, we’d see a bird or a rabbit. “And you ain’t exactly contributing to the pot.”

No, but I could. If things got really bad, I’d grow food from the seeds in the back. Refusing to rise to the bait, I said, “It’s getting late.” The winds were dying down as the sun set. The ash started to settle, revealing a waxing moon. “Shouldn’t we be looking for a place to overnight?”

“We need to get past this area. The gas took longer than I thought.” He glanced over his shoulder, then back to the road, picking up speed. “Sick of these storms.”

“What about the Bagmen? You said we can never drive past sundown.” This afternoon, we’d crossed bridge after bridge. If they flocked to old bodies of water, at night . . .

“I’m changing the rule, adding: unless we’re in slaver territory. We got to make up some time anyway.”

My stomach growled more insistently.

“Suck it up, Evie! We can’t risk looking for food right now. If anything happens to me, you’re screwed.”

“One more time, I’m not arguing with you about food, I’m not complaining, and I might surprise you by actually surviving without you.”

“You can’t hunt or ferret out supplies. You’re a resource-suck. You’re hopeless in the kitchen—”

“Here we go again.” I could deny nothing. I was awful at cooking, couldn’t seem to heat a can of ravioli without screwing it up.

“You should end each and every day with a ‘Thank you, Jack. It’s great to be alive.’ ” Another glance over his shoulder, another increase in speed.

“Clearly, I’m just a nuisance to you, a ball and chain around your ankle. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten sick of me and dumped me already. I keep waiting for you to say, ‘Screw this,’ and ditch on North Carolina.”

“I doan let puzzles go unsolved.”

Which is why I won’t tell you about the crops until you’ve gotten me where I need to go.

“Besides”—he flashed me a wolfish grin—“I ain’t even slept with you yet.”

My lips parted. “You’re talking about having . . . sex. With me?”

I should have known this conversation would arise soon enough. It seemed like each night together, Jackson and I had grown less comfortable with each other.

If he felt relatively secure with our overnight, he’d sleep without a shirt. Those tantalizing glimpses of his chest—I always looked away—flustered me, making it difficult to sleep.

At other times, I’d cast wary glances at the bed, while he cast hungry looks at me.

“Sex is what you sit in this car thinking about?” Just as I’d suspected, I was better off not knowing.

His expression was bored, as if to say Grow up. “Why wouldn’t I? I’m a red-blooded male, and you’re the only game in town. Tell me you doan think about it.”

I had. I’d fantasized about what might have happened at the sugar mill if we’d kissed, if we’d explored that sizzling chemistry between us. Then I would feel guilty and out of sorts. “I-I’m not having sex with you!” I finally answered. “I can’t believe you would just put it out there like that.”

Though I knew the world was different now, I still held on to the naïve idea that losing my virginity should be special—something I did with my boyfriend.

Not something I did solely because the guy with me was red-blooded.