As the sun had set and the night had come on strong, her eyes had quickly adjusted to the dark. She could see Nova standing several yards away, the gun in his hand, just as clearly as she could see the label on the water bottle. Just as now, opening her eyes, she saw the scorpion crawling up her arm.
“Don’t move.”
Nova’s voice, calm and steady. He began to approach her. In the sudden silence, the crunch of his shoes on the dirt was as loud as those gunshots from earlier still echoing through her head.
Jessica felt a scream rising in the back of her throat. Were scorpions poisonous? She couldn’t remember. Maybe some of them were, but just how poisonous were they?
The scorpion was black and about the size of her hand. It crawled up her arm, off her skin and onto her shirt.
“It’s okay,” Nova said, still approaching slowly, “just sit there and don’t move.”
Her gaze on the scorpion, Jessica was aware of Nova stowing the gun in the waistband of his pants and then reaching into his pocket. She tried to slow her breathing. She tried to slow her heartbeat, if that was even possible. Then she heard a snick and looked up and saw Nova now holding a knife.
He held his other hand out, signaling her to remain calm. The scorpion, meanwhile, had settled on her shoulder, turning in a circle as if deciding where to go next.
Nova was close to her now, only feet away. He started to lower himself, bending at the knees, extending the blade of the knife. The scorpion turned in another circle, then started back the way it had come. Nova lowered the blade. The tip touched Jessica’s skin. The scorpion paused, and for an instant she was sure it was going to strike. But then the scorpion continued forward, right onto the blade. Nova waited a beat, long enough to make sure the scorpion was balanced on the steel, and then he stood up and flung it over the rocks.
Jessica closed her eyes, released a long, deep breath.
Nova said, “You okay?”
She took another breath as she climbed to her feet. “And to think, I was worried about one of those guys killing me, not being stung by a scorpion.”
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t poisonous,” he said, but she could tell he wasn’t even sure himself.
“Thank you.”
He waved it away. “It was just a little bug.”
“No, I mean about everything. Thank you for doing this.”
“What else would I be doing? It’s better than being at a crappy motel watching reruns on TV.”
“What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“Your girlfriend.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“But the one you mentioned—your other team member.”
“Holly?” He half-laughed. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“But you care about her.”
“Of course. She’s my friend.”
She stared at him for a long moment, studying him in the dark. “So you don’t have a significant other?”
“No.”
“Family?”
He shook his head.
“What about your parents?”
“My parents are dead. At least, my mom is. She died years ago, back when I was in high school. As for my old man, I hope he’s dead.”
“That seems harsh.”
“Trust me, it isn’t. When he found out my mom had cancer, he didn’t stick around long. When he saw just how hard it was going to be, he split. I never heard from him since.”
“That’s terrible. How old were you?”
“Sixteen. He was always a hard ass. He didn’t drink much, but when he did he was mean and you always had to be careful not to say the wrong thing around him. He was a mechanic and worked in one of these shops that restored vintage cars. Sometimes I went to work with him and he showed me everything he did, from taking the cars apart to putting them back together. I remember one day this Mustang came in, a 1966 Shelby GT 350, the most beautiful car I’d ever seen, and I told him I was going to own one some day. And my old man, he just laughed and said cars like that don’t belong to people like us.”
Nova stared off into space for a long moment, then shook his head.
“Anyway, I took care of my mom the best I could. At the time I was doing well in school, but I couldn’t keep up with all the homework and tests. In the end I decided taking care of my mother was more important, so I dropped out. We didn’t have insurance or enough money to get her the treatment she needed, so I started working any job I could get for whatever little money they would pay me under the table. And when I wasn’t working, I was home taking care of her. We ate generic boxed spaghetti nearly every night. I see that stuff in the grocery store now and it makes my stomach roll. And the smell of Dial soap always brings back memories of washing my hands after feeding her and giving her baths. I try to avoid it the best I can, but even now, after all these years, just the scent reminds me what it was like to literally watch her shrivel to death.”
Nova went quiet then, staring at her but not seeing her. She wondered what he was thinking, what awful memories were swirling through his mind. She even wanted to say something to him, apologize maybe, but he blinked and shook his head, closed the knife and slipped it back into his pocket.
“We should keep moving,” he said, grabbing the canvas bag off the ground. The leather jacket had also fallen when she jumped to her feet. He picked it up and held it out to her again. “You still cold?”
She was. The jacket smelled of dirt and sweat and aftershave as she slipped it on, but it was also a safe smell, and it was warm.
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Don’t thank me until this is over.” He handed her the canvas bag, picked up the gun she’d set on the rock and thumbed off the safety. “Now let’s go.”