Race the Storm

Chapter 10

Because of the way they had left the Estate, plus a few stops along the way and a bit of misdirection, the drive to Bisbee took almost seven hours. They took a couple rest breaks along the way, always at Willa's demand. She had a feeling that if it had been up to Jax alone, they would've gone straight there, no stopping.

They didn't talk much the rest of the afternoon. Jax had reached his internal talking limit for the day, if Willa had to guess, and she needed time to process everything he had told her anyways. The Estate was an arm of some nefarious government military group, the baby was actually hers, and they were going to be on the run for a long time. Oh, and people with superpowers existed. She did want to know more about that, but by the way Jax was glaring at the road, his blue eyes narrowed, she wasn't going to attempt getting those answers now.

He did let the radio play, though, which was a blessing. There weren't many stations available in the middle of nowhere, so most of the time, she could only get country stations to play. She didn't mind so much; her brother Cody loved country music and so did their mom, and a bit of that had rubbed off on her over the years.

It was dark by the time they rolled into the little town that Willa had only heard of a couple times. One of the girls who was from Arizona had mentioned it. All she knew was that people here liked to do art and something about mining... Oh well, she doubted they would be staying there long.

She watched the streetlights' glowing pools roll by as they headed through town. It had been a couple months since she had left the Estate, so driving through a town felt almost like a new experience to her. Besides, she liked seeing what was out here, out west. It was so different than the forest-y, humid southeast both she and Jax came from. She wondered if he thought about the differences, too, or maybe he had been to so many places with his Black Ops group that he didn't notice them anymore.

"This town is actually really cute," Willa said, twisting to look closer at one of the window displays they were passing. There was a lot of colorful metal artwork displayed on the walls and in the windows, including what she was pretty sure had been a giant coppery-pink lizard. "Oh, there's actually a mining museum," she added, catching sight of the sign as they continued to drive up the hill. This was quite the hilly little town, she hadn't realized Arizona had hills like this. Most of what she had seen had been flat flat flat and then Boom! Giant mesa...or plateau or whatever you called them. Or giant mountain sticking right out of the flat ground. Nothing like the gradually rolling mountains of the east coast.

"Mmm." Jax responded with the most noncommittal noise ever.

"Can we stop there in the morning?"

He looked at her, raised an eyebrow, then looked back at the road. Really? Was that how he was going to say no? Or did he just want to know why she wanted to stop?

"Okay, I know we're on the run and everything, but isn't it a better cover to go all touristy and whatnot? Like a normal couple or, um, couple of friends on a road trip?" Willa flushed, glad the dark probably hid her red cheeks from Jax. She hadn't meant to imply they were a couple, or that they needed to act like a couple. Sure, most people would assume that, especially the further along she got in her pregnancy. But they could still just be friends. Friends went on road trips together all the time.

Not usually while one of them was pregnant though, Willa guessed.

Jax cleared his throat. "No, uh, couple makes more sense." He shifted a little, probably as uncomfortable with the idea as Willa had been. "But I don't know about hanging out here too long. I'd like to put more distance between us and PsyOps."

Willa sighed, settling back in her seat. Figured, she was doing what most people would consider a dream trip across the US, but she wasn't going to see much of anything but the highway. Heck, from the sound of it, Jax was probably going to have them on the road and out of the town before the sun even rose. She'd never see what this place looked like during daylight hours.