A Dark-Adapted Eye (26 page)

But we made it through the station without any trouble at all and suddenly Las Secas was behind us, getting further each second. Aleskie popped out of her hiding place and crawled past Les and me to sit up front with Ivory. Criseyde, in the middle, started cheering our freedom and the rest of us joined her.

After a while we found ourselves tiring, lulled by the particular, isolated, dreamy feeling of taking a long drive at night. The gentle rocking of the car and consistent vibration of the tires on pavement created a soothing atmosphere. I stared out the window at a view that was mostly just the unbroken blackness of the desert at night, though occasionally we passed lit billboards or the oasis glow of a gas station at an otherwise dark exit. If I leaned far enough over I could see the stars, the winking billions of them.

Soon I would fall asleep and I would wake up before sunrise when Ivory pulled into the parking lot of a motel in some small town off the freeway. He would get us two rooms, one for the girls and one for the guys. Aleskie would go inside before the sun could catch her and the rest of us would seek out breakfast. And then we would do whatever we wanted, because we had escaped the black hole that Las Secas had been for the past year.

For now I thought of the empty house we’d left behind in our battered but healing town and dozed with my head on Les’s lap, dreaming of possibilities as infinite as the stars.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heather lives in Las Vegas, NV with her family. She is the author of the young adult novel
Unchanged
.