Chapter VIII

The sun was sinking, and Henry found himself wriggling into the backseat of his truck for the second night in a row.
The evening was so perfectly still that he thought he was surely losing his mind. The whole day, there’d been nothing but silence - long, awkward silences. The woman … Katherine, she’d said … hadn’t so much as muttered a single word since they left the rest stop. He’d tried to strike up a conversation with her several times, but she’d been completely unresponsive. His attempts were met with disregard had done nothing but stare out the passenger window. At a few intervals, Henry had glanced at her and seen tears sliding down her cheeks, silent - but very real.
Now, she was sleeping. She’d nodded off about an hour ago in the front seat, still held by her seat belt, which left Henry with no choice but to take the back again.
He stopped and thought about how many times this woman, in the few hours he’d known of her existence, had left him in situations with only one possible choice.
Henry wanted to be angry with her. In fact, he wanted to be furious with her, and he was working hard at talking himself into it.
“Who the fuck does she think she is?“ Henry thought to himself. “Why does she think that she has the right to judge me?“
After all, that fucker back at the rest stop wanted to rape her, kill her … and he’d probably have made sure she screamed the entire time. She’d have ended up just like the girl that she’d told him about, the one she found on the side of the road. Henry had saved her from that fate, and here she was - upset with him for doing what he clearly had to do.
What the fuck was her problem? Didn’t she understand?
He didn’t feel guilty, and he’d relished every moment of delivering justice to the sick, twisted prick. God, how he hated men of that ilk. And now that there was nobody looking over his shoulder, nobody to constantly harass him about what he should and should not do, he could deal with scum in the manner that he’d like.
He wanted to curse her for being an ungrateful bitch and throw her ass out. She certainly wouldn’t last very long fending for herself, seeing as how well she‘d done so far. But, even though his fury stuck with him, Henry still couldn’t make himself hate her - because even though he disagreed with it completely, he could see her point.
He wondered if he should, perhaps, feel guilty.
A soft moan escaped Kate’s lips as she slept, and Henry propped himself up to look at her. Her tangled, dark brown hair fell in long tresses along his jacket, which she was still wearing and had wrapped tightly around herself. Even though her forehead was badly bruised and her bloody knees were visible beneath her torn jeans, there was something about her that he found lovely. There was something there that drew him.
He could see her chest move slightly with the rhythm of her soft breathing. She’d looked exactly this way after she’d knocked herself unconscious, and again, Henry was tempted to touch her.
He immediately shook the thought out of his head.
After all, he was better than that piece of shit Harry Long. He chalked his thoughts up to the fact that he hadn’t seen any other people in what was going on a week now. She was the first woman he‘d encountered since the disappearances, and that was the extent of it.
“She’s just someone I ran into, nothing more,” he told himself.
But, despite what they thought of each other, they were stuck together now. They’d have to work together, and she’d have to be more responsive.
With any luck, she’d be in more of a mood to talk tomorrow. Maybe she’d have some idea of what their course of action should be once they reached Lake Charles. Henry had no idea what they’d find there, but he wasn’t afraid.
He wondered if she was … he wondered if she was afraid of him.
“Oh well, I’ll deal with it tomorrow,” he thought.
As he tried to make himself comfortable, Henry knew he wouldn’t be getting to sleep easily. He was uncomfortable, that was for damn sure. But something else was bothering him.
What if this woman … Katherine … hated him for what he’d done?
Henry wasn’t sure what bothered him more - the fact that it was a distinct possibility that he‘d earned her ire, or the fact that he cared.