In Honor by Jessi Kirby Page B

rested my head back on his arm and looked up at the tiny dots in the upholstery on the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have slammed the brakes. You said two seconds before that not to slam the brakes.” I looked over at him and brought a shaky hand to the blood moving down his temple. “I almost killed us.”
    He grabbed my hands and squeezed. “That car came outta nowhere. Anybody would’ve done that. We’re fine, okay?”
    I felt my shoulders relax a bit.
    He sat back up and looked through the windshield. “Can’t say the same for Pala, though. I think we knocked something loose in there.”
    I sat up and saw a faint but steady stream of something white rising from beneath the hood, up through the rain. “Is that smoke ? Oh my god, should we get out and check it?” Lightning flickered, followed by a loud rumble.
    “No.” He rolled down the passenger window and leaned out, stretching toward the hood for a second. When he ducked back in, he was soaked through, the blood washed clean from his face. “Doesn’t smell like smoke. I think it’s steam.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “That means we’re not goin’ anywhere for now. Not till it clears up and I can get a look in there.” He rolled his window back up, leaving it open just a crack. “We’re off the road, from what I can tell, and whatever we hit wasn’t that car, but I can’t see anything out there. Better sit tight.”
    I looked out into the gray for some point of reference but couldn’t make out anything except the steady sheet of rain that now fell around us. We weren’t exactly flush with choices.
    Rusty wrapped an arm around my shoulders again, pulling me in a little. “That got a little wild there, but we’re fine. All right?”
    I drew in a deep breath that was still wobbly with leftover adrenaline. But I believed him. It baffled me how much I did. And it made me wanna cry all over again, because Finn was the only other person in the world I believed like that. And when that soldier came and told me my brother was dead, I didn’t think anyone could make me feel like anything could be all right, ever. I sat up and swallowed the lump in my throat, trying to figure out a way to tell Rusty all this.
    He held my eyes, and a question knit his brows together. “What?”
    I looked into my lap. “Nothing. You just . . . you reminded me of Finn just then.” It sounded silly to say it out loud, but I went ahead anyway, eyes focused on my seat-belt buckle. “The way you made everything seem like . . . like it’s okay.” I smiled as best I could when I looked back up at him. “He was good at that, you know?” My hand went to his knee. “Anyway. You are too.” Rusty’s eyes flicked to my hand, and I took it away just as quickly as I’d set it there.
    “Glad you think so.” He pulled his arm out from behind my shoulder and leaned back against the door, clearly separating that tiny previous moment from the present one. “But Finn was like that all the way through.” He looked at the ceiling, letting the thought linger a moment. “The rest of us—we just look that way sometimes.” He sighed and reached into his back pocket, then pulled out a small pewter flask. “Anyway.” He unscrewed the cap and held it out to me with a smile that was more sad than happy. “You thirsty?”
     
    One sip of whatever he had in there was enough to make me wonder if the old man in the gas station was actually some sort of guardian angel. I washed the burn down with a long gulp of water from the jug and sat back against the seat. The thunder and lightning weren’t directly overhead anymore, but every few seconds the sky flashed in a different place, and I could hear the low rumble of the thunder. In between, the rain kept at it, a steady shower that blended into the background like static.
    Rusty took up his post stretched out in the backseat again, and I did the same in the front, with my back leaned against the driver-side door and my legs across the