Echo's Run 1

The machine streaked across the desert, screaming through bleak vistas of scorched earth where nothing lives without a little outside help. Joshua trees and desultory vultures. Fossils buried under the salt floor of ancient seas. She was hammering the gas, white knuckling the wheel until the screaming of the engine drowned out the screaming in her mind. She was riding inside a shot bullet, all done and hurtling toward any bull?s-eye she could hit. There was a world of shame in the rearview mirror and a vortex of impossible questions ahead in the blinding beyond. Lean muscle danced under the blue ink hieroglyph down her arm, taut sinews singing as she pushed the tiny flash of metal past RPMs she didn?t bother counting. Everything played games just below the surface of her skin: angels and devils flirting with delicious catastrophes, the appetite for better dreams swimming against the rush of her blood. When she caught a flash of her eyes in the mirror, the shadows she knew had been living behind them were gone. She didn?t know where, but it didn?t matter anymore. The whole idea of gone took on a strange new meaning. It was where she was now ? where she was headed - and the sudden revelation of freedom made her cells prickle with something soft and electric. She?d never been more alone, yet she couldn?t help thinking maybe this was what being in love must be like. She almost felt herself turning beautiful again, the way she was before the dark ages of manifold appetites and penthouse excuses unplugged her sparkle. Even under the ink and scars it felt like her skin was changing into something better than it used to be. A new name, a couple more borders and she was home free. Then something moved in the middle of the lane ahead, and by the time she realized it was only a scrubby headed turkey vulture gnawing up roadkill she?d already hit the brakes too hard. The car fishtailed and she pulled the wheel too sharp into the skid. But even as the car veered onto the rocky desert sand a strange sense of calm came over her. Whatever happened now could never go as wrong as everything before it. She took her hands off the wheel and pressed them up into the ceiling, closing her eyes while she felt the vehicle bounce and spin. She took one bounce hard enough to make her wonder why the car didn?t roll, but she felt separate from it all, pressing her hands even harder into the ceiling, pinning herself down against the seat. She was steady under all the layers of chaos. There was nothing to do but wait for the car to lose momentum and finally crunch up against a tree on the passenger?s side. She sat a moment, waiting to be sure the car had really stopped. She pulled her hands back down to her lap and opened her eyes, realizing the engine hadn?t even stalled. She shut it off and got out. The car was layered in grit and heavily scuffed. The dust trail behind her still drifted on slow moving air. The right front headlight was smashed, but the tires were all okay?and so was she. She walked over to the road and looked off in the direction she?d come from. The vulture was already back where it had been before the skid, finishing off what was left of its meal. She laughed a moment or two, then looked around at the vast expanse of beautiful nothingness. She wondered if it was wrong not to feel disoriented, but as the desert heat licked at the pores of her skin she felt calm. Her heart felt strong and steady, like a secret fist. Every moment was nothing more or less than whatever was happening inside it. She was alive and perfectly self-contained, even if she wasn?t supposed to be. The long, black thread of road shuddered with heat ripples in both Kadıköy Escort directions. She pulled her cropped T shirt over her head, then toed off her sandals and unzipped her cutoffs, pushing them off along with her panties. She stood naked in the center of the road and touched her breasts. Her body felt weightless, but there was a heaviness to her breasts that felt comforting. Hot desert air swarmed through the space between her sinuous thighs. Shaven slick as Teflon, her pussy felt touched. She looked up and then down the road again. More of nothing piled on top of nothing. Freedom was letting the sun kiss her body like a secret lover in the middle of a road no one needed anymore. She closed her eyes and pinched her nipples. The heat felt like ions raining on her skin. She opened her eyes and started walking toward the vulture, the heat of the pavement nearly burning the soles of her feet, but she was too consumed with being alive to care. She stopped and stood fifteen feet from the vulture. It just kept digging and eating. ?You don?t want me, so I guess that?s a good thing,? she said. The vulture ignored her. It made her think of those twisted old widows she saw once in Mexico. She turned and walked back toward her strewn clothes. She owned the last remaining secrets of the world now, and the notion was almost enough to make her wet. She stopped in the middle of the road, her feet planted on either side of the ghost of a center line. The desert air merged with her skin. She touched her palms to the insides of her thighs and followed the line of empty road with her eyes until it thinned into whatever was going to happen next. She pushed against the meat of her own body until her blood stopped. The pressure against her muscles pried against the petals of her pussy. Air hotter than her skin licked at her half splayed lips. Open desolation lay out in every direction. Her hands slowly closed in on her pussy, thumb crossing over her mound while her fingers dragged along her folds. Sense and moisture. Right hand finger dug and parted her flesh. She flushed slick and pushed her finger inside. She owned everything and possessed nothing. She stirred herself slightly, feeling her blood rush and then slowly dragged her finger back out. She set her feet further apart on the pavement and rolled the clustered pads of her fingers along the slippery crease of her sex. Something caught inside her she couldn?t stop. Something she didn?t want or try to stop. She threw back her head and closed her eyes. Highway and desert spun around her in the darkness, and the caught thing inside her locked up in her muscle and sinew. Her fingers slicked up inside her, pump strokes of her own, haphazard design until the scarlet pearl riding the apex of her core pulsed in waves that shivered through the stone clench of her body. She couldn?t stop the caught thing inside. She couldn?t stop anything, couldn?t stop being alive until the waves became a vortex and she opened her eyes to see the open world around her. The only real living thing for miles in every direction ? naked and taking flight - she felt like a secret too thrilling to even tell herself. Her body clenched around the explosion of heat in her cells. She buckled from the middle and lightly stamped a bare foot on the tar as the waves of sensation rose up through her body and disseminated in the air. She was twenty-six and knew how to move in and out between beats of the earth?s heart, but it was the first time there was ever a vulture over her shoulder that wasn?t there to eat her alive. Her finger moved and stirred inside. There was a difference between Kadıköy Escort Bayan touching and feeling, but she had yet to learn what it was. She slowly drew her finger out of herself. She stuck it in her mouth and sucked. She was free enough for now. She gathered up what little there was of her clothes and put them back on, then went back to the car and started it up. It took a couple of minutes to work it back onto the pavement. She idled a moment on the shoulder and took another look at the hand drawn map on the passenger?s seat. She knew every line and scrawl by heart now. The X on the map wasn?t much farther. A man she?d never met before would be expecting her, and so was the person he was waiting to help her become. ** Hawke was sitting Lotus style under the old willow behind the house and trailer. His back was to the trunk, his eyes focused on the blurred lace of the tree?s canopy against the sky beyond, but he wasn?t seeing it now. It was only the point where he always started. After focusing on the leaves for several minutes, his thoughts would begin to blur and merge until his mind became as clear as water. It never lasted more than a few minutes, but the feeling of being in tune with himself would be with him for hours. Prison zen that had stuck with him. Breath went in and out of him like a circle, but when the car pulled in he was nearing the end of his usual peak. He?d been expecting her, but he didn?t move when he heard the tires crunch up to the front of the house. The engine shut down and the door opened and shut as he sat a moment more. He took one more, long, slow breath and floated to his feet, but he stayed where he was in the cool shade under the willow, hidden behind the dangling skirts of its branches. She was driving a 3 series BMW that had seen better days than today. She walked a circle around it, cautiously checking out the house and the trailer that faced it on an angle, keeping her distance. She scanned the area, her gaze sweeping across the hillside where the tree was, but she didn?t see Hawke hidden behind the skirt of branches and leaves. She was out in the open too much. She moved too much like a bird and not enough like a cat. People were earth bound creatures. She was going to need a lot of schooling. Her legs had a long, sapling-like quality about them in cut-offs too small to let her be anonymous. The tattoo on her upper thigh probably reached up across her hip. It matched the ink on her arm; same motif and style. Probably the same artist, Hawke assumed. Her breasts weren?t overly large, but they were slightly out of tune with the hard willowy look of her body. At least her long, blonde hair could be cut and dyed. The tits and ink were going to be a problem, though. She called his name a couple of times, once toward the house and once toward the trailer. She finally went to the front door of the house and banged her small fist on it a few times. Hawke waited. If she was bringing anyone else along to the party, knowingly or otherwise, now was the time to find out. He waited long enough to let her start thinking he wasn?t there. She banged on the door of the house again and then stalked across the gravel drive and banged on the trailer door. She started to look worried and paced around the car some more. Her body started to fill with tension, but she finally seemed to deflate and went to sit in the small square of shade under the awning over the door. Hawke watched her sit another ten minutes or so. She was understandably tense, but she knew how to wait. That much would always be in her favor. When The Monk had called to set up the meet, he?d Escort Kadıköy given Hawke the impression she was just another party favor running from her own bad choices, but there was a weight about the blonde that wasn?t on her resume ? self-aware without being self-absorbed. He could feel it from there under the tree. She was rumpled and dusty, a woman not above allowing herself to get smudged. Instinct prickled the follicles at the base of his neck. He passed a couple of minutes considering whether or not to wait long enough for her to get fed up and leave. She didn?t read like the type who would need his help, but he finally stepped out from under the tree and started down the hill. As he drew closer and got a better look at her car, he caught a good idea of the kind of time she?d had getting there. She didn?t notice him until his shadow cut across her bare legs and she looked up squinting. ?You know who I am?? she asked. He nodded. ?Only what The Monk said.? ?So, then?you knew I was coming?? ?Let?s go inside.? She stood up and looked a little awkward as she waited for him to open the door. The house wasn?t much bigger than the trailer, with a small kitchen and dining area on the left and a living room on the right. Hawke went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of water. She was still standing by the door when he turned around. He set one of the bottles on the table and leaned back against the counter, uncapping the bottle he kept for himself. She didn?t seem to know what to do next. She was watching him for a sign, but all he did was angle the water bottle to his mouth and drink. She moved to the table and sat, opening the bottle he?d set there and drank. He watched her throat move as she drained half the bottle. Something shifted inside him. Delicacies always sneak out from the corners you don?t expect. A feeling came over him that call from The Monk would have been a good one to miss. Whoever was looking for her was probably committed to finding her. It?s what Hawke would do if he lost something like her. Once upon a time, anyway, in the days before he?d lost himself. But he was used to losing things, and he was better at it than most people. She put the bottle back on the table and looked at him expectantly. He watched her wait. She had the kind of beauty that was intense but not angry. Even now. Her eyes were serious but without fear. Maybe that was even a good thing. ?Did The Monk tell you anything about what to expect?? he finally asked. ?He just said I should do what you tell me or I?m probably fucked.? Hawke nodded thoughtfully. ?You?re down to your ninth life or you wouldn?t be here. I?ll help you change the most recognizable things about you. Few more days and you?ll be somebody else.? He paused a couple of beats and she nodded, the attentive pupil. ?Are you careless or stupid?? She shook her head no. There was no exaggeration to the gesture but no hesitation, either. Hawke reached in his pants pocket and pulled out a key, then slid it across the table in front of her. ?You?ll stay in the trailer while you?re here. There?s not much in there, but at least the basics. Clean sheets, lights and hot water. There?s no food so you?ll have to come back here if you get hungry.? She didn?t say anything, but as soon as he said the word he realized she?d probably gone most of the day without food. Her eyes were pale jade, but there was something darker about them ?a shade that had nothing to do with color - like someone else was sitting inside the raw shell of woman sitting at his table. ?You?ll be comfortable enough in there for a couple of days. Go settle in. Shower?s working if you want. I?ll see about putting something together to eat.? She looked disoriented for a few seconds when he mentioned eating, but she caught herself and nodded. She got up to go and then paused with her hand on the door. ?Do the people you help like you?re helping me ever say thanks?? she asked without looking at him.