Chapter title is from song by Bon Jovi.
64
A Teardrop to the Sea – Bon Jovi
She ran like a bat out of hell, only hell chased her. When bug splatter occluded the windshield she cleaned it. When the SUV ran out of gas she refilled it. When the horn and headlights of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler woke her she pulled over and slept in the driver's seat until she woke and drove again. She looked only at the road, ignoring the green lushness of rolling hills after pale desert, the curl of new leaves on the grape vines along the River Road, the shadowy jade green of the cypress branches leaning out over the sea. A cow got in her way, about ten miles north of Jenner where the highway cruised through ranchland. She waited and waited for the brown behemoth to finally decide to cross the road, it's hooves clomping loudly over the steel drainage grate. From there the road dipped down to the Pacific, teasing the cliff edges with its hairpin curves.
She could have stopped sooner. Dunoir, or Unionville, both perfectly fine safe houses with perfectly sound devil's traps, nothing for miles and miles but the pressing embrace of land, but she kept driving. She wanted the horizon, blue sky and blue ocean from Stewart's Point to Black Point, white waves breaking endlessly against rocky promontories that dropped jaggedly into the sea. The fog would roll in with the tide, cool gray mist erasing the world outside, erasing time and erasing thought.
How was it possible still to dream? A touch, a butterfly kiss, so soft she was barely sure it was there, her legs tangling in the sheets, lingering too long in sleep. The taste of apple pie, cinnamon and sugar and coffee and cream, sweet on her lips. Fingers stroking along the inside of her wrist, up the back of her hand, down the center of her palm, nothing there when she closed her hand around empty air.
She bought more spray paint and doubled down on the demon wards, red paint bisecting the skylights, adding the Enochian sigils almost as an afterthought. And still in the hazy twilight between wakefulness and night, that ghostly warmth stayed with her. Dream or memory or reality, she no longer really knew. Strong arms curled around and wrapped her up, a familiar thumb stroking lazily against her collarbone, gathering her closer than close. She felt the solid strength behind her, warm all around her, and she let herself lean. Just for a minute. She brushed her lips against his hand on her shoulder, and her eyelids drifted slowly closed.
Safe.
The mornings were cold when she slowly woke, and the daylight hurt.