The van was quiet. Perhaps too quiet. I shut my head off the window, the cool wind blowing on my skin. The rhythmic thump of tires on asphalt was the only sound, a hypnotic countdown to a future I couldn't picture.
I watched the world blur past—gas stations, strip malls, the skeletal outlines of trees against a grey sky. America.
The country I was supposedly escaping. It looked different when you weren't planning on seeing it again. Each mile marker felt like a suture closing me off from my old life.
Mr. and Mrs. Phillips hadn't spoken since we'd pulled out of Sophia's driveway. The silence in the front seat wasn't companionable; it was a dense, humming thing, full of glances exchanged in the rearview mirror I wasn't meant to catch. Mrs. Phillips's knuckles were white where they gripped her purse.
Then a song began on the radio.
A sharp, digital beat punched through the silence. Then a voice, sleek and imperious as polished steel.
