Free The Wild Road by Marjorie M. Liu

for stripping wires. So very tempting.
    She got out of the car, ignoring the incredulous look the doorman gave her as he stared at her floppy socks and ill-fitting clothes, and climbed into the passenger seat. She leaned back and studied the steering wheel.
    I am a practical woman, she told herself, willing it to be true. And Lannes was a resource, an opportunity. She needed him. Or someone like him. And while she could bemoan the safety of that, or its ethics-or beat her chest in some mocking, woe-is-me roar-the facts were dead simple: she did not know who she was, she had no money or friends, and she had only a name, only one clue to what might have happened to her. Giving that up was no longer an option.
    So she waited. And locked the doors. Watched the street and the lightening sky.
    The woman sat for almost twenty minutes before Lannes returned-a remarkable length of time that eventually felt like playing chicken with a freight train, a train rumbling toward her filled with the ominous specters of police and blood and murder. But finally, finally, she saw the big man exit the hotel.
    He did not look entirely surprised to see her waiting for him, which the woman found a bit insulting, but he did give her a small grateful smile that felt almost unbearably sweet to her raw ticking nerves. She unlocked his door. He slid in, carrying with him the scent of earth and something delicate, like orchids.
    “Is he all right?” she found herself saying, genuinely concerned.
    Lannes shrugged, frowning. “No one likes being left behind. But…thank you for asking.”
    “I like him,” she said simply. “And I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused. It’s not too late to ditch me, you know.”
    “Maybe later,” he said. “I’m curious now.”
    The woman could not help herself. “No matter what happens? How do you know I’m not lying to you? Or that I didn’t plant that note at your front door? I could be anyone in the world.”
    “I haven’t forgotten that,” he said, pinning her with a look that made her feel very small. “This isn’t an easy thing for me. But I believe you. I see a person who needs help. And if I don’t help you, I’m afraid no one will.”
    The woman stared at him in silence. Lannes sighed, put the Impala in gear and drove away from the curb. The sun was rising. A hint of golden light twinkled between the skyscrapers, reflected by glass and steel. It was going to be a pretty day.
    “My brother called,” Lannes said. “He found Price.”
    “Okay,” the woman whispered, hardly hearing him. She was thinking instead that she should have thrown survival to the wind and done the right thing after all, embraced a little self-sacrifice and saved this man from his moral compass. She should have stolen his car while she had the chance.

Chapter Six
    Orwell Price lived in a gritty little neighborhood on the far west side of Chicago. Not much in the way of personality. All the houses were small and made of brick, with wide porches and scrappy yards.
    The Impala purred. Lannes parked behind a white pickup. He and the woman got out of the car. The air was cool.
    The neighborhood was quiet, but that was merely a lull-he heard doors banging and car engines roaring, saw tiny children crying and screaming, throwing down their book bags on the concrete sidewalks while their mothers ignored them and leaned on chain link fences, cigarettes dangling from their fingers.
    Folks going to work, school. It was only Thursday.
    Lannes stood for a moment, watching the woman posed frozen on the sidewalk, her gaze sharp, thoughtful. She was still wearing only socks. He needed to get her some good shoes if they were going to keep on like this. A first-aid kit for her feet, maybe.
    They walked down the sidewalk to a small brick house surrounded by a chain-link fence decorated with plastic windmills shaped like birds. Yellow grass and bushy weeds filled the small lawn, which was covered in stone birdbaths and bird feeders