Free Until the Beginning by Amy Plum Page A

“So why didn’t you kiss me when you wanted to . . . by the river? You were trying to be sensitive, right? Or polite?”
    “Gentlemanly,” I add to her list.
    “That’s nice,” she says with a bemused smile, “but you forget I was raised in the wilderness. No gentlemen for miles around. Only wild men. And savages.”
    “So are you saying you’d rather I just grab you and kiss you whenever I feel like it, regardless of the seriousness of the moment or the level of danger we’re in?”
    She crosses her arms and cocks her head to one side. “That depends. Can I assume that, as it would in my world, what happened in the tent last night signifies something?”
    “What, exactly, would it signify in your world?” I ask, supremely enjoying the direction this conversation has taken.
    “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe that we’re together?” Juneau suggests.
    I rub my chin, pensively. “Together?” I ask, looking confused.
    “A couple,” Juneau clarifies, a dangerous sparkle in her eye.
    “Hmm, yes. I think that in my society, one could assume from what happened in the tent last night that we are, indeed, a couple,” I say.
    “Then, yes, you are allowed to grab and kiss me whenever you wish,” she concludes, daring me.
    As Juneau knows by now, I never turn down a dare.

17
JUNEAU
    MILES WANTS TO DRIVE, SO I LET HIM TAKE OVER while I trace our progress on the map. As we leave the bosque and head east, the strip of lush green land bordering the Rio Grande turns abruptly brown. The kind of barren brown that I had always imagined the earth looked like outside our hidden Alaskan paradise. An apocalyptic brown that suggests nothing’s ever going to grow here again.
    “We need to stop for gas,” Miles says, and like magic a sign for a gas station appears ahead. We pull into the gravel courtyard of Pump-n-Shop, and Miles starts filling the tank.
    We ate the last of the food this morning, and since I don’t know how long it will take to run surveillance on my people’s captors before we can act, I decide to stock up on supplies. I work my way through the grocery section, picking out milk, cereal,and bread, as well as packaged cinnamon rolls and canned soups and beans.
    “What, no Pop-Tarts?” Miles remarks as he joins me in front of the cash register, where an old man is typing in the prices of my items.
    “Didn’t have them,” I say. “But I think this should make up for it.” I hold up a six-pack of Snickers.
    “I’m not sure how environmentally correct your elders would consider this stash.” Miles gestures to the pile of groceries and gives me a wry smile.
    This grin, which used to make me want to slap him, now fills me full of bubbles—I feel ready to burst. In just ten days he’s swapped the antagonistic jabs for affectionate teasing. It’s not hard to choose which I prefer.
    “Look at the selection,” I say, gesturing toward the sparsely populated shelves. “If we could stay in one place for a little while, I’d have a garden up and growing in no time. But since we’re on the run, I’ll take what I can get.”
    Miles smiles broadly. There’s something jubilant in his expression . . . like now that it’s established that we’re together, he’s supremely proud to be with me. He winks and then leans forward on the counter and asks the man, “Is there a zoo somewhere nearby?”
    “A zoo?” the old man asks, confused.
    “If we wanted to see something like, I don’t know, lions and zebras, is there anything like that around?” Miles asks.
    “There’s a zoo back in Albuquerque,” the man says, lifting uphis cowboy hat and scratching the fuzz of hair that’s squished down underneath. “No zoo around here, though.”
    Miles nods. “Thanks,” he says, and picks up the bags as I count out the cash for the gas and groceries.
    “Although, if you wanted to shoot yourself some zebras, there’s a crazy Texan who runs a hunting range over southeast of Vaughn,” the man continues. “Don’t