Die Trying

about her motivation. She was relaxed about it, but she was doing it to rest her painful knee, and to keep herself from rolling off the mattress onto the floor.
    “Fifty-one hours,” she said. “Fifty-one hours, and I haven’t seen the sky.”
    One hundred and thirteen was a prime number. You couldn’t make it by multiplying any other numbers together. Hundred and twelve, you could make by multiplying fifty-six by two, or twenty-eight by four, or fourteen by eight. Hundred and fourteen, you could make by multiplying fifty-seven by two or nineteen by six, or thirty-eight by three. But one hundred and thirteen was prime. No factors. The only way to make a hundred and thirteen was by multiplying a hundred and thirteen by one. Or by firing a shotgun into a truck in a rage.
    “Reacher, I’m getting worried,” Holly said.
    Fifty-one hours. Fifty-one was not a prime number. You could make fifty-one by multiplying seventeen by three. Three tens are thirty, three sevens are twenty-one, thirty and twenty-one make fifty-one. Not a prime number. Fifty-one had factors. He dragged the weight of the chain up with his left wrist and held her tight, both arms around her.
    “You’ll be OK,” he said to her. “They’re not going to hurt you. They want to trade you for something. They’ll keep you fit and well.”
    He felt her shake her head against his shoulder. Just one small shake, but it was very definite.
    “I’m not worried about me,” she said. “I’m worried about you. Who the hell’s going to trade something for you?”
    He said nothing. Nothing he could say to that. She snuggled closer. He could feel the scratch of her eyelashes against the skin on the side of his chest as she blinked. The truck roared on, faster than it wanted to go. He could feel the driver pushing it against its natural cruising speed.
    “So I’m getting a little worried,” she said.
    “You look out for me,” he said. “And I’ll look out for you.”
    “I’m not asking you to do that,” she said.
    “I know you’re not,” he said.
    “Well, I can’t let you do that,” she said.
    “You can’t stop me,” he said. “This is about me now, too. They made it that way. They were going to shoot me down. I’ve got a rule, Holly: people mess with me at their own risk. I try to be patient about it. I had a teacher once, grade school somewhere. Philippines, I think, because she always wore a big white hat. So it was somewhere hot. I was always twice the size of the other kids, and she used to say to me: count to ten before you get mad, Reacher. And I’ve counted way past ten on this one. Way past. So you may as well face it, win or lose, now we do it together.”
    They went quiet. The truck roared on.
    “Reacher?” Holly said.
    “What?” he said.
    “Hold me,” she said.
    “I am holding you,” he said.
    He squeezed her gently, both arms, to make his point. She pressed closer.
    “Reacher?” she said again.
    “Yes?” he said.
    “You want to kiss me again?” she said. “Makes me feel better.”
    He turned his head and smiled at her in the dark.
    “Doesn’t do me a whole lot of harm, either,” he said.

    EIGHT HOURS AT maybe sixty-five or seventy miles an hour. Somewhere between five hundred and five hundred and fifty miles. That’s what they’d done. That was Reacher’s estimation. And it was beginning to give him a clue about where they were.
    “We’re somewhere where they abolished the speed limit,” he said.
    Holly stirred and yawned.
    “What?” she said.
    “We’ve been going fast,” he said. “Up to seventy miles an hour, probably, for hours. Loder is pretty thorough. He wouldn’t let Stevie drive this fast if there was any danger of getting pulled over for it. So we’re somewhere where they raised the limit, or abolished it altogether. Which states did that?”
    She shrugged.
    “I’m not sure,” she said. “Mainly the western states, I think.”
    Reacher nodded. Traced an arc on the map in his head.
    “We didn’t go east,” he said. “We figured that already. So I figure we’re in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, or Montana. Maybe as far as Idaho, Utah, Nevada, or Arizona. Not in California yet.”
    The truck slowed slightly, and they heard the engine note harden up. Then they heard the crunch as the driver came down out of fifth gear into fourth.
    “Mountains,” Holly said.
    It was more than a hill. More than an upgrade. It was a smooth, relentless climb. A highway through the