Long Time Gone (Hell or High Water ) Read Online Free PDF Page A

they rattled around the floor of the backseat. Occasionally they’d get caught up under the driver’s seat and he wouldn’t see them for weeks, and then they’d reappear.
    Ten-plus years and they hadn’t gotten caught in the pedals once. He’d thrown them into the truck the morning of John’s memorial service, and he hadn’t touched them since.
    Not that he was superstitious or anything.
    He had the windows rolled down, the sunroof open, and the sunshine felt good on his face as the breeze ruffled his too-long hair. Music blared, and he dodged slower moving cars at a good clip, all while keeping an eye out for cops, which was how he’d made the normally twenty-one-plus-hour trip in under eighteen.
    It also helped that most law enforcement was being pulled in to handle storm-related shit. And that’s why Prophet was here after all, running toward the storm, rather than away from it, dragging an inconspicuous U-Haul behind his truck. The U-Haul held two generators. Food. Water. Guns. Cash. Enough to keep them safe and big enough to evacuate if necessary.
    The French Quarter was one of the safer spots in terms of rising water. The biggest problems they’d face were loss of water and power. And looting.
    The National Guard was directing people out of the city. Mandatory evacuation that half the residents wouldn’t follow. Of those remaining, half would call for help when it started to get bad, and more would call when it was too late for rescue.
    But a significant number wouldn’t call ever. They’d live or die here. Tom’s aunt was among that group. Maybe Tom had more family in the actual bayou parish he’d been born in, but this aunt was the only one he’d been concerned with.
    Prophet’s fingers drummed the wheel as Jackson Browne blared “Doctor My Eyes.”
    “Got to be fucking kidding me,” he muttered, but he kept the song on anyway because he liked it. He’d had his regular check-up with the eye doctor just before he’d left for parts unknown.
    Needed to schedule another one, but hell, it’s not like the doctors could do anything. The genetic disease that predestined him to some degree of blindness was already progressing, according to his last exam, and Prophet was pretty sure he’d know when it actually affected his day-to-day vision before they did.
    When traffic slowed down, he noted the checkpoint, which meant he was right outside NOLA. In between the stop-and-go crawl, he checked his phone and saw Cillian’s text.
    Did you run from me? Cillian had sent the text an hour after Prophet had packed and left. Because, contrary to what he’d told Blue, Prophet was supposed to meet Cillian. In his apartment. On Cillian’s couch.
    “I ran from me ,” Prophet muttered as he approached the checkpoint. Typed in Hurricane.
    In your apartment?
    Asshole. In Louisiana.
    You have family there?
    Ah, fuck it. Tom does. Gotta check on his aunt.
    Tom’s family isn’t your problem. Neither is Tom.
    That was all true. “And yet, you’re in a truck headed to help a man who gave you away like yesterday’s news.” Prophet shook his head at himself and dropped the phone into the cupholder without answering Cillian.
    A camouflage-wearing Guardsman strode stiffly over to his truck. “You’re from out of state,” he barked at Prophet.
    “Yes.”
    “Sir, we’re not letting any out-of-state residents past this point. Please turn your truck around.”
    The guy was a former Marine. Even without the tattoo on his forearm of the globe and eagle and snake, Prophet would’ve known it because of his stance. He thought about pulling the military card, decided against it because he was feeling like too much of a dick. Especially after Cillian’s comments.
    He flipped his fake FBI ID badge. “Gonna let me through now, son?”
    Without waiting for the answer, he jerked the old Blazer through the barricade and gunned it, not bothering to look in his rearview.
    Prophet: One. World: Zero.
    Then again, Mother Nature was