Late afternoon light turned the distant mountains copper-red. Chloe passed a service road leading toward a closed aggregate plant, then another that disappeared into open scrub. There were fewer houses now, fewer signs of ordinary life. The motorcycle's engine developed a sharper rattle that came and went with the load, and its rear end began to feel unsettled beneath her. She reduced speed and searched for somewhere safe to pull off, but the road offered little beyond uneven shoulders and dry drainage channels.
Her phone had been confiscated weeks before, so she had no reliable way to call Arthur or the number he had written on the map. The map itself flapped against the inside of her jacket whenever the wind caught it. She could see the edge of Nevada on the paper, close enough to fill her with hope and still too far to feel real. The machine shuddered again, harder this time. Chloe whispered her father's name without meaning to.
The sound that followed was unlike any normal engine complaint she had ever heard. A sharp crack came from below the seat, then a grinding noise that vibrated through the frame and made the motorcycle jerk sideways. Chloe fought to keep it upright as the rear wheel dragged, scraping across the surface of the road. For a terrifying few moments the whole machine moved at an angle to the direction she was looking. She managed to steer onto the dirt shoulder before it finally stopped.
Silence arrived so suddenly that Chloe could hear her own breath inside the helmet. She lowered both feet, waited for the machine to settle, and carefully climbed off. A bitter smell drifted from the damaged housing near the engine, and smoke rose through the fading light. She backed away until she was certain nothing else was moving. Then her knees gave way, and she sat on the dirt beside her backpack.
"No," she said, as if the word might be enough to reverse the last few seconds. "Please. Not here."
She did not kick the bike until she was safe enough to be angry, and even then she regretted it immediately. Pain shot through her toe, reminding her that rage had never been very useful around heavy metal. She sat with her face in her hands and listened to the desert wind move through the roadside weeds. The nearest town was farther than she could walk before nightfall in her condition. She had used too much energy just getting this far.
It was colder after sunset than she expected. The temperature fell quickly, and the thin layers beneath Arthur's borrowed jacket offered less protection than she had imagined. She pulled the jacket tighter and inspected the remaining water. One bottle had gone nearly empty; the other held enough to make careful planning matter. She ate half a packet of crackers without tasting them and tried to decide whether walking through the darkness would be safer than staying beside the motorcycle.