"I thought you were hurt," she whispered against his cheek when his mouth moved from her lips to her jaw. He smiled and brushed her ear with his lips. "Not so much as I let on."

Trying to ignore the gentle pressure against his chest, he kissed her mouth again. She turned her head.

"What's the matter?" he asked, leaning up on his elbows. But he already knew.

"Why would you lie?"

He groaned and flopped onto his back, sucking in a breath at the surprising pain that ripped up his leg. "I didn't lie. I really am hurt. Just not as badly as I let on."

"You pretended to be hurt more than you are. That is a lie," she said quietly, accusingly.

"No, it's not, really." How could he explain it to her? "I just didn't want to go any further on this trip before we got some concrete information. I don't want to rush headlong into something bad."

She shook her head. "We do not have to rush headlong. We simply need to get there. It is a long drive. How can you waste our time so?"

"I'm not wasting our time, I'm preserving your life!" He swore. If she wasn't going to let him protect her from the Oracle, he wasn't going to protect her from the truth. "She told me, through you, that the closer we come to her, the more power she has over us."

"I know this!" Bella sat up, uttering some angry words in Italian. "I swear you think I am a child, Max."

She rarely spoke his name, at least, not to him. He covered his face with his hands. "Bella, listen to me. You're afraid of the Oracle. You admit she's a danger to us."

Bella nodded.

"Maybe, just maybe then, if we don't go find her, we won't die." He bracketed her face with his palms. "We can get in the car and drive. It doesn't matter where we go, as long as it's away from her."

Bella's hands came up to cover his, to grip his arms and gently force them down. "What about Nathan and Carrie? They are depending on us to help them."

"We can throw out the cell phone and forget them." He didn't know what shocked him more, the fact he suggested leaving his friends—and the world—at the mercy of the Oracle and the Soul Eater, or the desperation required to talk about it. Or what that desperation meant. "We can just forget everything. No one will ever find us."

"No." She lifted his hands to her lips and kissed them. "We would always be running from our pasts."

He shook his head. "I'm not going to take you to her. Not if you have this feeling of dread. Not if you're certain you're going to die. Never gonna happen."