by Skye Warren
“He must be worried. Are you usually home by now? Cooking dinner for him?”
She purses her lips during the brief pause. “We don’t live together. I live in a place on campus.”
“And he lives—where? Not on campus?”
“He’s… Yeah, he’s off campus. He lives…with his parents.”
Disbelief rocks through me, along with a healthy dose of relief.
Even though, why does it matter if she’s got a boyfriend? Some lame-ass boyfriend waiting at home does not matter at all. But the weight off my chest proves it does.
“There’s no boyfriend,” I say.
She scowls at me, proving me right. “Is too.”
God, she’s such a shitty liar. I love it. I want to watch her lie about everything. I want to watch her do everything. “Circumcised or not?”
Her mouth gapes open. She closes it and then opens it again. Nothing comes out. “He’s…he’s…”
“He’s made up.”
“No, he’s not! He’s a communications major in his junior year. And president of the history society. He has brown hair and…and freckles.”
I snort. “I’m sure there’s a guy you know like that. Maybe you even had a little crush on him. But you’re not dating him. And you’re definitely not fucking him.”
Her eyes narrow. “Not everyone thinks about…you know.”
“You know. Is that what you call sex?” Now I’m sure she doesn’t have a boyfriend. In fact…is she a virgin? Because damn, that’s pretty goddamn innocent. For the first time with her, a whisper of concern runs through me. What if she’s too innocent?
What if I break her?
“Be specific, Ms. Winslow. What is it you’re not thinking about?”
Her blush spreads up from her chest to bloom in her cheeks. “Stop pretending you know what I’m thinking. You don’t know shit about me.”
I’m surprised by the bite of her words. I take another look at her, all wrecked and hot and dirty, head resting on the passenger window, hair tangled around her shoulders, out of that prim bun. There’s something natural about her like this.
You don’t know shit about me, she said.
My questions just make me hungrier for her. It feels like physical hunger, like thirst, a craving so deep I wouldn’t even know how to quench it. I can only make her talk and make her cry and make her hurt and hope it’s enough.
“You’re the good girl. The quiet one. The do-gooder. What’s there not to know?”
Reverse psychology. It’s clumsy and stupid, but when her eyes meet mine, I think maybe it’s not so stupid.
“Perfect Ms. Winslow,” I taunt.
“Maybe you’re not the only killer in this truck. How about that?”
I snort. “Did you forget to feed your goldfish one time?”
Abby stares out at the taillights of the car up in the distance, thoughts heavy, lips zipped. Yeah, I know how to wait.
I look back at the road. Back in the foster home, I forgot to feed my two goldfish once and they died. I cried like a baby, and I felt like shit for weeks.
After I got taken, sitting down in that basement in my corner by the metal locker, I’d be scratching designs on the floor with a nail while Stone and the older guys played cards or whatever and I’d think about those fish and I’d still feel like shit. But then we’d hear the footsteps up at the door, and if it wasn’t mealtime, we knew they’d be dragging one or two of us up there.
Or worse, the sound of Dorman’s car outside the window, because that would mean me getting called, and the whole thing would start—making you eat the drugged candy, and then they put you in the creepy outfits—sailor suits and short pants and shit. And I’d think about those goldfish, seeing nothing and feeling nothing with their huge dead eyes, and be all jealous. Like a fucking idiot, jealous of some dead goldfish. Floating around above that stupid little castle I once saved my pennies to buy back when I was a free kid.
I glance at the dashboard clock. It’s been an hour since we cut the driver loose. I’d meant to switch vehicles by now, but she’s got something on her mind, and she wants to spill. Abby’s eyebrows move inward a tiny bit when she has something to tell. She used to do that in class too. The guys never noticed that, and they’d talk when she had that expression, but I never did. I care about what the fuck she has to say.
Right at the point where I think maybe she changed her mind about what she needed to tell, she says, “I let a man die.” Her voice gets a little gravelly as she continues. “I stood there and watched him.”
I should keep my eyes on the road, but I’m riveted—to her hate. Her beauty. Her total powerlessness with me. And now she’s telling me a secret.
“He was in a drug overdose,” she continues. “Foaming, the whole bit. My mom told me to call 9-1-1. Paramedics could’ve saved him. It wasn’t too late, you know?”
“Yeah,” I say, but I know she doesn’t hear. The look on her face tells me she’s back there. It’s a look I know real well, having been in prison, a place filled with guys who spend half their time back there. I need her to continue now more than I need my next breath. I look at the darkness beyond our headlights and glance back. “And you refused.”
“No. I grabbed the phone like a good girl.” Her voice is trancelike. “I tried so hard. I always did.” She pauses. “I really did.” She seems badly to want me to believe it.
“Of course. Kids want to be good,” I say, not sure where that came from or even if I believe it, but I’m desperate for her to continue, and she does.
“I punched three numbers. Just not 9-1-1. It was 4-1-1. She made me call because she didn’t want them to know she was there. She goes, ‘Don’t say I’m here. It’s just you, Ab.’”
Ab. It’s no kind of name. I resolve never to call her Ab.
“And I talked into the phone.” She demonstrates, putting her fist to the side of snarly hair, eyes wild. “We need an ambulance—hurry!” she pleads. “My stepfather—he’s not breathing. W-what?” Her voice gets small, scared. “At 247 Larkin. Hurry. Uh—he overdosed on drugs! He has spit on his lips. Kind of gurgling.” She widens her eyes, gets on this mask of panic to match her voice that does something funny to my chest. “He is on his side! No, he is… I don’t know. Make sure his mouth is open?” She eyes me, nodding urgently, just as she must have done to her piece-of-shit mother. “His mouth!”
Chills run up and down my spine.
“Okay!” she says. And then, “He sounds weird! It’s not right! He’s still not right!” She spins her voice even higher. “Wait. Hold on! No, just hurry!”
She pulls her fist from the side of her head and thrusts it in her lap, suggesting she’d simply hung up at that point. The pretend 9-1-1-call she never made. She straightens out, face sphinxlike. “My mom was hysterical. She had to snort a little brown just to even out enough to get out the back door for the afternoon.”
“And you stayed and watched him die.”
“He took a long time. Or I don’t know, maybe it seemed like that. It was the day before I turned eleven. I remember because I thought…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. A birthday wish that never materialized. “The sounds… His body just really wanted air. Rattling, but kind of like a baby animal crying. I sat far across the room, and it was like he knew I was there and he knew what I was doing, but he couldn’t get to me. He just sat there making those sounds.”
“You couldn’t risk him staying alive.”
After a long time she says, matter-of-factly, “He was killing her.”
I nod. Thumping on the mom, feeding her drugs, maybe whoring her. “You couldn’t risk it, then. That’s obvious.”
She knows what I’m doing. “I killed him.”
“You had to choose.”
She snorts, full of hate and derision, and I get in a flash that she never told anybody before. But she told me, now, and I can’t fuck this up; it’s like she’s given me something fragile and I have to hold it and care for it.
I
see her as that ten-year-old kid, scurrying to school, holding her little world together. I see her trying to make up for it. Repenting with her Sunday-school boyfriend who will never really touch her or make her feel anything real. Pulling stories out of guys like me because she knows how they scorch you inside.
“Hey,” I say, “look at me.” She finally looks at me, face lit by the dashboard lights. “You had to choose. Sometimes you have to choose between one shitty thing and another.”
“Is that personal experience talking, Grayson?”
She’s trying to push the spotlight back on me. It makes her nervous, me seeing her like this. And that’s how I know this is real. When she’s flustered and angry, that’s when I’m seeing the real her. “You saved your mother. That’s what matters. Some people have to die.”
“Like me?” she snaps.
“Dying’s not what you’ll be doing, Abby.”
She looks away, but not fast enough to hide the flush on her cheeks. “I didn’t even feel bad after,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “I always felt bad about not feeling bad, but never for killing him. Not ever. It’s psycho.”
“Why would you feel bad for saving your mom?” I’m starting to get pissed because she shouldn’t feel bad about any of it. In fact, I want to rip somebody’s face off, but that’s not helpful, either. “To a kid that age, listen—saving your mother is the same as saving yourself. It’s the same fucking thing.”
“Don’t try to make me feel better,” she says.
“I’m not. I’m being straight with you.”
She glares at me, but the glare just covers the torment sunk deep in her eyes, and panic flares in my heart because I’m failing her.
I reach down, desperate for something good to give her from inside my worthless self. Something real. “Sometimes, Abigail, you have to punch a fucking hole in your soul to survive.” I might be driving like a maniac, I don’t know. We’re off the highway, but I’m still going highway speeds. I reach over and grab her, pull her clear across the seat to me. “Most people never have to find out what kind of shit they’re really capable of. Most people don’t have to turn themselves into something they hate just to make sure they can get that next breath.”
I might be digging my fingers into her upper arm, but I need to feel her. Her eyes are like mirrors in the greenish light. I can see myself in them.
“You’re going too fast,” she whispers.
I slow slightly. “You know who doesn’t do that? Who doesn’t do the fucked-up thing?”
She’s crying now. I think it might be relief. That’s what it feels like inside me as I watch the tears roll down her cheeks.
I answer my own question. “The kid who ends up dead, that’s who.” I slam on my brakes. I nearly ran a red light. We’re two feet into the intersection. Keep it together. But I’m coming apart.
“Where are we going?”
There’s a town just ahead, and I’m going for it. This truck is near expired. “Switching vehicles.”
She sniffs out a breath. Some kind of subtle cut.
I’m way beyond subtle. “You and me, we survive, okay?”
She’s watching me, but she doesn’t seem to hear, sitting there, dark hair tangled around her pale face, red-rimmed eyes shining. “You are so fucking beautiful,” I say.
The light turns green.
And then I kiss her.
Nineteen
~Abigail~
Tears swim in my eyes. I’m underwater but still breathing.
I don’t see his eyes darken or his head lowering. I can’t see the signs of a predator closing in, especially when he doesn’t look anything like a predator. He looks concerned—about me, when almost no one has ever cared. Definitely not a man like this. Virile and strong. Powerful. He renders me breathless with just a low-lidded look. There’s no time to be afraid before his lips touch mine. They’re softer than I could have imagined. His words are jagged shards of glass, accusations and threats. Lies. But his lips tell a different story.
They’re warm and comforting, pressed flush against my mouth. Even an hour ago I would have jerked away. I would have slapped him. But this kiss tells me he understands. Death and kisses. Blood and sex. They twine together in a dark braid I bury deep inside. He pulls it out of me, rips it from my heart and leaves my throat raw and tight.
He parts my lips and slips inside. There’s a moment of hesitation. Do I let him? A rough sound of impatience vibrates from his lips to mine. His hand tightens on the back of my neck. He’s not asking; he’s taking. He takes my air and breathes it back into me. He takes control of me, and I can finally give in.
I can finally let go.
He rubs his tongue against mine, raising goose bumps along my arms. I never want him to stop, and as if he hears my deepest desires, he tightens his hold on me. One hand fisted in my hair. The other on my hip, pulling me closer.
I’m losing myself. The thought stops me cold.
What have I done? I told him about my mother. I told him about my past. I’ve told him everything about me, tearing off strips of my skin like it doesn’t matter. Like everything will be okay. But it won’t. He’s going to kill me. He’s going to rape me. Though just now, with my tongue curling against his, it doesn’t feel like rape. Is this what death will be like? Will he make me want that too?
A car horn sounds behind us, and I jerk back. His eyes are dazed with lust and something deeper…
I push the thought aside. He doesn’t feel anything. He’s an animal, reacting with snarls and the snapping of teeth. At least that way I can understand what he’s doing. No one likes to be put in a cage.
At least that way I understand why he’s hurting me.
He accelerates, but he still has me, fingers digging into my arm. I whimper.
That seems to snap him out of his haze. You’re beautiful, he said before he kissed me. But the way he looks at me now, I’m not pretty. I’m an alien, something he can’t quite comprehend. There’s wonder and wariness. Hesitation and hope.
The scariest part wasn’t when he pressed a gun to my rib cage while my heart beat a staccato rhythm. The scariest part is right now, wanting to fulfill his hope. Believing that I can. It’s that nightmare that follows me down.
* * *
I jolt as the truck rocks me awake. My cheek bounces off the window. It’s night. Did I fall asleep? Looking around, I see we’ve pulled into a motel parking lot. The place is dark, deserted. The neon blue and red light from the vacancy sign casts a ghostly glow on Grayson’s profile. My insides turn cold with dread. A motel means a bed. Me and him—in a bed.
“Why are we stopping?” My voice comes out rusty.
“I need to sleep. You can keep watch.”
A joke. If I saw anyone coming for us, I’d more likely call them over than give Grayson a warning. By his dry tone, he knows that very well. But he’s taking the risk—so he must really be exhausted.
This is my chance to escape. I just have to keep watch for an opening. It will come.
It has to.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he says, reading my mind.
Too late. “If you think I’m going to cooperate with you, you’re insane.”
He laughs, low and a little bit wild. “What ever gave you the idea I’m sane?”
Then his hand is on my wrist. He yanks me halfway onto his seat and grabs my chin. His eyes are dark pools swirling with anger, guilt—but most of all, determination.
“You’re hurting me,” I say through clenched teeth. His grip on my wrist is twisting my skin. Even his hand on my chin is going to leave a bruise if he clenches it much longer. Everywhere he touches me, I burn.
He doesn’t ease up. “It’s a warning, sweetheart. You know what I’m capable of, and I’m at the end of my rope here. Got no more patience left.”
That was him being patient? “Let go of me.”
“I don’t think I will. I’m going to hold on to you. All night even.” He grins, a little cocky. I can imagine him usi
ng that grin in a bar and having every woman there at his feet. I can imagine being at his feet, especially now. I already am, just not by choice.
My heart pounds with fear, thinking about that bed in there. I have to get away.
He pushes me back into my seat. “See that guy inside the window?”
I look through the lit windows of the motel office and see that there is somebody at the desk in there, but I can’t make out much else. There are no other people in the tiny office. No cars in the lot or buildings nearby. No one to hear me scream.
“Yeah,” I say.
“I know you can’t see him that well, but he’s just a kid. Seventeen? Eighteen? And he’s counting on you to be good for him. You can do that, right? You can sit here, nice and quiet, and he doesn’t have to get hurt.”
Really, the only thing more annoying than Grayson threatening me is Grayson being condescending. I glare at him.
He chuckles. “So we understand each other.”
I watch his back as he goes inside the tiny motel office and up to the counter. I have no idea what he’s telling the guy, but it wouldn’t be his real name or the fact that he just escaped from prison.
Grayson must seem like a completely different person in there—less scary, less intimidating. The guy’s head bobs up and down—is he nodding? Laughing at some casual joke?
He’s got the guy fooled. Well, he doesn’t have me fooled.
So we understand each other, he said, but what he doesn’t know is that I’ve built my life around reading people. As a child, it was how I stayed alive. One step ahead of the junkies my mom hung out with. I learned when to fight and when to lay low. And I’m going to use the same skills to get away.
I can’t run now, even though it’s what I want to do more than anything. But I already found out what happens when I run, and it’s not pretty. He’d catch me. He’d punish me. Or maybe he’d just make me come again.