Wind slashed across his bare flesh.
Shivering, he reached blindly for a towel.
When he grabbed one, the towel pulled back.
He looked up.
Above him stood Bill Werner, holding the towel in one hand and Karl’s pistol in the other.
61
Karl shivered under the gun barrel. Werner’s eyes worried him more than the weapon itself. The man stared ahead, almost bored, like he was wiping tables after closing time. No fire, no anger, no life in those eyes. No care either. That terrified Karl. When a man didn’t care, he was capable of anything.
A breeze iced Karl’s wet flesh. He trembled, hugging himself against the chills. His clothes lay near. When he shifted toward them, Werner snatched them up like a tangled pom-pom.
“What you skinny dipping for?” Werner asked in a dead tone. “You trade something?” He eyed Karl’s healed neck. “Your skin?”
Karl shivered. “I need that towel.”
“I need my wife. But she’s at the house. Dead at the house. She cut her own throat. Wanna guess why she did that?”
Karl’s heart lurched. “Bill, listen—”
“Take a guess, Karl.”
“I think I know.”
“Then say it.”
“Because…she lost her eyes.”
“She didn’t lose them.” Werner poked the cold barrel against Karl’s forehead. “Say the real reason.”
Karl held still. “Because Trent and Ashlee drove her outta the zone.”
“That’s right.” Werner sniffled. No telling if it was from the cold weather or sorrow. “I oughta return the favor, ya think? It’s only fair. Someone I love died, so your kids oughta learn what that feels like.”
“Wait! Rosita went blind in the first place because of you. Candace said so yesterday while we were digging. Bill, you gotta look at yourself in the mirror.”
Werner blinked, but his resolved expression didn’t change. “You’re right. I’m in the wrong here too. Think what we’ll do is drive out together.”
“Bill, no, that’s not what I meant!”
Werner tapped the barrel against Karl’s skull. “Get up.”
Karl’s wet, freezing body ached as he rose. Water rolled down his chest, trailing harsh chills. At Werner’s direction he cuffed himself, though he left some slack on each cuff. Werner wasn’t fooled, and he clamped them tight before pocketing the key.
“C’mon,” Werner said, gesturing toward the trail. “Let’s get you outta that wet skin.”
Trent stepped aside and let his sister take the wheel.
After they’d debated back and forth, he’d finally agreed to let her drive Lauren out. There was simply no other way. Ash had a plan: reach the zone’s edge, reverse the car, and back it up so only Lauren crossed the line. Trent hated the idea, and not because it would end with his wife going blind. In his mind she deserved that. What worried him was Ash. Once her ribs started cooking, there was no telling whether she could withstand the heat and finish the drive back. Even if she did manage to finish, she might overshoot the edge and lose her ribcage in the process.
Two days ago, he might’ve shrugged off such an unfortunate scenario. But now, after seeing Ash lay it on the line for Jake, she was family again.
Shutting the door, Ash nodded. “Get moving, Trent.”
“You first.”
She pulled away. Once the taillights vanished from the parking lot, he hobbled toward the trail.
When he reached the edge of the snowy grass, he noticed something strange.
Two people were descending the hill single file, obscured by the shadows cast by the oaks. The person in front wore something that flapped below the knees. For a moment Trent mistook it for a skirt. But it wasn’t a skirt. It was a towel. And the man wearing it was his father.
This makes no sense. Did Dad just trade? Even if he did, why wouldn’t he have dried and dressed?
Then Trent noticed something glinting between Dad’s wrists. Handcuffs. Before Trent could decipher what was happening, Dad caught his toe on something. Trent watched as he staggered downhill and reached forward to break his fall. Behind him stood Bill Werner, clutching a pistol. The bastard clicked the key fob in his other hand and lit up his BMW 3 Series in the lot below. Dad awkwardly stumbled to his feet as Werner yanked him up by the cuffs to continue their downhill march.
The image sent sharp heat through Trent’s chest, as though his heart were pumping out broken glass. He could tell by watching Werner that this was payback—revenge for what had been done to Rosita. Trent needed to safely remove Dad from the line of fire somehow.
But as Trent crept to within twenty feet of the BMW, his leg seized up on him. He fell flat, his cane clattering against the blacktop.
Werner spotted him. “You! Don’t move!”
“Trent?” Dad said, clutching the towel. “Trent, run!”
“No, don’t run!” Werner said. “Stay put. And don’t follow us. Don’t call the cops either. Any of that and I shoot your old man.”
Trent lay there, helpless. Desperate, he yelled, “Rosita’s at your house!”
“I know,” Werner said, shoving Dad toward the BMW’s back door. “She cut her throat. All because you clowns had to have things your way.” He ripped the back door open. “Get in, Karl. Road trip time.”
“Where you taking him?” Trent asked.
“Ten miles out.” Werner kicked Dad’s leg, dropping him to one knee. “Say goodbye to that new skin he just traded for.”
“No, wait—stop! He did nothing to your wife.”
“Exactly.” Werner pressed the barrel to Dad’s back. “And my wife did nothing to you. See how that works?”
“Please—Dad!”
“Finish Snare!” Dad said, ducking inside the car. “If you do, she should let me keep my parts. I can—”
Werner whipped the gun against the side of his head. Dad dropped into the backseat without another word. Werner slammed the door.
“Stop!” Trent shouted. He sprang to his feet, but his leg gave out again. The ground rushed up, slamming his elbows. “Let him fucking go!”
Werner got behind the wheel and drove.
62
When Ash left town, the buzzing started. It felt like she’d swallowed a cocoon of methed-up caterpillars. Uncomfortable, sure, but she could handle ten miles of this shit, no problem. Then, with every passing mile marker, the buzz worsened. Somewhere beyond the fifth mile her ribcage roared. Fiery needles speared her sides, sharper and deeper by the second.
Reluctantly, she let up on the gas. Slowed down. Panted for breath. She needed to pull over and adjust to the burning. If she could ease herself in, she’d be able to manage.
Trouble was, she didn’t have time.
At six miles out, she heard Lauren pounding and screaming in the trunk.
The noise unnerved Ash. She dialed the radio to full blast as the pounding and screaming escalated. Louder and louder. It was like that Poe story she read in middle school, the one where the killer hides a body under the floorboards and hears the dead dude’s heartbeat.
Fuck, what a mess.
Another mile vanished. Her insides hissed with heat. She pictured her ribs glowing orange like toaster coils.
Her sweat-slick fingers lost their grip on the wheel, sending the Subaru into the passing lane one moment and over the shoulder the next. She yanked the wheel back, and the rumble strips rattled the car, intensifying the pain. It became harder to see, harder to think. She needed to pull over. Take a breather. Recover before she passed out.
But it was 4:25. The sky darkened to navy blue. Ash drove on.
Her phone flashed in the cupholder. She couldn’t answer, not without taking her only hand off the steering wheel. She steadied the wheel with her stump. Then, her insides blazing, she grabbed the phone and hit the speaker icon.
“Ash?” Trent’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“How close are you?”
“Close,” s
he said through gritted teeth.
“Hurry. Werner took Dad at gunpoint and drove off with him. They’re headed for the edge of the zone. Dad just traded his skin, so if they leave, he’s fucked.”
“Shit, call the cops!”
“I can’t! Werner said he’d shoot Dad if I did. Listen, we gotta finish these trades. Only way Dad survives is if Snare lets him go. Hurry!”
The moment she hung up, she realized that finishing the trades wouldn’t be enough. Even if Snare released their parts, Werner would still have Dad hostage. Ash couldn’t go after them now, but she had to help her father somehow.
An idea crossed her mind. A longshot.
Using her stump-arm to steady the wheel, she dialed Cheeto and put him on speaker. It rang once before he rejected the call. She redialed with the same result. There was no time to shit around, so she left a desperate voicemail. “Cheets, my dad just got taken hostage. Bill Werner’s driving him up I-81 in an old red BMW. If you get this message, please try to tail them. Maybe even run them off the road. Just do something. He’ll die unless—”
The car vibrated with a yammering crunch. Those goddamned rumble strips. Her teeth rattled. As Ash veered back onto the road, her phone popped from the cupholder. Two car horns blared behind her. She stabbed the brake, wavered beside an SUV, then dropped her twitching foot on the gas.
Another mile gone.
Fire crept from her chest into her head. Sweat rolled down her eyelids, streaking her cheeks and salting her lips. The taste hit her tongue right as she noticed blue-and-red flashers in the rearview mirror.
Goddammit. Not now.
Sirens howled, as if saying, “Yes, now!”
She checked the clock. 4:28. Only eight minutes left.
The cop gained on her. Flashers dominated the rearview.
She eased off the gas. Parked along the shoulder. The trooper settled in behind her. 4:29. Lauren thrashed in the trunk like a mechanical bull. Ash wanted to run outside and beg.
4:29 became 4:30.
She eyed the trooper in the side mirror.
C’mon, c’mon.
The trooper stepped out. He approached, wearing a gray hat with a chinstrap. Lauren screamed, and he flinched.
Ash couldn’t spare another second.
She shifted into drive and gunned it.
Trent knelt beside the creek and checked his phone. Five minutes till sunset.
Over and over, Jake tried to trade, not knowing when the eyes would become available. Trent hated to think he might’ve kidnapped Rosita and driven her to suicide for nothing. Worse yet, her death had landed Dad in a hostage situation.
“Don’t give up,” Trent said, more to himself than to Jake. “Ash’ll come through.”
Ash could see the finish line. Barely. Beyond the swooping snow, the highway exit curled off toward Clarks Summit. This is it.
She checked the rearview. The trooper had gained on her, lights sparking, sirens blaring. Within her chest, the agony amped to eleven. Her ribs bulged, burned, and boiled. Her torso no longer felt like it belonged to her. She maintained vague control over her head and limbs, but nothing more.
With the exit approaching, she lifted her foot off the gas. The speedometer needle swung down to eighty. Seventy. Sixty. She nudged the brake. The Subaru hitched. The speedometer sank while the cop car gained.
Beyond the exit stood the yield sign. The cutoff. Her target.
She crushed the brake.
Horns blared.
Lauren shrieked.
Ash bit her lip. Tasted blood.
The Subaru’s tires skidded as the car maintained speed, thrusting Ash toward a world without her ribcage. Deep fear engulfed her. She stomped the brake, begging the tires to find traction.
She passed the exit ramp.
The yield sign grew closer.
Larger.
Larger.
Too large.
For a moment the tires caught traction, then lost it. The car pitched back into its relentless slide. She twisted the wheel and mashed the brake until everything jolted.
The ruptured momentum flung her forward. Her chin bashed the steering wheel. Her teeth clacked. For a moment all went dark. Thunder burst within the dome of her skull, and her ribs erupted with fresh heat. She wanted all this to be over, but the fire blazed on.
She opened her eyes. The highway lay ahead, motionless.
The car had stopped.
She lifted her head to see where exactly she was. Her wipers streaked the windshield. To her left, a guardrail overlooked a snowy slope. To her right, the yield sign stood waiting. Couldn’t have gotten much luckier. All she needed to do was turn the car around, back up, and nudge Lauren out of the zone.
Flashing reds and blues blitzed toward her, overloading the rearview. High beams pierced the back window, growing brighter without any sign of stopping. Her stomach dropped.
Then came the impact.
First there was the harsh crunch of the Subaru’s frame buckling. Then rubber squealed as Lauren wailed. Ash’s neck whipped violently against the headrest before her collarbone slammed forward against the steering wheel. Stars burst beneath her eyelids, followed by spinning darkness. Then everything stopped.
Unbelievable. That goddamned cop car rammed me from behind.
Lifting her head, she blinked, trying to get her bearings. Her headlights gleamed across the guardrail. Outside the driver’s window, she saw red and blue flashers about twenty feet away. Seemed she’d veered hard to the left and crashed. But that was a good thing. Hope rose within her burning ribs. Now all she had to do was cut the wheel and back up. Then Jake would see and Dad would survive.
Desperate to put the car in reverse, she aimed for the brake pedal. But she hit the gas. The front fender smacked the guardrail. She corrected her footing and shifted into reverse.
With all her strength Ash jerked the wheel.
She hit the gas.
The tires whirred in place.
C’mon, c’mon.
She twisted the wheel, trying to shake the car loose.
C’mon, dammit.
“Hands where I can see them!” a voice yelled. “Don’t move!”
She stomped the gas and went nowhere.
“Don’t move!”
Somewhere below, her phone rang.
“Pick up, pick up.” Trent knelt beside Jake at the bend. His jeans were soaked, and the chills were eating through him. “Pick up…”
He got voicemail.
Shit.
He shut his eyes. Squeezed Jake’s shoulder.
“Try again, champ.”
“I want to trade my eyes,” Jake said. He paused. “It didn’t work.”
“Keep trying!”
The clock on his phone read 4:35. One minute left.
Still fucking stuck. Ash shifted into drive and hoped for a miracle. She tapped the gas, and the car bumped the guardrail.
The trooper approached, gun drawn. “Last warning! Throw your keys out the window! Now!”
Ash shifted into reverse and hammered the gas. Her tires whirred in place, then snapped free.
Shots boomed. The windshield cracked.
The Subaru swung sideways, striking the cop and throwing him across the lane.
Ash righted the wheel and flew in reverse.
Toward the zone’s edge.
She and Lauren both screamed.
Trent rolled his pant leg. He couldn’t wait any longer. Sunset would hit in thirty seconds, and Dad’s life was at stake. Though he’d intended to give Jake every possible second, the situation had spiraled beyond his control. With so little time remaining, Trent had to complete Snare.
Had to disappoint his son.
“Jake,” he said. “I hate saying this, but you gotta move.”
“I want to trade my eyes!”
The conviction in Jake’s voice broke Trent’s heart. It wasn’t fair. He deserved those eyes. But Dad deserved to live. Much as it pained Trent, he had no choice.
He
took his son’s elbow.
“Jake, I’m sorry. I gotta help Grampa.”
“No, wait!” he yelled. “Dad, I feel it!”
“You do?”
A splash sounded. A big one. Jake dropped fully under the surface. Trent mashed his eyelids shut as another splash ensued. A series of trickles were followed by his son’s gasping coughs.
“Jake!” Trent leaned over the water, where his son stood half-submerged. He patted a towel against his son’s face. “Can you see?”
Jake blinked a few times. His unfocused eyes stared ahead.
Trent checked the time.
4:36.
We missed the deadline.
It was over. And it was unforgivable. Trent felt stupid. His own eyes began to prickle and burn. If he’d only acted sooner. He should’ve—
“Dad, you’re crying.”
Trent touched his cheek. Felt a teardrop. For a moment, he realized that, yes, he was crying. Then it dawned on him that he hadn’t made any sobbing noises—nothing that could’ve clued in a blind eight-year-old.
Jake could see his tears.
Jake could see.
Trent’s sobs arrived, full, ecstatic bursts. He wanted to tell Jake, “Yes! Fuck, yes, I’m crying!” but his throat was so swollen with emotion he could barely breathe. He leaned forward and hugged his half-submerged son. Jake hugged him back, hard. They laughed.
Father and son again.
“Dad,” Jake said abruptly, “what about Grampa?”
“Oh, shit. Hang on, Jake. Shut your eyes!”
Trent rolled his pant leg. On his phone the time read 4:37. A minute after sunset. Glaring at his reflection, he called, “I don’t care that I’m late. We’re trading.”
He thrust his leg into the water.
63
Ash lay slumped against the wheel, her ribcage boiling. Now that the adrenaline had worn off, she could hardly breathe, let alone move. The mounting heat dried her lungs and emptied her pores. She needed to lower the window. Her right hand, limp atop the dash, came to life as she willed it toward the door panel. With a shaky finger, she caught the window switch and lowered it.
Bad Parts Page 22