My mind plays through the scenario over and over again, trying to figure out any possible maneuver that might result in a broken window. But I know, deep in my gut, that it wouldn’t work out that way, no matter how desperately I wish for it to happen as I imagine it.
Things in real life almost never pan out the way they would in movies and television. I may be a little young and naive, but even I am not childish enough not to know that.
Even with the cloudiness in my brain, that much is clear to me.
Besides, even if I was to get that window open, I still don’t know where the hell I am right now. All I can tell is that I’m not close to home. The world outside the window is alien to me. Instead of the green, lush, idyllic plains of Stonedale, it looks more like a desert of sorts. Dry, cracked earth turning to sticky mud under the pouring rain. Not a tree in sight. Not another house in sight, either.
Stonedale is rural enough on its own, but you still almost always have a neighbor within easy walking distance. It’s not country enough to be totally isolated like this place seems to be. If I were to bust through this window somehow, miraculously, I would still just be a lost, physically weakened girl in a foreign place. I don’t have my phone. I don’t have my wallet.
I can picture it now: me, walking for hours and hours across the desolate landscape without ever running into another living soul who could rescue me from this hell I’ve landed in.
No.
There’s no point in messing with the window anymore.
I still feel as though someone must have slipped something into my drink. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise. I know for a fact I was not consuming alcohol on purpose last night. I may be a little braver, a little more reckless when Moxie is around to boost me up with her own devil-may-care attitude, but at the end of the day, I’m still only eighteen years old. I can’t order a boozy drink at a bar. I can put on makeup and dress like a grown-up all I want, but I don’t have a fake ID. I don’t have the smoothness or the lack of conscience to be a successful liar. No matter how tired and distracted I might have been last night, there’s no way I would have ordered anything other than my usual cranberry juice.
How in the world would I have managed to score anything else in the first place?
With my soft, youthful face and skinny teen-girl body, I can’t successfully pull off the whole ‘twenty-something who just happened to forget her ID at home’ ruse that Moxie is always pushing me to try. So, if I did somehow imbibe alcohol, it’s not because I sought it out myself.
It’s because somebody else gave it to me without my even realizing it.
I step back from the window when I realize that I’ve managed to snap the tips of my glittery-pink fingernails with my attempts to pry it open. I look down sadly at my chipped and broken nails, my heart sinking. Whoever nailed that window down made damn sure a girl like me couldn’t rip it open again. It’s intentional.
Not just intentional
Planned.
Someone has clearly thought long and hard about the best way to keep a girl like me trapped in a room with no escape. The door is locked from the outside. The window is nailed shut. I have no phone, no way of connecting with the outside world. I’m a fish in a bowl, a bird in a cage. I only wish I knew why someone wants to keep me here like this. Am I someone’s shiny new pet? Am I in trouble?
Am I ever going to get out of here?
With the dizziness finally starting to subside enough to let me walk around without falling over, I begin examining the room in deeper detail. I brace myself against the wall with one outstretched arm as I slowly, carefully pace the perimeter of the room. It’s messy, but not crowded. Whoever designed this place clearly didn’t put too much effort into the design aspect. I’m not dealing with a Feng Shui expert here.
The room doesn’t contain a lot of items. The only furniture is the bed, which is just a lumpy old mattress and some stale sheets on a metal bed frame, and a three-legged chair in the corner. I wander over to the chair and give it a nudge with my foot. It falls over with a clattering noise that makes me stumble back and gasp. Evidently, this chair is not suitable for sitting in. So that means the only usable furniture is the bed. I scan the room for more information that might give me an idea of who it all belongs to and why I ended up here. The floor is bare carpet, that typical beige stuff that’s cheap and meant to withstand a lot of abuse. It’s certainly not stain-resistant, as indicated by the numerous stains of varying colors and shapes and sizes on the floor.
To my horror, one of the stains looks to be a deep, rusty reddish-brown color.
Could that be blood? Or just some weird food stain?
I try to tell myself it’s more likely to be something stupid and mundane like barbecue sauce than something dramatic like blood, but then again… the window is nailed shut and I’m locked in here like a prisoner. Obviously, the guy who brought me here isn’t a stranger to illicit activities.
I can’t believe there was ever a time when I craved being able to live a life like that. Moxie and I can get ourselves into a tight spot from time to time, but never anything truly life-threatening. We stay out too late. We don’t always get enough sleep. Sometimes we talk to boys we don’t know.
But we don’t drink to excess and go home with random guys from grown-up biker bars.
Well, maybe Moxie does.
But I sure as hell don’t. I’m annoyed with myself even now, thinking about a conversation I had with Moxie the other day about how boring my life has become, about how desperately I wanted some adventure and excitement in my world. I remember telling her that I needed something new. A new place to explore. A new face other than the usual ones I’ve been staring at my whole life in my insular community of Stonedale. I was itching for something out of the ordinary.
God, how I wish I could take all that back now. I wanted excitement, sure, but not like this.
I don’t know what I was asking the universe for. I get it now, though. I was a fool to think I could find adventure without risk. Excitement without consequences. After all, that’s what my parents have always taught me: that stepping outside the lines only puts you in danger, and that it’s safer to stay within the neat confines of the rules they’ve laid out for my siblings and me.
I should have listened to reason. I should have stayed within the rules. I should have colored within the lines. I want to smack myself for daring to branch out. The worst part of it is that I knew, even when I was in the midst of the situation last night, that it was wrong. I had a bad feeling in my gut at the bar. I had a sneaking suspicion that the man who flirted with my friend wasn’t completely trustworthy. Hell, I even suspected that the guy who claimed to want to help me was acting with ulterior motives.
And yet I still went through with it all anyway.
That’s the part that really stings. I knew I was making a mistake, but I didn’t stop myself from making it. I must be the dumbest girl to ever walk this earth. I should have listened to my parents.
Oh, my parents. My heart aches as I imagine them all getting up for church this morning, the one part of the week when my whole family has a chance to spend time together. My mom and dad work constantly, with multiple jobs, to keep us all fed and clothed and keep the bills paid. Sundays are the one day they both take off every week so that we can all go to church together as a cohesive family unit. We get all dressed up. My sisters and I curl our hair. My little brothers wear matching dress clothes. My dad wears a tie. My mom puts on makeup for once—she’s a nurse at a local hospital, so she usually couldn’t care less about makeup or dressing nicely. In her own words: “I’m just going to end up covered in someone else’s bodily fluids anyway.”
Again, I feel tears burning in my eyes. I miss them already.
I’m sure they’re all worried sick about me. Most days, they’re all too busy to notice whether I’m around or not. But Sundays are special. They will most definitely notice that I’m missing. I was supposed to go to church with them. I was supposed
to spend time with them, the only chance I get in a week to bond with my parents. With five children in the family, the middle child tends to get left out a lot. But they’ll notice I’m not there. It’ll be obvious to them.
I hate knowing that I’ve let them all down. Right now, I’m supposed to be in a church pew wearing my best dress, with my hair in ringlets and just the faintest, softest makeup adorning my face. But instead I’m stuck here in no-man’s land, far away from everything I know and love.
There’s already tension in my family. I just graduated high school a few months ago, and I’m due to start community college in the swiftly-approaching autumn semester. More than that, though, I’m planning to move out of my parents’ house and live on my own for the first time ever. Even though the community college is within commuting distance of home, I have been craving the independence of living in my own place. I have been ravenously searching the internet for affordable apartments, places I could really make my own. It’s been one of the most important goals in my mind. My parents, however, think I should stay home with them. They don’t think I’m ready to live by myself. So, there’s been a lot of stress and misunderstanding in my household lately. Maybe they won’t immediately jump to the idea that someone has taken me and stashed me away against my will. Maybe they will just assume I’m acting out, intentionally worrying them to prove a point.
Are they even looking for me?
And on top of that, I still have no idea where my best friend is. Moxie disappeared from the bar when I slipped away to the bathroom, and I haven’t seen hide or hair from her since. I can’t shake the feeling that I have let her down, too. I should have been there to keep an eye on her. I should have forced her to go to the bar bathroom with me. I never should have let her be alone with that guy, even for five minutes. I wonder where she is, what happened to her. Did she simply have a fun, exciting time with that mystery guy and then take a taxi home safely? Or is she like me, locked up in some room somewhere, terrified and confused?
Swallowing back the lump of terror in my throat, I make my way back over to the window, peering out into the rainy, stormy landscape. This room might as well be a cell. Apart from the bed and the broken chair and the nightstand holding the malfunctioning alarm clock, there are no personal effects. I doubt this is where someone lives full-time. Maybe it’s not even a room in a house. Judging from the way the wind is howling around the place, this room feels more like a free-standing structure. Or maybe it’s attached to the house, but separate somehow. Like a converted garage. That might explain the lack of personal touches if it’s just a second-thought addition to a house. I stare out the window, squinting in search of anything that might help identify where I’m located. Again, I can’t seem to find anything familiar out there. No landmarks, no street signs. Nothing.
Wait. Not nothing.
“What is that?” I mumble nervously to myself, leaning closer to the pane.
I hear the rumble of the motorcycle engine long before the image comes close enough for me to really look at it. My heart begins to pound. This is the first sign of life I have noticed all day long. There’s a man riding his motorbike out there, and he’s getting closer and closer! Remembering that I rode on the back of a motorcycle at some point last night, I try to determine if this is the same guy, but I realize that he doesn’t look familiar. He’s a different biker, not the one who presumably brought me here.
I gaze at him with wonder. Despite the fact that it’s pouring down rain and the dirt roads are all muddy and messed-up, he looks cool and confident, like he’s utterly unfazed by the inclement weather. He’s close enough now for me to notice that he is also stunningly, shockingly attractive. Even through the heavy rain I can make out his powerful, well-defined jawline and the sharp cut of his cheekbones. He looks like a tall, broad-chested guy—the kind who would easily find work as an athlete or a bouncer or something. As he rides closer and closer, I find myself totally enraptured by his looks. I’m fascinated by him, and I want to know more.
But he doesn’t seem to notice me at all. He’s clueless, riding along without a care in the world.
What if he can help me? I want to trust him.
Then again, I trusted that guy last night from the biker bar, too, and look where that landed me.
Still, I can’t shake the feeling that this guy is different, that he might be my best chance at escaping this stale-smelling cell. So, I decide to start banging on the glass and yelling at the top of my lungs, trying desperately to get his attention as the mysterious hottie rides past, close enough now for me to see the faint shadow of stubble on his face. I beat my fists against the glass and scream until I’m hoarse, but to my dismay he doesn’t seem to notice me.
At first.
Thunder rolls over the valley, drowning out my screams. But then, out of the darkness comes a shining light of hope. The biker guy slows down, a look of interest on his handsome face. He turns his head and a shock of electricity shudders down my spine as his eyes lock with mine through the pouring rain.
My heart stops for a moment.
He sees me, and I am known.
Breaker
Rain patters against my leather jacket and runs down my face in thin streams, but I can’t tear my eyes away from the face in the window of the shed. It’s hard to make out in the overcast, rainy skies, but I could swear it’s a girl. I’m not close enough to tell, but she looks like a pretty little thing, too.
Maybe Roadster’s finally bringing someone home? His bike is the only one already here, after all. An overnight stay in the shed sure isn’t my idea of romance, but Roadster always did like making girls feel like they were living on the edge.
Or trying to, more like. But last night was Saturday, and the timeline adds up. It’s about an hour after noon, not too long after I’d be waking up if I was out with a girl all night and decided to bring her back to my motorcycle club’s place.
For a groupie, she looks cute from here. She has the kind of face I wouldn’t mind getting a closer look at, if this were an ordinary night out on the town. It looks soft, and there’s something innocent to it that you don’t see much in the crowd I ride with. That kind of girl would be hard to keep my hands off.
She wouldn’t be the first prim, good-girl groupie I loosened up. They call me Heartbreaker for a reason, even if I consider myself on break from earning that nickname.
All that aside, it looks like my buddy finally found himself a groupie down to party, and I have to feel glad for the guy. Credit where credit is due, that looks like a catch in there.
But the longer I stare, the closer I get… something looks wrong. I narrow my eyes as I slow my bike down, and I see that angelic face moving around in the window, followed by a small fist pounding on the glass. Her expression is twisted up, and she isn’t looking out in pure curiosity. She’s shouting and banging on the glass, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she looks downright terrified.
That doesn’t track, for Roadster.
I bring my motorcycle to a slow stop next to his in the still-small row of bikes outside the old warehouse we use as a meeting place for our club. Killing the engine, I swing my leg off and march across the gravel on heavy footsteps toward the front door. I fling it open, and I step into the familiar feelings of the closest thing I have to a home right now.
The interior is still obviously a warehouse, but it is one we’ve made our own. The ceiling is all exposed infrastructure, vents, and the faint light filtering through usually dirty windows that was streaked with rain from outside. The floor is plain concrete, because our dusty boots don’t need anything fancier and it was easier for Eli to clean spilled beer off of. Eli himself stands behind the bar, the only man around anywhere near here who doesn’t ride with us.
The bar itself is modest and industrial, too, but the drinks behind it are strong enough to knock any one of us on our ass as often as we wanted. After a long ride, or a longer day taking care of club business, that was hard to beat. A few spartan w
ooden tables and chairs sit around the warehouse, a pool table taking up the southeast corner next to an old jukebox, and a few other odds and ends we’d brought back to the club to make it look like our own.
There’s a large blackboard Eli had hung up behind him, originally to write down new beers or liquors he’d gotten in, but it has proven good for other uses over time, by various hands, judging by the different notes jotted down in every available space:
Bones owes Big Daddy $40. Signed: Bones, Big Daddy, Buzz.
Ironside saved Roadster’s ass - 2/16/2013
Breaker kicked Roadster’s ass @ pool table - 5/5/2013
Bones owes Roadster $30. Signed: Bones, Roadster, Buzz.
STOP BREAKING POOL STICKS. Signed: Buzz
It’s our club’s growing piece of history, so over time, we’ve been finding it harder to erase old things to make room for new ones. That, and Bones’s habit of losing bets in pool meant his debts would be up there for us to chuckle at for a while yet.
I give Eli a nod as I approach, and the balding guy with a gruff yet friendly face looks up at me from the TV he was watching on the bar with a smile.
“What’s going on, man?” I greet him, leaning against the bar.
“You’re early,” Eli says.
“Guess I’m the only one who doesn’t mind a ride through the rain,” I joke with a wink. I was usually the last person to show up to our Sunday meetings. “‘Cept Roadster. Seen him around? His bike’s outside.”
“Think he went out back last I saw him,” Eli says. “People been scarce today. Most of them still are sleeping off last night.”
“I bet,” I chuckle, tapping a knuckle on the bar a couple of times. “Hope they didn’t give you too much trouble.”
“Nah, I’m just glad Bones put that frat kid on his ass before he could really start trouble,” he grunts.
Breaker Page 2