by Nicole Fox
“So, bro,” said the first man. “What’s the plan now?”
“We ditch this car,” said the second man. “Meet-up location for the buy is near some abandoned quarry in Jersey. Figure we ditch the car and hoof it the rest of the way with the gear.”
My blood ran cold at this. They were going to just ditch the car in a quarry, with me inside? I had to do something; now my life was on the line.
“Then what, bro?” said the first man. “We just walk the rest of the way back?”
“They’re paying us in cash. I’m thinkin’ we cab it to the nearest used dealership, buy a beater, and haul the cash home in that. This shit needs to be clean and clear; I don’t want us to be linked to these guns in any way.”
Great, just fucking great, I thought.
Not only had my car been stolen, it’d been stolen by two men who were about to do a major arms deal. Any hope of this being just a couple of guys going for a joyride had gone right out the window. And I had to figure out just how to get out of this car without them knowing, before I took a plunge into a quarry.
This situation was going from bad to worse by the second. This wasn’t just about me getting my car back now—my life was on the line.
“Bro, what the fuck you gonna do with your cash?” asked the first thief.
“What do you care?” asked the second.
I figured the most I could do was listen in on the conversation between the two men. Maybe I’d be able to hear something that’d come in useful.
“Just makin’ conversation, bro,” said the first man.
“Not sure,” said the second. “Probably save it like the rest.”
“Man, that’s fuckin’ boring,” said the first man. “You live in the best city on the goddamn planet, you’re making money hand-over-motherfuckin’-fist, and all you want to do is put it in a fuckin’ mayonnaise jar under your bed like a grandma or some shit.”
“What’re you doing with your cash that’s so much better?’
“Spend that shit, bro,” said the first man without even missing a beat. “Gonna buy that pad in Williamsburg I’ve been lookin’ at, the one with the fuckin’ view. Trick that place out, maybe get me some of that hipster art-school pussy.”
“You oughta be figuring out how to run an operation with some discretion,” said the other man.
“Yeah, yeah,” said the first.
I couldn’t believe how scared I was. My blood felt like ice water, yet my stomach boiled like hot acid. I realized, to my horror, that I had two options: let the thieves know that I was in the back of the car, or take a long dive down into the quarry.
Soon, the car came to a stop. I could barely breathe for how scared I was.
“We’re here, bro,” said the first man.
“Then let’s do this fucking thing.”
Chapter Four
Alyssa
The two car doors opened, and I felt my body shake so hard with fear that my teeth chattered. It was do or die—literally. Next, the backdoors opened, and I felt the weight of the bag lift off of me. I knew that going down with the car was no option, but I couldn’t move a muscle; I was scared beyond rational thought.
“Damn, this shit’s heavy,” said the first man.
“You think a hundred pounds of hardware would be light, dumbass?” asked the second man, a trace of annoyance in his voice.
“Man, lay off,” said the first man. “Doesn’t being your bro count for anything?”
The second man just laughed.
“All right, let’s get rid of this fucking thing,” said the second man.
“Sounds good to me. I’m ready to get fuckin’ paid.”
With that, the door shut. I knew that it was now or never. Staying silent would mean my death, if these guys were serious about tossing the car. Taking a deep breath, I reached out a shaking hand to the door handle. I grabbed it and pulled. But right at that exact moment, one of the men opened the door from the outside.
“—just gonna double check to make sure,” said the second man.
But my hand was gripped hard onto the handle, and as he pulled the door opened I was dragged right along with it. My body was yanked out from under the covers and pulled hard. I tumbled out of the car in a heap and landed on the hard, jagged gravel of the quarry ground. But before I could even register what had happened, I looked up into the faces of the two men who’d stolen my car.
“What the good goddamn fuck?” asked the one on the right, the first man.
He had a look to match his voice. The first man was lean and taut, his thin but muscular arms sticking out from the sleeves of his oversized white T-shirt. His face was made up of narrow black eyes, a thin, pointed nose, and lips that looked a notch or two too small. Strangely, all of those odd ingredients worked in his favor, and he had one of those faces that was unconventionally attractive. His chin was pointy and the lower half of his face was dusted in a patchy attempt at a beard. He was dressed in an oversized white T-shirt and baggy jeans, a pair of tan boots peeking out from under his pants.
“Cory, I’m gonna ask you one question—did you honest-to-fucking-God boost a car?”
While the first man, Cory, was unconventionally handsome, the second man looked like he’d been the inspiration for something carved out of marble and put on display in a museum somewhere. He was tall and all muscle, his tight white sleeveless shirt straining against his bulging pecs and wide, beefy shoulders. Tattoos snaked up and along his thick arms. If I hadn’t been scared stiff at that moment, the second man’s face would’ve done the trick. He was gorgeous, to put it lightly. His eyes were a bright sparkling blue set among a face of all straight lines, his jaw wide and chin cleft. His lips were full and sensual, and his nose was straight and strong. A shaved head completed the picture, and though the hair was shorn short, I could see that it was the same dark brown, almost black, as his brother’s.
“Cory, you stupid, stupid motherfucker!” shouted the second man, his voice booming, his icy eyes glowering hard down at me. “This kind of shit is exactly why we buy a used fucking car for these jobs!”
“I’m sorry, Russell. I’m fuckin’ sorry,” said Cory. “I had no fuckin’ idea that there was someone in the fuckin’ car.”
Cory seemed shaken to his core by his brother’s anger. I could already see a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.
Right at that moment, I gathered enough presence of mind for my fight-or-flight instinct to kick in. Without thinking, I squirmed away, the rocks pressing hard against the bare skin of my arms and legs. It must’ve been a sorry display, since neither of the two men even bothered to chase after me.
“Damn, look at her go,” said Cory. “At this rate, she might just wriggle out of here in the next few hours.”
“Cory, shut the fuck up,” said Russell.
I struggled to my feet, rocks kicking out from under me as I did. But before I could even begin to prepare to run, Russell rushed over to me with incredible speed. He grabbed me hard by the arm, pulled it behind my back, and shoved me against the car.
“If you know what the fuck’s good for you, you won’t try anything like that again,” said Russell, leaning in, his breath hot against my face.
As fucked up as it sounds, I couldn’t help but take in his manly scent as he pressed against me. My face was smushed up against the glass, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that Cory still looked pretty damn worried about the whole situation.
“Cory,” said Russell. “Do you know what the fuck this is?”
“I don’t know, bro,” said Cory. “Um, a fuckin’ girl?”
“No fucking shit it’s a girl,” said Russell. “But what this really is, is a fucking major goddamn problem.”
“Listen, Russell,” said Cory, a pleading tone to his voice. “I’m really fuckin’ sorry. I screwed up.”
Russell held his hand up, silencing his brother. He continued to stare at me with those piercing blue eyes, his hard stare making me feel small and insignificant
.
“Please,” I said.
Now it was my turn to plead.
“You can take whatever you want; take the care—I don’t care,” I continued. “Just let me go. I promise I won’t tell anyone about either of you.”
Russell’s face stayed still and impassive. Cory and I both watched him carefully, both of us eager to see what kind of decision he’d make. His eyes flicked over to the bag of guns, and he seemed to be getting more and more pissed off by the second.
“This …” he said finally, “is exactly why I hate running with hot cars. Now, bro, I’m gonna ask you what you did with the money that I gave you to buy the used car; it better be an answer that I’m happy with. And I’m gonna know if you’re lying.”
Cory was sweating bullets now. Judging by how on-edge Russell was making Cory, it was easy to see just who was the dominant one in this particular dynamic.
“I … uh, um, you know. I got my stuff.”
With the same speed that he’d used to hold me down, Russell exploded through the air and grabbed onto Cory, swinging him around and throwing him back against the car, right where I’d been only a moment before. He slammed him against my car so hard that I wondered if he’d seriously hurt him.
“You got your fuckin’ ‘stuff,’ huh? Is that what you’re calling it now? Huh? Maybe even a little leftover to blow on whores later?”
“I’m sorry, Russ,” Cory stammered, appearing completely broken by his brother’s onslaught. “I won’t pull this shit again, I promise.”
Russell looked over his brother once again, his eyes moving up and down in one final, judging glare.
“Fucking disaster of a human being, you know that?” said Russell. “You’re goddamn lucky you’re my brother; any other low-life shithead pulled this shit he’d be going down there with this fucking car.”
“But,” offered Cory, his voice weak, “I just figured we’d have so much money from this job that me taking a little off the top wouldn’t matter.”
I shuddered at that. I’d just met Russell—if you could call this horrible situation a “meeting”—and even I knew that Cory was really pressing his luck.
Russell took a deep breath, and I got the sense he was calming himself down as not to fly into a rage that would end in him pitching his brother down into the quarry.
“The money isn’t the goddamn point. What is, is that I need to be able to trust you to follow simple, clear fucking orders. How the hell can I work with someone who I can’t trust, huh?”
“Sorry, Russ,” said Cory.
“I don’t want to hear your goddamn sorries. We got a situation to deal with, and that’s all I give a shit about right now.”
Russell appeared ready to let his brother go, but had one last thing to say.
“Consider yourself on fucking notice.”
Cory nodded weakly.
He let go of his brother, who scurried away. Then he turned his eyes back to me.
“Now, what are we going to do with this little thing? I mean, she’s seen both of our faces, heard both of our names, and knows just what kind of shit we’re getting up to tonight. Isn’t that right?”
He stared hard at me. For a moment, I considered lying. But judging by the harsh tone he had taken with his own brother, I thought better of it. If this was how he treated his own brother, I doubted he’d go too easy on someone like me lying right to his face.
“I … I do.”
Russell nodded in confirmation.
“But please,” I said. “Don’t hurt me. I won’t tell anyone; please.”
Russell appeared to be considering any number of options. I got the sense that he was the calculating type, the plans-on-top-of-plans sort of criminal, as opposed to his brother, who seemed to be anything but that.
Several long moments passed as he considered just what to do. I knew that my life was being weighed right then, and all it would take was a word from him and I’d be dead.
“Get your shit out of the car,” he said finally. “And hurry it up.”
“Are … you gonna kill me?” I asked.
“Just get your shit. That car’s going over the edge.”
I nodded, realizing that I’d just had a stay of execution. Opening the back driver’s side door of my doomed car, I was presented with the sight of what amounted to my entire life piled in the back. Nothing but some clothes, a few toiletries, a couple of pairs of shoes, and the little money I had. I sifted through my belongings, realizing that there really wasn’t anything here worth saving. And on top of that, if I didn’t have my car to stay in, I was sunk—I might as well just be dead.
Those last words lingered in my mind as I went through my things.
Might as well be dead.
I stood up and looked over into the black void of the quarry. With careful steps, I approached the edge and stared down. All I could see below was the shimmering purple of the water, and even that was tough to make out. Anyone who fell down that distance probably wouldn’t be able to be told apart from the wreckage of their car.
“I think this girl’s got a fuckin’ death wish,” said Cory as I looked down. “Must be really attached to that piece of shit car.”
“Shut the fuck up,” said Russ, evidently not yet over his anger at his brother. “What the hell you doing?”
The thought of Logan finding me gnawed at me, even then. Even if these guys let me go, it was only a matter of time before he found me. Especially if I didn’t even have a car. And wandering around on foot … it was about as stupid as it got.
No, the only option I had was to start over, to toss my old life behind and try again with a new one, with a clean slate. And that’s exactly what I could have right now.
“Is there …” I started, turning away from the quarry and walking back towards the brothers, “… any way you could kill me?”
“What?” shot out Cory. “What the fuck are you talking about, lady? Man, I thought I was joking about you being into that car.”
Russell held up his hand again.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“I mean, fake kill me,” I said. “My life, um, well, my life is kind of a disaster right now. It’s nothing I even give a shit about saving, really. But if you could make it look like I went down into the quarry along with the car ... it’d give me the second chance I needed.”
Then Russell flashed me about the sexiest smile that I’ve ever seen. It was a scheming smile, his eyes narrowed and his sensual lips pulled up at one end just a bit. For some reason, he seemed to be on board with what I was asking.
“You want me to help you fake your death?” he said.
“This girl’s fuckin’ crazy,” said Cory. “Fake your death? Why the hell would you want that? You already got a second chance with us not fuckin’ killing you.”
Russell ignored his brother and appeared to give what I was asking some serious consideration. Then his eyes moved slowly up and down my body, his gaze starting at my face and sliding down. Normally, I would’ve felt uncomfortable by what he was doing, but something about Russell … I couldn’t explain it.
“You want our help, then?” he asked.
“Um, yes.” I said. “Just to make it look like I went down with the car.”
Russell walked over to the quarry and took a look over.
“Fucking abyss down there,” he said. “Easy for a body to get lost forever. Connects to the river system, too. Cops would probably find out who you were from the plates and figure you got swept away. Dead on impact. Case closed.”
My hopes rose just a little with that. Was he considering what I was asking?
“I think I might be able to help you with this,” he said. “But there’s a price to be paid.”
I didn’t even think it over. Maybe I should’ve.
“Fine,” I said. “Anything.”
“This is such a bad fuckin’ idea, Russ,” said Cory. “Just send this bitch packing; we don’t need to get involved in all this shit.”
“Then let’s do it.”
He walked over to the back of the car and sized the situation up.
“Nothing in there you want?” he asked.
“Nope,” I said, not missing a beat.
Russell opened the driver’s side door and gave the parking break a pull. Then he returned to the back of the car and gave it a push. The car lurched a few inches, the gravel crackling under the weight of the tires.