Camouflage (Predator and Prey #1)

by Angelica Chase

“Me? Nah, wouldn’t hurt her for the world. She’s my girl, Red. I take really good care of her.”

  Blood pooled into my hand as I discarded the broken glass into the trash and braced myself on the counter, dread racing from the center of me throughout every limb, every nerve, and every fiber of my being.

  “Don’t hurt her, Laz. I’ll give you anything you want, just don’t hurt her.”

  “From what I gather, you have about a thirteen hour drive. I’ll be sure to have a welcome home party well underway. You remember the place, right?” I heard Amber shriek in the background.

  “Laz, please—”

  The line went dead as I stood dazed in my kitchen, my past barreling over me like a tidal wave. Grabbing a kitchen towel, I wrapped my bleeding hand and took a deep breath. The Laz I’d left was a criminal and unpredictable, but a large part of me knew then he didn’t want to harm me. Then. The last time I saw him, I’d left him crying and bleeding in a hotel room, begging me not to leave.

  What I was sure of was the man I’d just spoken to on the phone wanted nothing more than to hurt me. Now.

  And I predicted he would be more caustic than the ghost I fought in my head.

  Pushing down the terror that raced through me, I raced through my condo and pulled a bag from my closet, mindlessly shoved some clothes inside, grabbed some cash from my safe, then texted Nina.

  Me: I need a few days.

  Nina: It’s about damn time.

  Functionally numb, I pulled out onto the street, leaving the life I’d built to face the one I’d left behind.

  Adrenaline took the place of fear as I raced down the highway at neck breaking speed. Fully armed and prepared to do whatever it took to resolve the situation, I pushed myself back to a mental state of ruthlessness that I hadn’t visited in years. The agony of not knowing what my sister faced fueled me as I thought of a thousand scenarios that Laz could come up with to punish me. My sister had finally given me the chance I’d been so desperate for and I would not let her down. I hadn’t realized until I crossed the North Carolina border that I’d been seeking redemption. Connection and redemption was what I craved. My love and loyalty for my sister went beyond the simplistic reason of blood, but it was a selfish confirmation I needed from her. I wanted to prove to her and to myself I’d done the right thing by leaving. Now that I had the means to help her in any situation, to get and keep her free of the life I had so purposefully abandoned, I could convince her to leave Dyer.

  She was all I’d ever really had.

  Laz had taken away my innocence and what was left of my faith in men. I refused to let him take any more from me. If he wanted a fight, he had one coming his way.

  “Nora, the fucking anhydrous tank is short again! When I catch the fucking thief, I’ll put a goddamn bullet in his head!”

  I heard the shouting back and forth as my mother and father speculated on any one of their list of enemies stealing the precious liquid from their tank.

  For any common man, anhydrous was a fertilizer for farming. For meth dealers, it was a key ingredient in the mix of the drug. All hell had broken loose in the last few months in the Ellison household due to a new supplier in town and the constant threat of my parents slowing traffic threatening to ruin their monopoly as the town’s best source for meth. They had gone from using meth to selling my father’s biggest cash crop one propane tank at a time. They’d started to make a substantial amount of money showboating around town in new cars and spending it on anything but the disrepair of the house and new clothes and proper nutrition for their children. I’d always blamed the majority of our despair on the fact that we had never had money. After a year of watching my parents live well while my sister and I still suffered, I had no choice but to accept they were simply monsters who had no place as parents.

  I stayed on constant high alert and remained silent and obedient in an attempt to keep my mother’s wrath at bay. My grades were soaring and academically I was being recognized, while going home felt brutal.

  Often times from our beds, Amber and I would hear gunfire in the distance, followed by the hasty retreat of our father’s car in the driveway. He was after the thief stealing the one cash crop that had ever brought him prosperity, and it had nothing to do with his dying fields.

  What my parents did not know was I was the one aiding in the thievery.

  It was my boyfriend who was doing the taking. And it was my boyfriend who my father now had to compete with for the sale of the drug. Laz had spent a few months out of juvie working with Cedric to tar roofs. Cedric had offered him a job with his father’s company, which he gladly accepted until he realized how ‘shit pay would take forever to get us out of Dyer.’ Cedric continually looked out for me, especially when Laz decided to start cooking and testing his product himself. He saw it as quick money, and I saw it as the death of us. Cedric had come to my window, warning me away from Laz, telling me that he’d changed since before juvie, telling me a few convincing secrets I knew Laz would kill him for.

  “You deserve better, Taylor. You deserve more,” he’d said as I shivered in the newly fallen snow. It was just after Christmas but you couldn’t tell in my household. There had been no ‘fucking tree messing up our house,’ no music, no laughter, no gifts. It had come and gone unnoticed, as it had every year.

  “He will come around, Cedric. He’s just trying to do right by me,” I defended.

  “You could come with me. As soon as I sign up we could get housing.”

  “Wouldn’t I have to marry you for that?” I asked as he looked at me with that same wistful look I had before now mistaken. He stepped forward. “We could fake it.” It was then I knew he wouldn’t have been faking.

  “Cedric,” I offered as he took a step away. Rejection eating his features, he spoke up quickly. “It’s a way out, and I thought that is what you wanted. Mark my words, that guy doesn’t love you more than himself.”

  I could see the puff of my exhale as he walked away, the crunch of snow under his boots. I remember thinking he looked a little angelic in his white jacket and sweats among a blanket of snow.

  But his cruel words scarred me, as he didn’t come back after that night. And Laz remained my constant.

  We argued constantly, and though I knew I loved him, a part of that died the first time I saw his pale skin go clammy, his eyes dilate, and the warmth leave him in lieu of drug induced paranoia.

  After the first month he used, I put down my ultimatum. “It’s meth or me.” Laz looked around panicked in the hotel room he’d taken residence in just outside city limits. He still worked with Cedric during the day and stayed awake most nights cooking in different fields to make the ‘real’ money. He was thinning quickly and looked sick. We’d spent nearly no time together since he’d declared me his girl. He claimed he was doing everything he could for us. I was still a prisoner at home and forced to be in by nightfall every day. Laz would pick me up around midnight each night and take me on his drug runs or to go gather supplies. Twice I’d shot my gun in defense while he drove recklessly through town. I’d missed purposefully and Laz knew it, but we were quickly becoming known in the meth community as the Bonnie & Clyde of Dyer. Laz was shunned by his mother and my parents seemed entirely oblivious as I lay low shortly after our brush with rival dealers. Ironically, the biggest rival of all were my meth addicted parents. I’d been cluing him in on when it was safe to go steal from my father and my reward was to be drug around at all hours of the night, watching the boy I loved ruin his body, his mind, his life, and our future. Like most nights, I watched in horror as he produced the drug that had ruined my life. At first, I had justified it as a means to an end, an escape route.

  It was all temporary.

  “I can’t watch this,” I cried as Laz weighed and bagged his new obsession with soulless eyes. “It’s me or meth, Laz. I can’t do this with you anymore. You know what this shit did to my family, to me!”

  “You. I pick you, Red. I’m sorry. I know better. I’m just tryi
ng to get us out of here.”

  “Look at me,” I pleaded. His blue eyes glanced up at me and all I saw was his shame. “Please, we can find another way.”

  “Like what!” He stood, overwhelming anger caused by the drug rolling off of him in waves. “What’s your fucking plan, Red? I’d love to hear it. I have about four hundred saved after the car. We won’t last longer than a week or two. I want to give you a good life. We need a decent start. I want to get as far the fuck away from this place as possible and we don’t have enough!”

  “Laz, don’t ...” I stopped myself. There was no reasoning with meth. “Can you take me home? I have a test tomorrow.”

  Laz looked around the hotel and scratched the back of his neck anxiously. “Just let me bag the rest of this shit and we’ll go.”

  I nodded and sat at the table across from him and watched for three hours as he obsessed with his drug, weighing and reweighing while Sevendust’s “Black” stayed on repeat in the background. Laz made frequent trips to the bathroom to smoke, thinking I was naïve enough to believe he wasn’t. I’d grown up in it. I’d lived it long enough. When I’d finally had enough and Laz had hit the bathroom for the third time, I left the room without a word to him and started the fifteen mile walk back to my house. An hour later, Laz pulled up next to me just as I crossed the city limits.

  “Red, I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t care, Laz. Go back. I can walk.”

  “Get in the car. You have school in a few hours,” he barked.

  “Not that you give a shit. Get. I’ve got this.” He pulled forward, blocking me and waiting while the car idled. I walked past it without a second glance.

  “Hardheaded, get in the car!”

  “Not with you hyped up on that shit!” He opened the door and rushed me, pulling at my hand and placing the keys in it.

  “Then you drive,” he offered, his head hung. “I just want you home safe.”

  “I don’t know how,” I said weakly.

  “No time like the present.” Without another word, he walked to the passenger side of the car, opened the door, and took the seat. He’d recently bought the car from Cedric’s grandfather. It was an old Thunderbird that looked like a scrapyard project but ran like a dream. I walked slowly to the driver’s side, sure he would change his mind at any moment. When he didn’t object, I adjusted my seat and took the wheel. Hiding my smile, I pulled onto the ever deserted road that led into town and floored it, elated. Laz’s smile widened with every turn I took. It took me only minutes to learn how to maneuver the car and with Laz’s occasional instruction, I was driving with ease. I drove for hours as he spoke of our life after we left Dyer. Of the places he would take me before we settled down somewhere like California or Florida. It seemed he’d been dreaming of our escape as much as I had, and I couldn’t stifle my excitement as I parked at our pond. I had only a few hours before sunrise and I knew it would be another tired day at school, but the talk and the drive was enough to keep me awake just a little longer as I listened to what my new life would be like.

  “We can go anywhere, really.”

  “I want to go to college, Laz.”

  I turned to face him as the call of a thousand amphibians echoed through the dark night and all around us and Led Zeppelin preached softly in the background.

  “Comere’ ” Laz ordered as he pulled me into his lap to straddle him. I hesitated, knowing the moment was already tainted. He was high and I hated it.

  “You’re high.”

  “High on you. Do you trust me?” He threaded his fingers through my hair as I nodded my reply.

  “Let me touch you,” he said heatedly as he pressed his lips to mine. I kissed him reluctantly at first and then thought of the moments that had led us to the one we were in. I thought of how he’d always cared for me, protected me. Loyalty led me to return the kiss as his hands drifted low. I let him unbutton my pants and sneak a finger beneath my panties as my body became warmer to his touch.

  Breaking our kiss, he whispered, “I want to give you something.” I gasped in surprise as he dipped a finger inside me and brought it up massaging me. Sensation blossomed deep in my belly as he rubbed me continually while his lips explored my neck.

  “Touch me, beautiful,” he pleaded as I gasped and bucked, meeting his finger. I reached for the bulge beneath me and hiccupped in surprise when I unbuttoned his pants and he bared himself. Lost in sensation, I gripped him with my fist and pulled hard.

  “Fuck, I can’t wait to put it here,” he whispered as his finger dipped in and out while his thumb kept rhythm. I felt the surface of something and paused on his lap.

  “It’s okay, baby. Go with it,” he murmured as I gripped him hard, sweat building on my forehead and running down my back.

  “Oh ...Laz, oh, I ...oh,” I gasped as the feeling reached the top and boiled over. Every limb shook as he lay me down in the seat and moved his fingers faster while I quaked beneath him.

  “You are so fucking pretty.” Kissing my lips gently, he pushed himself in my hand, encouraging me to move again. I looked up at him with wide eyes as I stroked him, watching his face contort.

  “I’m so fucking hard,” he hissed as I worked my arm faster and harder until he stilled, spilling thick and hot down my hand.

  “Baby, fuck. Baby, I love you.”

  I felt the knot form in my throat as he ruined it for us both. He was high and I didn’t know if it was him or the meth talking. I refused to give him the reply I’d always wanted to because of it. Suddenly, I was furious. I left him with a short goodbye, making my way home. I didn’t want to hear those words from him. Not that way. He’d taken that from me. I cried as I crawled into bed, knowing deep down that he hadn’t really chosen me.

  ****

  “She’s a beauty,” the grease-ball pumping my gas remarked while surveyed my ‘78 Chevelle. I’d spared no expense on the candy apple red paint, the refinished leather seats, and what lay beneath the hood. Of all my cars, I coveted this one the most. It was sleek; it reeked of recklessness, and spoke for itself on the open road.

  “Thanks,” I said dryly, completely uninterested in the envy covering his features. When he turned to me with a mustard toothed smile, I cringed. “The car isn’t so bad either.”

  “How much do I owe you?” I asked, pulling cash from my pocket.

  “Depends. You want full service?” His suggestive tone disgusted me. I was sure he hadn’t seen a toothbrush ...ever.

  “Nope, just the gas.” I was somewhere between Knoxville and Nashville and had absently chosen to get gas in bumfucked Egypt. More afraid for my sister than the creepy eyes the man made at me, I handed him fifty dollars and headed to the driver’s seat with the late realization that stretching my legs had been a mistake.

  “Jack, come out here. You have got to get your eyes on this one.” I sighed deeply knowing that the state I was in was far from hospitable. I willed the man coming toward the vehicle to do the right thing, but the second I saw his greasy hair and toothy, knowing grin widen, I knew he’d made his decision. He wanted either me or the car, or both, and I wouldn’t put it past either of them to try and take what didn’t belong to them.

  “Come on, honey, show us what is under the hood,” Greasy Jack prompted as I strapped on my belt.

  “I’m in a hurry, fellas. Maybe on my way back through.” I jumped as Greasy reached in the driver’s side, popping the hood. He smelled of liquor and piss and I had to turn my head away to keep from gagging. As soon as the hood was lifted, I leaned in my glove box and grabbed Leroy—short for Leroy Brown, the most lethal of my guns—unlocked the safety then stuffed him into the back of my pants. I exited my car and rounded the hood to see them peering inside.

  “Like I said, I’m in a hurry. Close the hood please and I’ll be on my way.”

  “She’s in a hurry, Cody. You hear that?”

  Fuck.

  I maintained my patience as the two men began to fidget with the motor. I watched them like a hawk t
o make sure they weren’t trying to keep me immobile as I glanced around the deserted area. There were no cars coming in either direction and it seemed to just be the two of them.

  I wasn’t afraid; I was annoyed, and finally made it known.

  “I paid, I’m done here, close the hood.” Cody looked up at me with a sneer.

  “Calm your attitude, girl. We haven’t see one of these ‘78s before, I’m guessin’.”

  “Good guess. Take a picture if you want,” I snapped, “And please, shut my fucking hood.”

  No longer able to control my rising temper when the two didn’t move, I lifted my hand to shut the hood when Greasy Jack gripped it tight.

  “You don’t want this fight,” I warned as they gave each other a look and then burst out laughing.

  “No, baby, we don’t want to fight you. We just want a taste. Why not take us for a ride?”

  I lifted a brow. “You have a business to run and I have business to attend to. What is it going to take to leave here?”

  He pulled my hand he was gripping toward his stiffening cock. “How about a little—”

  Before he had a chance to finish, I ripped my hand away and lifted Leroy inches from his smug face. The look of surprise was quickly replaced by panic as Cody took a step back and declared loudly, “I think I’m in love.”

  “I’m tired. I’ve had a long day. Cody, what do you say we close the hood and let me on my way?”

  “Sounds good to me darlin’.” He shut the hood and gave Greasy Jack a nod. “Best do what she says, Jack.”

  I saw the scenarios race through Jack’s three-celled brain as he eyed my finger on the trigger. “Don’t be stupid. I promise you, I’m not worth the trouble.” Jack’s Hyde surfaced as he lunged for me, and I whipped the side of his face with my pistol clad hand. He howled with fury as he hit his knees and covered his newly broken nose.

  “I’ll be on my way, then,” I hissed, kicking Jack hard in the back so he went down on all fours.

  “Don’t be a stranger.” Cody looked on in amusement as I started the Chevelle, taking off like a bat out of hell.