Or the Girl Dies

by Rachel Rust

  “…I shoulda known better…he’d have never…buncha pricks…”

  Victor dropped his cigarette and pressed his heel down onto it, then finally faced her. I couldn’t hear what he said. His posture was calm, but his face was tight—clenched and reddened.

  “Find him!” she yelled, and went back into the house.

  I waited a few seconds after she slammed the front door before finally shutting down my engine. Victor’s eyes were on me as I got out of my car and, as usual, he had his phone to his ear by the time I reached him. He grunted a few yeahs and then ended the call.

  “Bad time?” I asked.

  “I got some stuff I need to take care of.”

  “Do you ever not have stuff to take care of?”

  His eyes scanned my face with what appeared to be a bit of amusement, but there was no smile on his face. He dug keys out of his front pocket and headed to his car. My gaze slid down to his butt as he walked, but then immediately looked away. So what if he had a cute ass? He was still a jerk.

  “We need to talk about our paper,” I called out to him.

  He nodded to his car. “So get in.”

  My feet froze to the front yard. Get in his car? Surely he wasn’t serious.

  He got into the driver’s seat and started up the throaty engine. A few seconds later, he leaned over and shouted through the passenger side window. “You comin’ or not?”

  Not.

  Or, yes.

  I compiled my options—get back in my car and drive to my safe home, or get into a rumbly Trans Am with a guy I didn’t know. There were probably drugs in the car. Weapons even. Or else I was an overdramatic goody-two-shoes.

  But maybe there really were drugs or weapons and my evening would end up with a call to my dad from the police station. Pretty sure accessory to drug dealing is not what Columbia had in mind when they encouraged community participation.

  Victor lit another cigarette. Smoke wafted from the window as he laid his head back on the headrest and watched me. Eyes dark. Waiting. Wondering what the girl in her spotless Converse would decide.

  Chapter Four

  The inside of Victor’s Trans Am smelled like cigarettes and spearmint. He didn’t seem surprised by my decision to get into the car, nor did he seem annoyed by my presence. He simply ignored me.

  We drove across town in silence to a small apartment building on the west side. “Wait in the car,” he said after parking along the curb.

  “Where are we?”

  He pointed with his eyes at the building. “I need to talk to someone in there.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and say this has nothing to do with our assignment.”

  “You’d be correct.”

  “Then why’d you bring me along?”

  He shrugged. “You wanted to talk about the paper. You didn’t have to get in the car, that was your choice.”

  The apartment building alongside us was two-story, white. There appeared to be two apartments upstairs, two downstairs. “Who lives here?” I asked.

  “People.”

  My head snapped back around his direction. “Stop being a smartass and tell me what we’re doing here.”

  Victor exhaled sharply. “I need to find a kid.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “That sounds creepy in all kinds of ways.”

  “I need to find my cousin.”

  “Your cousin? Is that who the lady at your house was yelling about? Was she your aunt? Do you live there with them?”

  Victor drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Yeah.”

  “How old is your cousin?”

  “Thirteen. His name’s Mason and he never showed up at school today and his mom can’t find him.”

  “He ran away?”

  Victor nodded.

  “So who lives in the apartment?” I asked.

  “His friends.”

  “You’re here to talk to a bunch of thirteen-year-olds?”

  Victor looked right at me. “Who’d you think I was gonna talk to?”

  Drug dealers. “No one.”

  Victor didn’t say anything when I popped my car door open and followed him into the building, then to an apartment on the second floor. He knocked only once before the door swung wide open.

  Thirteen-year-old boys, as it turned out, were little assholes. There were three of them in the apartment—Jordan, Cooper, and Michael. In the span of ten minutes all we got out of them was that they hadn’t seen or heard from Mason all day, a girl named Samantha in their math class had a nice butt, and they had an ongoing dispute between Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto.

  “Which is better?” I asked Victor.

  “Assassin’s Creed,” he said.

  One of the boys rolled his eyes. “Assassin’s Creed sucks.”

  Victor stepped up in front of him, staring him down. “Shut the hell up and tell me when you last saw Mason.”

  The boy took a step back and stammered, “Yes-yesterday after school. We went to the gas station down the block from school, bought Mountain Dews, and then Mason left and walked home.”

  The other two nodded in agreement. Victor’s phone buzzed and he stepped to the side to read a text. The three boys stared at me as though I was a naked museum piece.

  “Are you his girlfriend?” one of them asked, producing laughter from the other two.

  “No.”

  “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a virgin?”

  My eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”

  They all doubled over with laughter, but before they could fling another immature question my way, Victor’s fingers curled tight around my upper arm. He yanked me back, out of the apartment door.

  “We gotta go, now.”

  I clawed at his fingers. He let go and I followed him back outside.

  “What the hell was that all about?” I asked as we sat down in his car.

  Victor’s face had morphed into some kind of inhumane form—lips pursed, brows knitted together with a deep crease in his forehead. He stared straight ahead, as still as stone. The redness of his face increased. The veins in his neck pulsed. Every second like a ticking time bomb. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  “Fuck!” His fists slammed onto the steering wheel. He slumped down in his seat, hands over his face.

  The street around us was quiet. A breeze blew through the budding trees. An occasional car drove by at a reasonable speed. Too peaceful a place for a total nervous breakdown.

  Victor slammed the key into the ignition, started the car, then peeled away from the curb. Trees, buildings, and other cars flew by my window as he raced us through the streets. His face was growing redder. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel as he weaved through traffic.

  “Where are we going?” I asked

  “I’m taking you back to your car.”

  “What about the assignment?”

  He shook his head.

  “You need to interview someone,” I reminded him. “And we need to go over the paper I’ve written so we can practice presenting it in class tomorrow.”

  “I don’t have time to deal with any fucking schoolwork right now.”

  “Why, what happened back at the apartment? Who texted you?” When he didn’t answer, I yelled, “Just tell me what’s going on! Why are you such an asshole? We’ve had plenty of time to get this stupid assignment done, but thanks to you, we might not get it done at all.”

  Victor yanked the steering wheel to the right, and the car flew into the driveway of an old gas station with only two pumps, where it then came to an abrupt stop. He leaned over, inches from my face. His brown hair was even messier up close. “Listen. I understand you have a lady boner for school and all, but you have no idea what mess you’ll be in if you stay with me. So you’re going home.”

  “No.”

  “I will throw you out of this car right now.”

  “Go ahead.” My muscles tensed, bracing for him to actually do it.

 
“Why are you so stubborn about this? It’s just one assignment.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  He studied my face. “Jesus, have you spent all four years of high school this high strung about schoolwork?”

  I uncrossed and re-crossed my legs, and folded my arms against my chest. “You don’t understand.”

  “Try me.”

  I shook my head with a small laugh. How the hell had I come to the point in life where I was in a gas station parking lot with Victor Greer about to pour out my sob story about high academic expectations? Somewhere in a normal universe, I was in a coffee shop with Brody.

  “I got into Columbia University,” I said, deciding on the abbreviated version of my life. “My dad went there and if I don’t maintain my GPA, I might lose my full scholarship.”

  Victor smiled. An actual smile, showing teeth and everything. Teeth that were surprisingly straight and white. The corners of his eyes pinched downward a bit in his amusement. He almost looked like a pleasant person.

  “So let me get this straight,” he said. “I’m your ticket to a perfect GPA?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well that sucks, ‘cause you can’t hang out with me tonight. You can’t be a part of what I have to do. I have to go see a few people. People you wouldn’t like, people you shouldn’t know. People who’d just as soon shoot you than have a conversation with you. Does that sound like a good time?”

  I shrugged in hopes of masking my escalating fear. Victor Greer sort of scared the shit out of me, and I could only imagine what kind of people he hung out with in his free time. But I couldn’t let him get away with screwing over my grade and my future. “This is your assignment, too,” I said, forcing my voice to remain calm and fearless. “You have a responsibility to help me.”

  He ignored my words and maneuvered the car back out into traffic, not giving a shit about the assignment or my future. He drove back across the town, ignoring all speed limit signs.

  In front of his house, he slammed on the brakes and squeaked to a stop next to my car. “Get out.”

  I glared at him. “You’re a dick, has anyone ever told you that?”

  “I’ve been called worse.” He reached across my lap and unlatched my car door. I climbed out, but before I could yell at him again, he reached across the car again and slammed the door shut. A second later, he was gone and two black rubber tire marks were all that remained beside me on the street. His car sped down the block.

  Something about the car—its speed, dark color, and low form—pissed me off. “Oh hell no,” I whispered to myself. No way was he going to ditch me and leave me holding a bad grade.

  I was gonna make him finish that damn assignment. I opened my car door, ready to follow him. But before I could get in, a blur of white sped by and came to a lurching stop in front of me—mere inches from the front bumper of my car. A big white Mercedes sedan with gleaming rims and blacked out windows. The passenger door opened and a black denim leg dropped down, clunking a heavy black boot onto the pavement.

  I took an involuntary step back, not knowing who it was or what was going on. A moment later, a man stood up and stared at me. Black jeans. Black jacket. Black gloves. He was completely nondescript. Peach skin. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Medium height. Medium build. Not ugly, not good-looking. A million other men looked just like him.

  He took a step my way.

  My heart raced and I grabbed the handle to my car door. It was locked and I fumbled to find the remote unlock button on my keychain. But the cluster of keys fell from my shaking hands and clanked to the ground. I scooped them up as quickly as I could without taking my eyes off the man in black who was still walking my way. He was less than ten feet from me and there was no way I could get into my car and have the door shut and locked before he could reach in and pull me out—most likely by my hair and then into the white car, like in all those action movies that Josh loved.

  I took another step back.

  He smiled and the corners of his mouth curled to sharp points. “Where are you going, sweetheart? I just want to talk.”

  I spun on my heel, ready to make a run for it, when a squeal of tires whipped around the corner behind me. Victor’s Trans Am slammed to a stop right next to me, nearly knocking over the man in black. Victor stretched across the car and flung the passenger door wide open.

  “Get in!”

  I didn’t understand a damn thing except that I had to choose. Right there in that moment. A split second decision.

  Go with Victor. Or deal with the man in black.

  I chose Victor. Better the devil you know.

  Chapter Five

  As soon as I was in his car, Victor peeled away, leaving the man in black behind and earning us a disapproving glare from a lawn-watering neighbor a few houses down. We made it out of his neighborhood and onto a busy street, surrounded by SUVs, pickups, and boring sedans before either one of us spoke.

  “Who was that guy?” I demanded.

  Victor of course didn’t give me an answer. He grabbed his phone, and somehow managed to dial a number while weaving around cars and shifting gears. If he himself didn’t kill me, his driving certainly would.

  “It’s me,” he said to whoever picked up the other line. He listened for a while then shook his head and disagreed with something. “No. No way.” He glanced sideways at me. “I am not bringing her with.” I heard the other voice talking on the phone to him, but couldn’t make out whether it was a man or woman. One thing was for certain, though—it was authoritative. Whoever it was, he or she was making the decisions. And the clench of Victor’s jaw told me he was not happy with that decision. “Fine,” he replied through gritted teeth. He ended the call without a goodbye and then threw the phone into his lap with a, “Fuck!”

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  But his eyes had fixated on the rearview mirror. He downshifted, slowed down, and wedged himself into the next lane of traffic.

  “Victor, what the hell is going on?” I asked for what felt like the millionth time.

  “We’re being followed.” His gaze held steady, watching behind us in the mirror. I made a slight movement to look over my shoulder. “Don’t look,” he said. “Stay facing forward.” He shifted gears. “Got your seatbelt on?”

  “Yes.” My skin prickled under the weight of unseen eyes and a cold rush of blood coursed through my veins. Terror was outdone only by the pounding of my heart in my ears.

  Victor hit the brakes and we fishtailed off the street and into a narrow alley, jamming my shoulder into the car door. The alley was barely wide enough for one car with a row of garbage cans sitting outside of dingy, rusted back doors to various businesses. My eyes squinted half-closed as though that would protect us from other cars or people or flying bullets. I had watched enough TV to know that fleeing down an alley didn’t always produce desired results.

  Victor slowed down at the end of the lane, then turned right into a grocery store parking lot. He weaved in and out of the aisles, and then backed into a parking space with a view of the alley. We sat there in silence with the car in first gear and Victor’s body visibly tensed for a solid couple of minutes before I developed the nerve to speak.

  “Who is following us?” I asked. “Was it the guy in the white car that was at your house?”

  Victor’s phone buzzed. He stared at the screen, jaw clenched, then scanned me head to toe. “Where do you live? We gotta go to your house.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you need different clothes.”

  I sucked in a quick breath. “What’s wrong with my clothes?” Getting fashion shamed by my friends was one thing. Being criticized by a guy whose t-shirt looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washing machine in years was a whole other level of rude.

  “Nothing’s wrong with your clothes, but you can’t wear that.”

  I glanced down at my jeans and sneakers. “Everyone wears jeans.”

  “Not where we’re going tonigh
t.”

  “Oh no,” I said with a laugh. “I’m not going anywhere with you tonight, especially not if you have scary people following you.” Maybe I had been hell-bent on making him help me with the assignment before, but encountering a mysterious man in black and then chased down an alley had knocked my determination down a few notches, and increased my self-preservation. Maybe I could convince Victor to come to my house and work on our project there, and then once we were finished he could go off on his demented adventures with whatever crazy people he called friends.

  “You have to come with me,” he said. “You have no choice.”

  “The hell I don’t, I’m not —”

  Victor shoved his phone in front of my face. A text message stared back.

  Go chat with LB and bring the brunette. Dress her nice.

  “The brunette,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Me?”

  His silence confirmed it.

  “Who sent you that? Who’s LB?”

  Victor tapped a few times on his phone. “Mason didn’t run away.” He held his phone in front of my face again. “I got this text when we were back at the apartment.”

  shouldve done as I asked greer. Now little mason will find out the hard way what happens when you dont play by my rules

  I had to read the text staring back at me three times before it sank in and nearly stopped my heart. “Someone took him?” I asked. “They kidnapped him?”

  Victor nodded. “Just like they tried to get you. That’s why you need to come with me. That guy in the white car? He doesn’t give two shits who you are, but he’s working for someone who does. And they want to meet you.”

  “Why? And what if I don’t want to meet them? What do they want with me?”

  Victor rubbed his hands down his face and it was clear that he knew exactly why they wanted to meet me, but didn’t want to tell me. “Look, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I gotta go talk to this LB guy about finding Mason, and if they want you with me, then trust that they will make it happen one way or another.” Victor looked at me. “Best I can tell, you have two options…go with me, or wait for them to find you again. And, trust me, they will.”