Prisoner

by Annika Martin

  I’ll have to really squint to make out the signs. He presses his fist to the glove compartment door, knuckles white with the force. I feel an answering tug in my gut.

  “South Franklin City,” he continues, “176 Gedney.”

  Will you live that long? I can’t ask the question.

  He seems to hear it anyway. “Whatever happens, don’t stop. Just drop me there and leave.”

  “A hotel is your safe house? Grayson?”

  He goes limp. I think if he dies, I might just keep driving forever. North past their hotel. Past the Canadian border. I’ll drive right off into the Arctic Ocean because I can’t deal with another dead body beside me.

  But as the afternoon light limns his body through the window, I can see his broad chest rise and fall, even from the corner of my eye. He’s alive…for now.

  God, what a pair we make, both running for our lives. Both tripping over ourselves to escape the past. But you can’t—that’s what I figure out as I speed along in a luxury car with this delirious man beside me. I can’t escape my past. I’m stuck in that movie, Groundhog Day, doomed to repeat my mistakes until I finally get it right. That means keeping him alive.

  And after that? I don’t know. I’ve never made it that far.

  * * *

  We drive for an hour. When I’m well rested and well fed, a two-hour drive is nothing. Maybe my legs get a little stiff or something. But right now there’s a knot in my back. My hands are actually shaking on the steering wheel. My eyes are tired because of not wearing glasses. Things are getting blurry. And we need gas. That’s what finally forces me to stop. I pull into a gas station. That’s enough to rouse Grayson.

  “Are we there?” he mumbles, and he sounds so much like a grumpy kid I have to smile.

  “Not really. What kind of safe house is the Bradford Hotel?”

  “Drop me there and get away. Don’t stay.” He’s been in and out of consciousness for some time. It’s been a straight shot. I managed to find Gedney Street on a map, though I’m not sure if I can trust his mumblings on the address.

  From here I can see the soda displays and an ATM inside the store. It doesn’t look welcoming. In fact, it’s exactly the kind of place I would have avoided in favor of cleaner, brighter stores. But it’s either this or run out of gas. “Do you need anything?” I ask.

  He grunts. “Probably need gas.”

  “Thanks, Einstein,” I say. “Do you have any money?”

  “Not enough,” he whispers.

  We’re not going to make it much farther with half a gallon. I squint at the window, trying to get a read on the guy inside. Not much to tell. It’s a semirural gas station. I have some experience in hocking stuff when the money’s run low.

  I put my hand to my neck. “I have this. It’s worth something.”

  His gaze slants to the rearview mirror. He moves like he wants to sit up, then he winces.

  “Stay down,” I scold, though he couldn’t get up even if he wanted. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “Where’re we?”

  “Keppelsville.”

  “No,” he whispers.

  “This is a diamond. It’s a universal language.” I smooth my hair back, try to get myself looking civilized.

  “Bring the gun.”

  “And right there, that’s the difference between you and me. I don’t behave like a caveman.”

  Not anymore, anyway.

  He’s protesting, but I don’t have to listen. I get out and shut the door. “I treat people as I would want to be treated.” I give him a look. He knows exactly what I’m talking about.

  He fumbles the gun out onto the seat next to his head. He can barely move, damn it. A pang of fear slides through me.

  I spin around and head into the dingy little station, angry with myself. How did I get back here? I pay my dues. I go to college. I’m not that girl who pretended to call 9-1-1 and watched a man die. I’m not the girl who stole food from the corner store or slid bills out of my mom’s junkie friends’ wallets.

  That’s not my world anymore. Damn it.

  Inside the store, the guy is looking through a porn magazine. He’s big and whiskery like he can’t shave right, and he wears thick wire-rimmed glasses, and he makes no attempt to hide the racy cover from me. In fact, he gives me a long once-over that leaves no doubt as to his thoughts.

  Nice.

  I put on a businesslike attitude. “I seem to be running low on gas. And cash.” I hold up the small diamond on my necklace. “Would you be willing to trade?”

  He smirks. “I’d be willing to trade. But not for the diamond.”

  “This is worth a couple hundred dollars.” I take it off. “You’d make a serious profit.”

  He eyes me like a spider eyeing a fly. I get what he sees. A woman alone on a lonely stretch of highway. Dirty. Desperate.

  “That’s what I’m offering. You don’t like it…” I shrug. “Somebody else’ll see what a good deal it is.”

  “I don’t see anybody else around, though, that’s the thing.” He stands. He’s a lot bigger than me. “You won’t find another station for miles. So how’s about you get on your knees back here. Fifteen minutes,” he adds as if that wasn’t enough. “Fifteen minutes for all the gas we can fit in that little tank of yours.”

  This guy is foul, and I’m talking about more than the smell coming off him.

  “The diamond or nothing.”

  His eyes shift to the side. I follow his gaze to what might be unrecognizable to most people; a thumbnail of polished wood. I know exactly what it is: one edge of the butt end of a double shooter, favorite weapon of convenience store clerks everywhere, big on stopping power and beating power. Maybe he’s thinking he can get the diamond and his fifteen minutes too.

  But not as a trade.

  And this weird feeling rises in me—heat, flashing up my neck and into my eyes. It’s not anger, it’s something else. Like I’m fed up with people thinking I’m some weak little girl. With people pushing me around.

  I’m not afraid of him. I’m pissed.

  I turn and beat it to the car, running all the way around it. I reach through the open window and grab the gun off the seat just as the guy clears the station door. Grayson is slouched sideways, eyes closed. Unconscious? At least he’s out of sight.

  I crouch behind the engine and wait. I haven’t shot this kind of gun before, but I know how. The gas station guy comes barreling out with his shotgun. I let him get good and close—then I pull the trigger.

  The shot goes wild, like I meant it to. He skids to a halt. Out in the open. My heart races. It felt kind of good.

  “Don’t move,” I say, surprised my voice sounds steady.

  He turns and runs back toward his shop.

  I shoot again, shattering the window. “Don’t move!”

  He freezes.

  “Throw it down.” Of course he doesn’t listen. That would be too easy. “I swear I’ll shoot you. You think I won’t?”

  “Fine, bitch.” He throws down his gun and puts his hands up.

  I’m shaking with fear and rage and something else. Something that feels wild and out of control. Power. Is this how Grayson felt when he escaped that prison? “Now you’re going to fill up the gas.”

  “I’d have to go back in and enter the release code,” he calls out. “The release code.”

  Crap. It feels like a trick. I decide I can’t let him go back in there. But what to do? What would Grayson do?

  I walk several paces from the pump area and make an X in the open gravel with my foot. “Lie down right here, spread eagle, or else I’ll kill you.”

  I move a bit away from the X and widen my stance, aiming at his head, shaking like crazy. I don’t know if I’m being convincing, but he saunters over—slowly—wasting time. He feels my fear.

  “You want me to kill you, Mr. Fifteen Minutes? You go ahead and give me an excuse.”

  That speeds him up.

  It’s all coming back to me, like it was
in my bones the whole time—the fuck you attitude. The confident command, just an edge of bravado to keep them off balance. It’s the way my mom faced down a big dealer one time. The way muggers talk when they’ve got you far from help.

  He gets on the ground, right on my X like I told him, staring at me, eyes full of hate through those thick lenses. Is he just waiting for his chance too?

  “Give me your glasses,” I say.

  He frowns. I feel like I’m channeling Grayson. I haven’t forgotten how vulnerable it made me feel, getting my glasses taken away. I also need to see his cash register.

  He takes them off and throws them to me.

  There’s a brick propping open the door. I go over and grab it and hurl it through the other plate-glass window. “That’s so the bullet doesn’t slow down when I hit your sorry ass if you move.”

  I rush in and get behind the register. There’s video going. Shit! But then I see the record light isn’t even on. Okay. Breathe.

  His glasses are way too strong—they make me feel dizzy almost, but they magnify the words when I tip them a certain way, and that’s all I need. I hit the no sale button on the cash register, but it doesn’t open. I stab at it.

  Nothing.

  I glance out. He’s still there, on my X. I almost can’t believe he’s staying there like I told him to. I must be more convincing than I thought.

  “Not one move,” I yell, just to be sure.

  I finally see it—the code, taped to the window—356. I enter the numbers, hit the no-sale and the thing opens. I take out the money and examine a bank of buttons coming from a console. I find pump two and set it to 30 gallons. A light goes on. I push the glasses over my head, and I run out and start the thing pumping, heart pounding out of my chest.

  I run back in and pack a bag with waters and first-aid supplies. I eye a package of rope, covered in plastic, on one of the displays, thinking to tie the guy up, but I can’t do that alone. I’d have to put down the gun, and he’d overpower me for sure. But he’ll call the cops the second we’re out of here. Unless he decides to chase us himself.

  Knees shaking, my gaze rests on a key chain. There’s an old Ford parked off to the side. His? It has to be! I grab them and head out.

  The keys work. I open the trunk. It’s full of tools, which I throw onto the ground. “Come over here and get in that trunk or you die.” I watch the options roll through his mind. It’s a cool spring day. He’ll be fine inside this trunk until someone comes for him. Or he can take his chances with a madwoman.

  He chooses the trunk. “Bitch,” he mutters as he hauls his ass inside.

  He glares up at me, and I watch myself through his eyes. It’s like an out-of-body experience. Is this really me, locking someone in a trunk? I pull his glasses from where I’d perched them on the top of my head. I watch him focus on them. They’re probably special and took a long time to get made. He needs them. Maybe Grayson would smash them, just to keep the guy weak. Grayson thinks there are only two choices in life: weak or strong.

  Fuck that. I toss them in. He catches them, and I close the trunk.

  It’s here I know that I’ll never be as far gone as Grayson.

  Two minutes later I’m back on the road. Grayson is still out.

  We near the on-ramp.

  Decision time. No more operating on fear and adrenaline. No more running simply because someone is chasing me. No more reacting. I need to decide what I want. I need to decide whether I’m really driving him to his safe house.

  Because, why shouldn’t I leave him at a hospital? Why shouldn’t I drive him straight to the nearest FBI office? He told me himself that he killed a cop. He fucked me when I couldn’t control the situation. He deserves to be behind bars even more than I do.

  But when I imagine dropping him off, it feels like a kind of loss. I think of the raw need in his voice this morning as he pressed me to the bedroom wall. All that raw need when he told me I didn’t know anything about him, but really meant the opposite. I think of the way he came to me in the jail. Because I had to, he said.

  I feel it too—the link we have is as unforgiving as barbed wire.

  I touch his soft, dark hair. His color isn’t good, but he’s breathing still, and I think maybe the bleeding’s stopped, because the wad of cloth he’s been holding to his chest isn’t fully soaked, and he’s held it there a while.

  “Grayson?” There’s a long quiet, and I can barely breathe. I lay my hand on his arm.

  He grunts.

  My heart soars because he’s still fighting. “I’m taking you home.”

  * * *

  It’s dark when we get into Franklin City. It was once a booming industrial metropolis, but now whenever it’s on the news, it’s just about how ruined it is, how everybody is leaving or how it’s out of money. We pass through a downtown part that seems shiny and modern and inhabited enough, but as I head south toward Gedney Street, the landscape turns post-apocalyptic.

  Most of the lights are burned out or broken; where they’re still working, they illuminate abandoned buildings, some surrounded by chain-link fences, most with their lower windows all boarded up. Some have their entire first stories blocked off with cement blocks. Others are half crumbled down with bushes and trees growing around and through them. A lot of it is a blur of dark colors.

  I start to wonder if Grayson gave me the right address; this is not an area where anybody would ever have a hotel. Am I seeing the signs clearly? Sometimes sevens look like ones.

  I pass shadowy figures huddled around a garbage-can fire. I lock the doors.

  I’m tired. Tired enough that I don’t know if I’m even driving in a straight line, but I can’t stop. I need Grayson to wake up and be okay.

  And then I come to Gedney Street. Clearly it was a grand street at one time; now the buildings that line it are boarded up and half consumed by vines. This street is actually scarier than the others, somehow, because there are more vacant spaces between buildings, full of trees and junk—maybe old cars; I can’t tell. Even the moon seems to shine less brightly here.

  I catch an address: 345. Getting close. Or is it 845?

  I set the gun in my lap. I can’t believe I’m acting this way—just a couple of days ago, I wouldn’t have touched a gun. Until a couple of days ago, I rejected everything about this sort of life. Rejected everything about him.

  Finally I get to 176 Gedney. It’s a five-story stone building on the corner, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The windows and doors along the bottom are boarded up and grafittied, like most of the buildings here, but it’s ornate at the top. There’s even a turret way up high, like a castle. Old-style architecture. This place was beautiful once.

  There’s a vintage-looking sign above the once-grand arched entrance; most of the letters have fallen off, but the few that remain suggest it said Bradford something. Hotel, maybe? Bradford Hotel.

  I slow the car. No way does anybody live here. The place looks abandoned, just like everything else in a ten-mile radius. I know the address is right—it’s in huge numbers on the front.

  “Grayson.” When he doesn’t answer, panic rises up. “Grayson!”

  Still nothing. I squeeze the steering wheel. There’s still a half tank, but there’s nowhere else to go.

  I pull around the corner and park at the side of the building and pat his cheek. “Grayson!”

  He mumbles.

  “I’m at 176 Gedney, and it’s not right. Nothing’s here!”

  “It’s right. No passing,” he says. “Find no passing. Rattle it, and leave me there.”

  He’s not making sense. I drive around to the back, through an alleyway. Shivers crawl up my spine; I feel like I’m being watched, but nobody’s around. There are certainly no cars around to pass. “There’s nothing here,” I say. “It’s nothing.”

  “No passing,” he says.

  I look nervously around, imagining hordes of half-wild people descending on our nice shiny car like in Mad Max; that’s how this place feels. I hav
e to get us out of here! I pull out, and I’m just about to turn back to the inhabited part of town when my headlights flash on a metal sign. In another lifetime it said NO TRESPASSING, but some of the letters are gone, and it says NO PASSING.

  I stop. Could it be what he meant? No passing. Maybe they’re squatting, and that’s their safe house. People do that, right? Criminals do that. Though I can’t imagine how anybody would get in. The car is only a few feet from the gate, though. He said to rattle it.

  I look nervously around, and then I scramble out on shaking legs and rattle the thing and then run back into the car and lock the door.

  Nothing.

  I have to head back. But to where?

  I lean my head on the wheel, so exhausted and scared for Grayson. I need to make a good decision for him, but my options all have dark price tags.

  Thump. I jerk my head up and see somebody trying to break the car window on Grayson’s side. I pull out my gun with one hand and slam the car into gear with my other.

  Thump thump. He pounds on the window. “Abby!”

  I look harder. The man draws his face closer. It’s the man we met after the escape—Stone. Short, jet-black hair and bright green eyes, neck thick as a tree trunk and a scowl deep as hell. The one who wanted me dead.

  He pounds on the window, and I unlock the door, swallowing hard. He won’t still want to kill me, will he? But I don’t have a choice. Grayson needs help.

  The guy yanks open the side door and kneels next to Grayson, shoving his gun in his waistband. “What the fuck happened here?”

  “He’s shot.”

  “Fuck.” He touches Grayson’s throat. “Buddy? Hey!” He whistles over his shoulder. Another guy appears next to him, checking over Grayson—a blond, muscular guy like Stone and Grayson, but with longish hair. He makes a quick phone call, and they pull Grayson out of the car and prop him up between them, drunk style, with Stone holding the cloth to his chest.

  A dark figure pulls aside part of the chain-link fence.

  “Gotta get that car the fuck out of there,” the figure whisper-yells. “Call Nate! Get Nate in the air.”

  Another guy comes and yanks open the driver’s side door. “Out.”