by Danae Ayusso
Dedicated to
Samantha McKnight
Chapter One
Anaconda, Montana
The speeding scenery started out impressive; a concrete jungle of businesses and skid row housing that blended into an industrial smog machine then to brownstones that were so close I only had to lean out the window to touch them. Then, everything I was used to seeing and found comfort in blended away into rolling hills of green, cornfields that danced in the wind, mountains that disappeared into the clouds, and trees.
Endless trees…
I fucking hate trees.
Sure, it’s pretty, but I sure in the hell wouldn’t want to see it every day. I’m a child from the projects of North Philly, where gunfire is always in the not-so-far distance, you never trust anyone, and you always run from the police.
The world I’m from is covered in spray paint and littered with bullet holes. Police are always roaming. Fluttering yellow police tape and sheet covered bodies aren’t that traumatic to see, and you always looked forward to the first of the month for your government check and food stamps.
Did I enjoy the life my mom forced us to lead because of her addictions and horrible taste in men?
No, not really.
But I learned a long time ago never expect anything from anyone, that way you’re never left disappointed; one of the few words of wisdom from the crackwhore I called Mom.
I’ve never been on a train before, and I can honestly say that after two thousand-two hundred and fifty-three miles I wasn’t missing anything and could have lived without ever knowing the unfortunate joys of riding the rails.
When Mr. Simoeau suggested I take some time to clear my head, alone, this wasn’t what I thought he meant. A plane ticket would have been cheaper and a lot faster, but I think he’s trying to prevent the inevitable. If he didn’t want me seventeen years ago, he sure in the hell doesn’t want me now, especially with the situation being what it is. But I guess it could be worse. I only have to wait six months until I’m eighteen, and then I can take off and not worry about it or anyone. If that goddamn caseworker wouldn’t have been so hell bent on finding permanent placement for me, I would have been emancipated by now and hitchhiking to San Francisco or Seattle, maybe even Portland. Somewhere I can tap into my inner savant or something.
What in the hell is there to tap into in B.F.E. Montana?
If I hear banjos, I’m seriously going to kill someone.
You and me both.
The grinding of the brakes was like nails down a chalkboard, and the louder I cranked my knock-off iPod up, the worse it seemed to get. I’m one of ten people on the train with this stop, and the other nine are excited to get off in this shithole. Me, I want to keep going to Spokane, not that I know where in the hell Spokane is, but at least it isn’t Montana.
The station is...
What would you call this?
Oh I know, waiting for a Wild West shootout’esque!
“No one asked you,” I grumbled under my breath.
Technically, you did.
It was the type of place that you didn’t see in cities with populations significant enough to warrant a question on Jeopardy about them.
Why am I doing this again?
We don’t have a choice!
That was an understatement, and for once, the annoying voice in my head hit the nail on the head, as annoying as the idiom is.
The jerk four rows back watching me, the U.S. Marshall that has been babysitting me since he picked me up from the halfway house three days ago, won’t let me run off.
I tried it in Detroit.
The Twin-Cities.
Again in Madison.
And I was handcuffed to my seat in Sioux Falls.
Needless to say, Cinder Dick and I aren’t getting along very well.
“This is your stop, Sweetie,” the attendant said, softly shaking my shoulder, and I pulled away from her. “Is there someone meeting you here?”
Do we look seven-years-old?
“I got it,” I coldly informed her, grabbing my bag from the seat next to me and pushed past her.
The Marshall walked behind me, spinning his handcuffs around his finger, the clanking of metal against metal was his not too subtle reminder that he’s right behind me and ready to taser my flat ass if I try to run again.
Been there, done that, never again.
“This way,” Cinder Dick said, waving towards the small parking lot alongside the makeshift station.
“Where are we going?” I asked for the hundredth time.
“Home,” he said.
That’s the first time he’s actually answered me.
I rolled my eyes. “I hate to break it to you, Cinder Dick, but I’m more than two-thousand miles from home. It’s that way,” I said, pointing east.
He stopped next to the driver’s side of a black Bronco that wasn’t government issued. The ridiculously large tires looked like they belonged to something from one of those lame ass monster trucks that were popular in the nineteen-eighties, not to mention the limo tinted windows and the black powder-coated roll bars definitely aren’t government issued either.
But what really gave it away is the Black Flag sticker on the back window.
“Cinder Dick?” he asked; he almost looked amused.
I shrugged. “An old term for railroad police detective, derived from the detective having to walk on the railroad ballast rock, also known as cinders. Since we just got off of a train, it fit.”
“How did you know that?” he pressed.
Seriously?
“We just got off of a train, or did you miss that?” I asked. “Were they serving drinks in the back row and that’s why you made me sit up front?” I cocked an eyebrow. “Drinking and driving is against the law. You of all people should know that,” I scolded.
“No. Cinder Dick. How did you know that?” he demanded.
I looked at him as if he had lost his mind because, in all honesty, I’m not ruling that out yet. I’ve come to the conclusion that anyone in law enforcement is completely insane and loves the power trip their little shiny badge gives them, and the gun is just an extension of their small cocks...even the chicks have dicks, I’m sure of it.
“We’re not going anywhere until you tell me how you knew that,” Cinder Dick informed me.
I laughed.
Cinder Dick don’t know who the fuck he’s messing with. Justice got this.
Oh great. That’s just lovely. My Philly minded side has now named herself and is most likely going to get me arrested.
Yes, I did, and yes, I might. It’s happened before.
“Yeah, I know.”
“Yeah I know what?” Cinder Dick asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you,” I snapped at him.
I tossed my Ghetto Couture luggage, meaning the black garbage bag the State issued me, next to the negated OJ get-away vehicle and made myself comfortable on the ground. I pulled the book from my back pocket and settled in for the long haul.
If I can wait in the rain for thirty-six hours and two drive-by shootings for concert tickets, I think I can hang out in the parking lot of a makeshift train station in the middle of Montana with a Marshall for a stint.
For hours, he stood there glaring at me.
And for hours, I sat there ignoring him.
He should have realized by now that I’m way out of his pay grade. It makes me curious about whose old lady he screwed to end up with this crap detail.
No shit! Who wants to go to Montana by choice? There are like five-hundred people in the whole state! It’s completely ridiculous.
“One million twenty-three thousand five-hundred seventy-nine, to be exact,” I mumbled.
It was a r
hetorical statement, smart-ass.
Cinder Dick gave me a look but didn’t ask.
I think he was starting to notice that I’m not all there in the head.
Mr. Smith, my lovely caseworker with a hard-on for finding those that don’t belong in the system permanent placement, turned into a stalker, almost fanatical, in his pursuit for getting me somewhere safe. I guess he used to be a private dick and called in some favors to run my mom’s fingerprints again in the database and they turned up a hit from some shithole called Anaconda, Montana, from when she was sixteen and got arrested for underage drinking...or hitting a cop, maybe both. According to what Mr. Smith told me, Mom ran away from home and obviously headed east. No one knew where she went or why. A missing person’s report was filed and that was the end of the investigation...
If you want to call some lazy ass part-time sheriff shoving the report with her name on it in a filing cabinet an ‘investigation’.
From there, the local pigs contacted someone in their tiny town and that person staked a claim to me without ever seeing or talking to me, and without a DNA test!
If they try to kill us and use our skin to make a suit, I’m going to be so pissed off at you.
It was a very real possibility.
What kind of person does that, just assumes they are the baby daddy? Have they never seen an episode of Maury?!
Apparently, her high school sweetheart finally dropped his balls and admitted they had a kid together. Just another chapter of crap in my life to one day tell a therapist about or write in my memoirs when I’m famous.
“What are you reading?” Cinder Dick grumbled under his breath.
“Yo’ mama,” I informed him, completely uninterested.
Did you seriously just say Yo’ Mama?!
Yeah, I did. Get over it. I said I got this!
“Is that one of those hip hop magazines?” he pressed.
Oh whoa. Did he seriously just ask that?
Apparently so.
I looked up at him. “I’m sorry, do I look black? Is most of my ass hanging out from the back of my pants? Do I have hula-hoops for earrings hanging off my head? Do I look like I strictly listen to hip hop? Yes, most of my friends back in Philly are black, but they called me White Bread. Would you like to venture a guess as to why?” I made a mocking face.
Again, he looked amused and slightly smug.
“I take that as a no,” he surmised.
I hate cops.
“‘And ask ye why these sad tears stream? Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping? I had a dream–a lovely dream, of her that in the grave is sleeping,’” I recited.
His eyes narrowed and he drummed his fingers on the hood of the Bronco. “What are you reading?”
Screw this. He had his chance.
If you get me tasered again, I will kick your ass.
“I already told you,” I sang, getting to my feet, tucking the worn out paperback in the back pocket of my jeans. “Yo’ mama.”
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
I grabbed my crotch. “Blow me, you rent-a-cop lookin’ sonuvabitch.”
Real classy, Justice.
The cuffs come out.
I’m slammed against the hood, and an all too common occurrence for me is set into motion.
However, what this obvious desk jockey doesn’t realize is, this may be his first time in the field, but it isn’t mine. And anytime the Philly minded side of me rears her head, it usually results in felony assault.
I slammed my head back into his and stepped on his foot as hard as I could. He cried out in surprised pain, releasing me and cupped his bleeding nose.
“Not today, Cinder Dick,” I taunted.
With a smirk then content sigh, I kicked him in the balls as hard as I could then took off running before he hit the ground.
I told you I had it.
“Yes, yes you did, and I’m sure it won’t end well for us.”
Running from the police is nothing new for me. I ran and was caught six or seven times while I was in the halfway house. Running is easy. Not getting caught is the hard part.
I have no idea where I am or where in the hell I’m going, but I sure in the hell am not about to let Cinder Dick tase me! Who knows what he would do to me while I’m unconscious! Men are disgusting pigs.
I started to run into the woods surrounding the small slab of concrete the train station sits on, but decided against it.
Montana has bears.
This I know.
It was a question on Jeopardy: ursus arctos horribilis and ursus americanus are found throughout Montana and they will eat you. I’m a city girl, a ghetto urban princess of North Philly, and city folk taste better... That part wasn’t a question on Jeopardy, but I’m just assuming since city folk shower and wear clean clothes. And it’s in my non-professional opinion that there’s only so much denim, overalls and flannel that an animal can eat before they go on a tourist feeding frenzy.
You can say that again…
Then again, what’s there to see out here in...
“Wait, how did I end up in the woods?” I choked, stumbling to a stop. “Oh crap,” I mumbled under my breath, trying to get my bearings. “Justice, did you do this?”
When there was no answer from the annoyingly cynical voice of self-preservation in my head, I knew I was in trouble.
Justice hated nature more than I did!
Everything looks the same.
Trees, trees and more trees that are seemingly moving around me; their thick branches creating an impenetrable canopy of green and brown that blocked out the sky. This is exactly why I hate trees and nature. Every time I go into something remotely wildernessy, I end up lost and freak out because of every damn snapping twig and scurrying creature in the brush. Usually Justice doesn’t take off and leave me to fend for myself though.
I have my cut-a-bitch badge, not my survive-a-grizzly-attack badge! And I would normally ask what would MacGyver do, but I don’t have a stick of chewing gum, a paperclip and a tube sock at the moment, and apparently I’m on my own this time.
“Damn it!” I yelled in frustration.
Trying to follow the path that led me into this green and brown nightmare was impossible. The compacted dirt footpaths snaked all around, splitting and going back together like the Vine Street Expressway. The bushes and ferns apparently felt the need to mess with me as well, and were moving around, exposing new paths while hiding others.
“Okay, I’m losing it. This shit isn’t moving around on me,” I complained.
Yeah, even I don’t believe my own pep talk.
“Calm down, nothing is going to eat us... I hope, and someone will hear us scream if they do, right?!”
“Do you talk to yourself often?” an overly amused voice asked from behind me.
I jumped, startled, spun around, lost my footing and landed on my ass.
“Have you been walking long?” he mused, his head tilting to the side to regard me.
“Screw you,” I sneered, flipping him off.
Leave it to me to fall on my ass, scrape the crap out of my knuckles and look like a complete dumbass in front of... Actually, this dude is helluva fine: tall, broad shoulders, shit eatin’ grin on his face, and black hair standing on end as if he got a boyband makeover ten years too late.
“I’d rather not,” he informed me.
Thanks, that makes me feel special.
“What are you doing out here? Snooping around?” he said ominously, making a face.
I got up, brushing myself off, not so quietly cursing as I dusted the leaves and dirt from my hands and pants.
Not only was I lost and in the woods with a stranger that could attempt to kill me at any moment, I was pissed that I got my favorite jeans dirty and am bleeding. I glared at my annoying company who didn’t appear to be wearing a badge, and yet there’s something about him that’s telling me to kick him in the balls and run.
I just can’t win.
“Are you going t
o kill me?” I asked pointblank. “In case the bears don’t beat you to it?” I mumbled, examining the little beads of blood forming on my scraped knuckles.
He laughed. “Not that I’m aware of. Would you like me to?” he countered.
“Huh?” I asked, looking up from my bloodied knuckles to the annoying boy.
“I have to warn you,” he started, overly amused, “assisted suicide is frowned upon in the States, even in the backwoods of Montana, and I really don’t want to blemish my crime free record.”
I hate Montana more and more with each passing second!
His head tilted to the other side, and he stroked his chin, leaning against a tree as if he was posing for GQ. “You look familiar to me. Have we met before?” he asked, thoughtfully.
If this is some kind of lame ass pickup line, I’m kicking him in the balls purely out of principle.
“Maybe,” I said. “Did you ever roll with the crew on 11th and Cumberland? Perhaps you were grindin’ northwest of Temple? Ooh, I know. Maybe it was at that house party up on west Kensington that got shot up, putting four in the ground.”
His brows furrowed before he laughed. “No, that isn’t it. But I can’t quite put my finger on it,” he mused, tapping his long slender finger against his pouting bottom lip. “I will though.”
“Excuse me? You want to put your finger where?”
He chuckled with a smile. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m speaking in terms of the mystery. I love a good mystery. They help to pass the time until the next tourist season starts.”
This isn’t awkward at all.
“Do you hear that?” I whispered, looking around.
“What?” he smiled, appearing slightly amused.
“Banjos,” I said ominously and shivered, sounding all Blair Witch Project-like. “I’m so scared.”
He roared with laughter. His wide shoulders rising and dropping with each bout of amusement that broke past his wide, full, sexy lips.
It was one of those honest to God laughs that shakes a person’s entire body, that comes from deep in their chest and sounds like a cross between Barry White reading you the joke from the inside of a piece of Bazooka Joe and a choking Great Dane. You don’t hear many of those types of laughs back in Philly. Everyone is always trying to either play you or pretend to be your friend so they can play you, or they tip-toe around everything and do those fake laughs that remind me of something you’d hear on Life Styles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach, or they’re laughing at your expense instead of helping or defending you, or they’re just cackling to see who’s the loudest hoodrat in the group.