And it’s him—Dylan.
Dr. Thorpe, when he’s asked her to do something she doesn’t want to.
How many hours have they spent together in this tiny office, talking about her and only her? Too many to count offhand; that’s for sure. And he’s listened to her the way no one else has since her grandmother died. More important, he’s told her the truth about herself even when it might sound unkind. Only a few people have done that for her before. Her grandmother, now gone, and her grandmother’s boyfriend, Marty, whom she can barely bring herself to call these days because the sound of his voice brings back a flood of once-joyful memories.
“Water,” she hears herself say.
Dylan reaches for an unopened bottle of water on his desk. He uncaps it for her.
One swig and she’s swallowed the pill.
“That took strength, Charley,” he says, rising slowly to his feet.
His hands grip her shoulders; it’s the most intimate touch they’ve ever shared. “Making a new decision, breaking an old habit. It takes strength. And believe me”—he kisses her gently on the forehead—“you are stronger than you know.”
It’s the first time she’s been touched, the first time she’s been kissed in even a quick and chaste way, in years, and it makes her dizzy.
She wants to cry again, but she can’t blame the pill. No way could it have gone to work this fast. She can blame her sleeplessness, for sure.
While she’s at it, she can also stop searching Dylan’s face for some evidence that the kiss was more than just a doctor getting carried away by enthusiasm. Dylan makes that easier for her when he turns to his desk and picks up a small notebook.
“For the next twenty-four hours I want you to keep a log of everything you go through. Anything that feels strange or off. Anything that might be a side effect. Write it down in this.” He taps the notebook, then presses it into her hand. He opens the office door and steers her through it. After the sudden, unexplained kiss, the feel of his hand against the small of her back makes her skin tingle. “Then I want to see you back here same time tomorrow so we can assess.”
By the time she’s reached the foot of the stairs, Dylan’s closed his office door again, which makes her feel unmoored and adrift.
The AA meeting will break up soon, and if she lingers here, some of the regulars might ask a bunch of prying questions about why she stopped attending.
She steps outside into the evening dark.
She hurries to her car, reminds herself with each step of Dylan’s promise that whatever this damn drug is, it won’t affect her ability to drive home.
Only once she’s behind the wheel does it sink in that there’s a strange new substance in her body, and for a second, she feels as if she’s been violated.
My choice, she reminds herself. It will be different this time because it was my choice. She repeats these words in her head like a mantra as Scarlet shrinks in her rearview mirror.
7
When the motorcycle almost runs her off the road, Charlotte’s tempted to blame the medication. How else could she have missed its approach? It’s got no mufflers.
The roar that swallows her Ford Escape now sends pure, raw fear shooting through her from head to toe.
For a second she’s blinded by its headlight; then it swings to the left before swerving in front of her SUV.
All right, Zypraxon. Do your thing!
Two more motorcycles appear on either side of her.
Her heart races. Her palms are so sweaty she fears they might slip from the steering wheel if she doesn’t hold on for dear life.
What the hell is this? She’s seen these guys before, mostly pulling in and out of the old bus sheds they’ve turned into their unincorporated hangout. It’s where they’re all headed now, she assumes—she hopes—but they’ve never tried to overtake her on the road like this. Was she weaving? Is this their way of punishing her? Fencing her in, drowning her in horrible sound?
Staring straight ahead seems like the best plan, but there’s almost nothing for her to stare at except desert dark and the biker in the lead. At least the guy in front is allowing more distance now between the tail of his bike and the nose of her SUV.
There’s faint purple in the western sky, but it’s mostly dark out now. In fact, there aren’t even lights to mark the spot where she knows their hideout stands. And that’s bad, she thinks. That means the place isn’t just a hideout—it’s some kind of storehouse, and they don’t want anyone to know about it.
Up until a few weeks ago, she was alone out here, which is exactly how she likes it. When the bikers first showed up, she hadn’t given them a second thought. Criminals who just want to do their own thing—a change of pace from the monsters in her past. Let them cook or deal their meth in peace, she’d thought. She wants to be left alone, and so do they.
But now they’re taking an interest in her. A really loud, scary interest. And up close she can see the telltale signs of hard-core outlaws.
A guy named Benny used to come to the meetings at the center all the time and share about his Hells Angels past. The other alcoholics got tired of him after a while, maybe because his shares had less to do with recovery than bragging about his criminal cred. But Charlotte was riveted every time he spoke, and now, thanks to Benny, she knows the sleeveless denim shirts these guys are wearing are called cuts; the patches on the back are signs they’re full-fledged members of the gang in question. The word Vapados fills the center patch on each guy’s back. She’s not sure what it means. Is it the name of their biker gang?
Benny’s shares always made it sound as if Arizona belonged to the Hells Angels. So where did these guys come from?
Only a few more minutes until they’d pass their hideout. If they still had her fenced in by then, it might be time to take the Beretta out of the glove compartment. But what good would that do?
Charlotte puts in several hours a week of practice on the thing, but she’s never tried getting off a good shot at sixty-five miles an hour. If they work together, the bikers could run her off the road before she manages to fire. Then where would she be?
They’re close to their hangout now, close enough that she might have to make a decision in the next minute.
She looks to one side.
Sure enough, the biker to her left is staring at her. His helmet, yellow-tinted glasses, and wind-rippling beard steal most of the definition from his face. But he’s big. Thor big. He stares at her with a leisurely confidence. When she sees the tattoo of a pistol on the side of his neck, and the sleeves of ornate carnage inked down his arms, her spine feels like piano keys being walked on by a cat. “Fuck,” she whispers.
He smiles. He’s read her lips and he’s amused.
Then he aims a trigger finger in her direction and peels away suddenly. His buddies follow suit; their headlights bounce across the roadside and briefly illuminate the old sheds they’ve made their own.
She welcomes the darkness that closes in all around her now, even though the absence of the deafening motorcycles leaves her with the haggard sound of her own breathing.
At least she’s got her first journal entry. Thirty minutes after initial dose, biker gang manages to scare ever-living shit out of me. Got anything stronger, Dylan?
Should she kill her headlights when she gets close to her house?
Or do they already know she lives out here? Maybe that’s why they were slowing down and checking her out. But the message of that trigger finger was clear—don’t come back. She sometimes goes two weeks without leaving the house. That must be why it took them a while to pick up on the fact that she’s passed them more than once today.
There’s got to be some way to send a message that she could give two shits what they’re doing in those sheds. Or what they’re hiding.
Maybe if they knew I was Burning Girl . . .
Just thinking the nickname turns her stomach.
Or maybe that’s the aftereffect of almost being run off the road.
&nb
sp; Or maybe it’s the Zypraxon.
Or maybe, and this thought makes her dizzy as well as nauseated, it’s the realization that she barely noticed the bikers’ approach because she was still thinking about Dylan’s kiss. Dylan’s quick but somehow furtive and totally inappropriate kiss.
She hates that she let her guard down on a mostly empty road because she was obsessing over her psychiatrist like some love-struck teenager.
But that’s not quite it, she realizes.
Yes, there’d been a moment right when his lips touched her skin when she’d felt something open inside her. Some hunger for intimate connection she’d assumed she’d locked away. It was instinctive, this response. But now, with a little distance between her and the center, it wasn’t just the kiss that bothered her. It was the way he’d touched her after. The way he’d guided her out of his office, one hand against the small of her back. As if, because she’d finally broken down and consented to taking the pill, he now saw her as firmly under his control.
Touchy. Confident yet strangely hurried.
An odd combination of words to describe his behavior, but an accurate one. And one she never would have applied to him before.
You’re overthinking this, she tells herself. You’re feeling guilty and weak because you took the pill, and now you’re reading too much into his behavior.
Behavior that included a kiss.
She drives past her own house.
Maybe that’s for the best. If the bikers are following her, which she doubts, this gives her a chance to kill her headlights and double back. She’s made her way from the edge of the highway to her place in the dark plenty of times when she thought someone might be trailing her. Once her eyes adjust, it’s fairly easy. The line of mountains on the distant horizon is jagged enough that it’s often discernible against even the night sky, especially when there’s still a faint fringe of purple as there is now.
When the shadow of her house rises up out of the desert floor, she hits the garage door opener attached to her key ring. The light comes on inside, and she uses its bright glow to guide herself the rest of the way in. The garage isn’t covered by the security system, but any attempt to break in through the metal door would be more than visible in her headlights. Still, the minute it takes to get from her car to the alarm keypad next to the back door always leaves her feeling exposed.
Her Escape crosses the threshold. She turns on the headlights and hits the key fob. The garage door begins to descend.
Before stepping out, she scans the cement floors just to make sure no desert critters followed her in. She’s had enough contact with rattlers to know they just want to be left the hell alone. Unless you step on them. If you step on them, you’re screwed. If there’s one inside the garage with her, it’s because the tires dragged it in by mistake, in which case, it’s probably dying or in pieces.
There’s nothing in the garage with her. Just the ticking sounds of her cooling vehicle and the rattle and whine of the steel door descending behind her.
She’s home.
Safe.
And, man, does she have to pee. It’s either a result of her brush with the Sons of Anarchy or a side effect of the medication.
There’s a half bath right before the main hallway’s entrance to the kitchen. As soon as she sits down on the toilet, she realizes something feels wrong. It’s her pants. Their weight seems off. Something’s missing from the pockets.
Her phone. She hasn’t carried a purse in years, and she rarely visits town in anything other than blue jeans, so she usually tucks her phone in her front pocket to avoid sitting on it. But it’s not there. Her jeans feel light, and they slid too easily over her knees.
Did she leave it in the car?
She can’t remember having it since she wandered into Dylan’s office. She must have put it down on his desk. When she’d thought she heard it during their session, Dylan had told her the noise came from his and she needed to focus . . .
She’s not sure how to describe what she hears next.
Creak isn’t right, but it’s too half-hearted to be a footstep.
Movement.
There is movement somewhere inside her house, just outside the bathroom door she didn’t bother to lock.
And I don’t have my phone, she thinks. The same phone that would display an alert if someone messed with my alarm or, God forbid, managed to turn it off while I was gone.
Miraculously, she manages to finish peeing. But when she reaches for the toilet paper, her hand is shaking.
It feels as if a ghost has closed its fingers around the back of her neck. And she realizes that while she lives in a state of perpetual anxiety, and sometimes flat-out dread, it’s been a long time since she has been truly afraid. Not just afraid—terrified. And it’s physical, this feeling. A series of pulses traveling through her body. Like she can feel her heartbeat in her hands and feet.
The sound repeats. And the silence on either side of it is unmistakable—a silence that suggests restraint, human restraint. An effort to stay as quiet as possible. One of the bikers? Impossible. Even if they’d killed their headlights, there’s no way they could have followed her into the garage without her seeing them. Or hearing them.
But these sounds, they’re coming from the direction of the garage. Or one of the bedrooms between the bathroom and the garage.
Both her arms are tingling the same way her leg does when it goes to sleep. And yet some instinct is kicking in. Some instinct that tells her it’s best to pretend she hasn’t heard anything. Best to act as if nothing’s amiss. Then, as if she’s about to begin preparing dinner, she’ll make a beeline for the kitchen and the gun under the sink.
Everything is fine, she tells herself as she washes her hands. Her trembling hands.
She’s had physical responses to fear before, but never this strong. The tingling in her arms is almost painful now. Her hands shake as if there’s some disturbance inside the bones of her wrists.
Everything is fine, she tells herself again.
She opens the bathroom door, head bowed, as if she has no urge at all to look in either direction, as if all she wants to do is stroll into the kitchen and fix herself something to eat.
Everything is not fine, but you’re going to pretend it is until you can put a bullet in this bastard. Then things will be fine again.
It takes all the effort she has, but she forces herself to go to the fridge and take out a Diet Coke, because women who are afraid they’re about to be murdered don’t get themselves a Diet Coke. They don’t stand over the sink, taking a leisurely sip of their favorite soft drink while secretly gauging how many seconds it will take to pull their Beretta from under the cabinet at their legs. And this charade, she hopes, will give her an element of surprise.
She hears the footsteps behind her only because she’s listening for them. They’re soft enough that she would have missed them otherwise.
And then she realizes she’s made a critical mistake.
She forgot to turn on the light in the kitchen, and now she’s standing in almost total darkness over the sink, which looks about as natural as if she’d just hit the linoleum in a downward dog.
In the window above the sink, she sees his shadow. She sees his curls. Just their silhouette, backlit by the garage light.
Jason Briffel’s curls.
Her hands have stopped shaking, but the tingling has moved from her arms, across her back, and up the back of her neck. It’s even touching the sides of her face.
One shot, she tells herself. Shoot him and make a break for the living room and the front door. No talk. No negotiation. He’s in my fucking house. If he wants to die here, he made that choice when he broke in. I moved to a Stand Your Ground state for a reason.
She imagines herself doing it before she’s done it. Imagines pulling the gun from the holster attached to the cabinet’s ceiling, turning, and firing off as many shots as it takes to drop him. She imagines it so clearly, she doesn’t realize she’s just tried it.
And nothing happened.
She’s pulled the trigger twice and the only sounds in the kitchen are their combined breaths. Jason has raised his hands, not in surrender but to calm her. He approaches her slowly, as if she’s a hysterical woman, and he’s broken into her house in the middle of nowhere because he’s the only one in the universe who can reason with her.
How how how how how, she thinks, the word like a mad bird’s cawing in her brain. How did he get here? How did he get in my house?
Her new name’s not even on the deed. Kayla helped her set up a trust after they won the case against her dad. No one else knows she’s out here. No one except . . .
“Put the gun down, Trina.”
“That’s not my name.”
“It is your name. It will always be your name. Now enough of this game playing. Enough of the denial. We’re grown-ups now, and it’s time for us to talk about grown-up things.”
From the back waistband of his pants, he pulls a gun. One of her guns. No doubt this one’s fully loaded. It’s the one from her bedroom or under her desk in the living room. It has to be. But he keeps it pointed at the ceiling. The gesture says he doesn’t want to use it on her, but he will if he has to, which seems as sick and condescending as the words he just spoke with oily certainty.
“You need to leave,” she hears herself say. “You need to leave my house.”
“This isn’t a house, Trina. This is a shack, a prison. I hate to sound so judgmental, but it’s pathetic. I mean, you’re out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s not safe.”
She wants to believe he’s taunting her, but he isn’t. He genuinely believes the things he’s saying. And he’s lost a considerable amount of weight. That fact terrifies her almost as much as his presence here. When she last saw him, there was something infantlike about his portliness. Now he’s lean and ready to pounce, and this suggests he’s been preparing for this moment, transforming himself into a more efficient predator.
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