by Kristie Cook
After pulling out of the parking spot, I couldn’t help a last glance over my shoulder to our table at the window. Leni was already gone.
Eyes forward. Focus forward. Time to move on.
I rolled my neck and shoulders and blew out a breath as if I could blow Leni out of my system. But the harder I tried to not think about her, the more I did. Something had happened to her last night. I felt it in my bones. And if they—it, whatever had been in the bushes—returned and harmed a single curl on her head, I’d never forgive myself.
My foot jumped from the gas pedal with the thought of leaving her alone and vulnerable. When the car didn’t seem to respond, I glanced at the speedometer and realized I’d only been going twenty miles an hour anyway, as if my subconscious was telling me not to leave. Maybe I should stick around to be sure she’s okay. I pulled to the side of the road to consider this idea. My mind ran away with itself, lost in forming a plan until a truck blasted past me so fast it shook the car and jolted me back to reality. I knew better than to sit on the side of the road. Shit, Winters, what the fuck is wrong with you?
I was not a stalker type. I wasn’t even an up-front-in-your-face-I-want-to-be-your-boyfriend type. I was losing my mind, and the best thing I could do for me and for Leni was to leave town. As I stepped on the gas pedal and merged onto the road, my decision made, the pull inside me protested. It screamed louder and louder the faster the car went and the farther away from Leni I drove. I tried to ignore the ache, using every bit of my self-control to keep my foot on the pedal and my mind focused forward.
She’s just a girl, no different than any other chick. And with a lot of baggage. You really don’t want to get involved with all that.
True. Girls with baggage—I’d dealt with enough of that. Nobody seemed to have more baggage than models and strippers, and I’d had my fill of both. My own bags were enough for one person to carry. I didn’t need to take on Leni’s, too.
Giving myself a mental pat on the ass for doing the right thing, I turned up the radio until the beat pounded through me and guided the car toward the ramp for the interstate. But although I pressed harder on the gas, the car refused to accelerate. Then it lurched. Sputtered. And died.
I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the gray smoke pluming from under the hood. The music’s bass continued pounding out a beat, so the battery still worked. Smoke like that meant the radiator or engine, neither of them a quick fix. I banged my fist against the steering wheel. Why now? Now that I’d convinced myself to go, I wanted nothing more than to get far away from here.
With a frustrated groan, I threw open the door. A body jumped out of the way. I looked up to find Leni standing in the middle of the road, staring at me.
“You okay?” she signed, her eyes wide. “All the smoke. . .”
“What are you doing? Trying to get yourself killed?” I jumped out of the car, grabbed her arm—ignoring the dizzying effect the touch had on me—and pulled her to the shoulder and into the grass. Far away from danger.
Her eyes widened more. “Is it going to explode?”
“I doubt it.” I turned and stalked over to the car.
Leni followed me, which I didn’t realize until I stood at the front of the car and saw her reaching inside the passenger’s side. The pound of the music stopped.
“Spanish rap?” she asked. “It was killing my ears. And just about all appreciation for music.”
I shrugged. How was I supposed to know? “Will you get back now?”
The girl was scaring the shit out of me. A ramp didn’t have nearly the same traffic as a highway—this one had none, actually—but still. She made me nervous.
I pointed to the grass again before releasing the hood. More smoke billowed out, engulfing my face. I stepped back, coughing, waiting for it to clear. Through the smoke, I saw Leni’s old truck parked on the road behind me, hazard lights flashing. At least she still stood in the grass, with her hands on her hips as she watched me. A quick glance at the engine and I knew this was nothing I could fix.
I jogged to the driver’s side, leaned in to put the car in neutral, then pushed it to the shoulder, doing my best to steer and jumping in to hit the brake when the car was a good ten feet in the grass. During that time, Leni had moved her truck, too.
I shook my head at her as she came over to my passenger’s side, where I stood with the door open, nervous as hell.
“Get back,” I ordered. She backed up several feet. Better.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
What the hell do you care? I wanted to say—actually I wanted to yell it, pissed that she actually cared right after sending me out the door. That she was here in the first place, risking her life. Why couldn’t she be like other girls who made leaving easy? Since I couldn’t yell at her, I ignored her and searched inside the center console for the rental company’s paperwork.
“It’s their problem,” I finally signed after finding the pink and yellow papers. I strode farther off the shoulder until the grass began to slope into a ditch, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket to text them, sat down and set it on my lap so I could sign. “They’ll send a tow truck and another car for me. No need to worry. I’m sure you have things to do.”
Leni glanced at her truck while biting her bottom lip, then looked back at me. Without warning, she snatched the papers and phone from my lap. I jumped up to retrieve them, but she held them behind her.
“It’ll be easier if I talk to them,” she mouthed.
Before I could protest, she already had my phone dialed and up to her ear. I watched her lips carefully to gather her side of the conversation. After giving my name and other info from the rental agreement, her brows drew together and her mouth tugged into a frown.
“You’re sure?” her lips said. A pause followed. “No Jeric Winters in your system?” Another pause and then her eyes changed, her whole expression morphing into confusion then suspicion and then fear. “Please tell me you didn’t steal this car.”
I jerked back. “Hell no!”
“They don’t have a record of you renting a car,” she said, the phone still pressed to her ear. “He’s asking if it’s under a different name.”
I jabbed my finger at the contract, where everything was spelled out. She studied it, then shook her head slowly. I pointed more specifically at the VIN and she nodded. Her mouth moved, reciting the numbers and letters to the person on the other end of the line. After a moment, she frowned again and dropped the phone from her ear. She pressed the End button before looking at me.
“Not only do they have no record of you in their system,” she finally said as she shook the papers, “but they have no record of this car, either. They say it’s not theirs.”
I stared at her for a long moment, trying to understand. Then I grabbed the paper out of her hand and studied it, making sure it really was the contract for this particular car. Everything was correct, and the VIN engraved on the car matched the one on the papers.
Leni tugged on my arm to grab my attention. “Sirens in the distance. The police or fire department’s coming. Probably both. We should get out of here.”
I cocked my head. “Run from them?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Come on!” She started jogging to her truck.
With a glance at the smoking engine, I grabbed my bags out of the back seat and ran for Leni’s truck. She spun out, surprising me with the power of the old truck. I watched out the window and as we turned a corner, the fire truck came into view down the road. Leni made a few more turns, then parked on the side of the street. Before I could ask anything, her hands moved as quickly as she could manage.
“I can’t believe I did that,” she said with a mischievous grin. “I actually ran from the cops!”
I eyed her with a brow raised. “Have you ever done anything bad in y
our life?”
She shook her head.
“Never broken any laws at all? Ever?”
Her shoulder lifted in a shrug. “I speed sometimes.”
I laughed while shaking my head. “So why did you do it now?”
She shrugged again. “Maybe you bring the worst out of me.”
Ah. That could be true. Wouldn’t be the first time I corrupted a girl.
“And you ran for the thrill?” I teased, but then her expression sobered as she shook her head.
“There’s no record of you having legal possession of that car.” She paused and frowned. “There’s something really strange going on. With both of us, I think.” Her eyes flitted to my wrist again. “And I can’t help but think it’s connected.”
Her gaze came up and locked onto mine again, and I saw in her eyes what I felt. What she didn’t say. That we’re connected.
“Do you have any ideas? A plan?” I finally asked. She shook her head, then chewed on her bottom lip. “Where were you headed before you found me surrounded by smoke?”
Her eyes broke from mine, and she looked out the windshield as her face flushed. “I don’t know. I had the overwhelming urge to go for a drive after you left . . . and I felt pulled in this direction.” She looked back at me with a sheepish grin. “Almost like I knew something was wrong. That you needed me. Weird, right?”
Normally, yes. I’d be calling the police—or the asylum—to turn her in for stalking me. She sounded like a lunatic, but the revelation came as no surprise.
“No weirder than how hard it was for me to leave this place. My car wouldn’t even let me go without you.”
Her mouth pulled up into a real smile that made my breath catch. Man, did I want her. I wanted to feel her soft skin under my fingertips and those full lips against mine. I leaned forward, but she doubled over the steering wheel, her whole body shaking. I pulled back with a groan, thinking she was crying. But then she threw her head back. Her laughter shook the seat. A smile spread on my own face as I watched her until she finally calmed down enough to sign.
“I’m sorry, but if I don’t laugh, I’ll lose my mind. What you said is so absurd, but . . . at this point, I could believe anything.” Her chest heaved with what I assumed to be a sigh, then all humor fell from her face and sadness filled it once again.
“Leni—” I started.
“Yeah. I’m crazy.”
What? I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Then what was that sign? It looked like ‘crazy’ to me.”
I thought back to what I’d just said. Ah. “Leni. That’s what I’d signed. How we deaf people say names—the first letter plus something characteristic for the person. So L plus—” I twirled my finger in a spiral near my cheek.
Her eyes narrowed. “Looks like crazy to me. So I’m L plus crazy?”
“Curls,” I corrected, and I showed her the difference between the horizontal crazy sign and the vertical swirl I made for her curls.
“So what’s yours?” she asked.
I grimaced. I hated the name they’d given me at the deaf school—J plus an index finger to the cheek for my dimples. “Why don’t you give me your own?”
She eyed me for a moment, then made a J with her pinky and pointed to the end of her eyebrow for my piercing. A lot better than it could have been, considering our rough start last night. But she was too good to reference the used condom or to thrust her hips. Though I wouldn’t have minded seeing her do the latter. I’d have her signing my name all day long to watch that.
“That’ll work,” I said, imitating her sign for my name. Then I asked again, “So, where were you headed?”
“I have a camper at the lake a little over an hour away.”
I nodded. “Okay. Is there a bus station around here?”
She looked away and out the window, but she had that look of not seeing what was in front of her. She appeared to be trying to figure out the solution to some unknown problem. Finally she looked at me.
“Do you have somewhere you need to go?” she asked. “I mean, where would you go on the bus?”
I shrugged. “No clue, to be honest. Probably go to Miami. I kind of feel the need to go south.”
I hadn’t really, but as if the signed words had planted a seed in my gut, I had a vague feeling south might be right.
“Would you . . .” Her hands hesitated in the air. “Would you still make an exception for me for a sleepover?”
Whoa. Not what I was expecting.
“No, no.” She shook her head emphatically. “That’s not what I mean. I was just wondering if you’d come to the lake with me for a couple of days. I am kind of . . . needing a friend.”
I gave her the best smile I could conjure. “I’m not big on camping, but where else do I have to go?”
After a stop for groceries and another for fuel, Leni drove us up into the mountains, to a quiet lake hidden in a valley and surrounded by Georgia pines. She pulled up to an Airstream camper sitting near the shore’s edge, the silver bullet shining in the afternoon sun, and we unloaded her truck. The inside of the camper had a funky style that perfectly repped Leni. To the right of the door, the part over the tongue, was a futon mattress with no frame, piled high with various colored pillows. Orange and yellow tie-dyed curtains hung in the windows and a big, blue paper lantern dangled over the little table like a blue moon hanging in the sky. There was a kitchenette directly to the left, then what I assumed to be the bathroom and on the other side of it, a doorway leading to what must have been a small bedroom.
“Your place?” I asked.
“Pretty much. My uncle gave it to me so I’d have a place to get away from him. I think it was more so he’d have a place to send me away.”
I glanced around. “Sent you to Italy and gave you a camper at the lake.” My eyes came back to her. “You have a good life, don’t you?”
Her eyes flicked away, but only for a brief moment before she looked at me, smiled and shrugged. “Yeah. Guess I do.”
She moved about the camper with purpose, expertly setting everything up, including an awning that she hung with a couple of strings of colorful Christmas lights. A cat joined us while we ate hot dogs and potato chips at the picnic table outside, the colorful lights making a pattern of blue, pink and purple on its white coat. Leni said she’d never seen it before, but the cat seemed intent on hanging out with us.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked her after dinner. She hadn’t trusted me before. What had changed?
She didn’t answer, but went inside for a moment, returning with the leather-bound book in her hand. She placed it on the table, sat down next to me and, to my surprise, grabbed my hand in hers. The world tilted a little like it always did, but the intensity was lessening with each touch. With her free hand, she ran a finger over the picture embossed in the leather cover—a weeping willow tree surrounded by fish and dolphins. Her finger pointed to an image engraved in the tree’s trunk: a phoenix on fire. Then she lifted our clasped hands to rest on the table and pressed our arms tighter together.
I noticed for the first time she’d removed her bracelets. And I also noticed she had a flame tattoo exactly like the mark on my own wrist. When our arms were pressed together like that, the tattoos looked exactly like the phoenix’s wings.
What. The. Fuck.
I yanked my hand out of hers and sprang to my feet. She caught my wrist in her hand before I could bolt, though, and pointed to the clasp. What had once been smooth, blank metal now had the same phoenix image engraved in it. She stroked her finger over it, and the clasp sprang open.
On the first page, in neat, girl’s handwriting, were the words Jacey and Micah and a sketch of the flamed wings without the rest of the bird. On the next page were a date and the beginnings of what appeared to be a long-ass journal en
try.
Chapter 7
The singer of Bex’s boyfriend’s band screamed profanities into the microphone, supposedly singing some intense lyrics on a makeshift stage in the basement of an abandoned building. When pleading with me to come with her earlier, Bex, my roommate, had sold the band as “The Clash meets The Cult with a little Sex Pistols thrown in.” As stupid as it sounds, I’d thought at the time her description had created the intense lure to see the show, because I’d been stoked to go. The band sucked, although the crowd either loved them or was simply too drunk to care because they turned the entire space into a mosh pit. Exchanging my Converse high-tops for my Doc Martens before we’d left had been a smart choice—my toes were thankful for the steel tips.
My nerves had been strung tighter than the bassist’s guitar, and everything grated on them. The band’s assaulting melody, sweaty bodies crashing into me, the warm beer that spilled over my hand, and all the smells that came with the scene . . . I couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to chug my beer but the first swallow made me gag, so I tossed it before pushing my way up the stairs and outside. A rush of icy air hit my face as soon as I stepped through the door, and I pulled my black leather jacket tightly around me, wishing I had on more than a measly t-shirt underneath. When the January wind bit through the holey leggings under my denim miniskirt, I wanted nothing more than to magically appear in my bed at the dorm, snuggled under my comforter with a charcoal pencil and sketchpad in hand.
Normally, I’d have been so screwed up by then, I wouldn’t have cared about anything—the band, the chaos, the cold. Any other time, I’d have been thrashing in the mosh pit myself. A rad buzz would have given me the false sense of warmth everyone else outside must have had as they swapped spit and smokes. A fragrant mix of menthol, cherry tobacco hand-rolls and the distinct smell of weed wafted through the chilly air, more palatable than the cloudy haze inside that tried to bring back memories I didn’t want.