by Nicole Fox
No, what I needed was a ride. Anyone would do, I figured, but long haul truck drivers were preferable. If I'd had the time, I would have gone back to Buck's and waited for one to come in, then hitch that way. But, as it was, time was a valuable, and dwindling, resource.
I pulled over at the first supermarket I saw and parked the Camry near the back of the lot. I hopped out, stretched quickly, then stuck the keys in the visor and ditched it. I locked the car when I got out, hoping the cops would manage to find it by morning. The parking lot was desolate, with just a few cars parked here and there, mostly clustered near the front where the lights shone. The ones near the back had either been busted out, or their bulbs had died, giving the whole place an ominous feeling.
My stomach growled insistently as I headed inside the store, my pale skin and hair looking pallid under the neon. I hated places like this. They were so vapid and stale, like all the originality and life had been sucked out of them. The people who worked here looked as miserable as I felt.
I wandered up and down the aisles, finally finding the sodas and chips. I grabbed a big bag and a twenty ounce store brand cola and headed up to the checkout. I figured the chips would sate my hunger for a little while, and the drink would at least give me a shot of caffeine to keep my dragging ass going through the evening. There was only one checkout still going at this time of night, and the cashier looked dead inside. A local kid, by the looks of it, who had no hopes of ever leaving. Maybe he had, at one point, but they'd probably dried up long ago.
I hopped into line and put my two items down on the belt in front of me. The cashier just looked at me, not even asking how I was doing. As he began to ring up my items, another guy stepped into line behind me and began to place his items on the belt. I glanced back at him, sizing him up real quick. He looked like he might just be passing through. Medium size, not too skinny, not too bulky. Maybe he worked out, but he wasn't too serious about it like Kort clearly had been. He looked alright, about college age, and the belt in front of him was full of road trip food. Beef jerky, potato chips, water, soda, and candy bars. Most importantly, I figured he looked somewhat safe.
After the cashier rang up the two items, he gave me the total in a flat monotone.
“Hey, I got a question. You know anyone who I could catch a ride with?” I asked as I pulled out my pocket cash, the smaller amount I kept for basic things.
“Sorry,” the cashier monotoned back, “no.”
The guy behind me in line spoke up. “You need a ride?”
“Yeah,” I said as the cashier bagged my items, “out West. My car broke down and I can't afford to fix it. Why? You headed out that way?”
He nodded, smiling. He looked me up and down again, something I should've taken as a warning sign. “Yeah. Me and my sister and my, uh, mom, we're headed out to LA. You wanna catch a ride with us? We're parked right out front.”
Sister and mom? That was music to my ears. No guy would try something with his mom and sister in the car, would he?
“I mean, if it wouldn't be any trouble,” I gushed as I grabbed my plastic grocery bag from the cashier, “that'd be perfect! I can chip in gas money or whatever you need.”
He just laughed and waved off my offer. “No worries. Don't look like you'll add much to the gas bill or anything.”
I stuck around for the few moments it took for the cashier to finish ringing up my unexpected savior's groceries.
The guy grinned at me, his look drifting a little to leering, as he walked past. “Car's out this way,” he said back over his shoulder to me.
I fell in behind him and we headed out of the store, bags of road trip food dangling from our hands. My stomach grumbled again as we went through the automatic sliding doors and I dug into my bag of chips, tearing them open right there as we walked through the foyer where they kept all the shopping carts and began to munch on them.
He looked back over his shoulder again at me, smirking. “Don't normally see pretty girls eating potato chips,” he told me.
I smiled and daintily wiped some crumbs from my chin as we stepped outside. I glanced around one more time, looked around the lot for signs of Kort's muscle car. Sure, I'd left him exhausted and well-fucked back in the hotel room, but I knew your problems always had a way of catching up to you.
Together this new stranger and I headed out to the parking lot. He'd parked nearer to the back, on the edges of one of the intermittent pools of light. It was an older minivan, maybe a Dodge. The interior of the van wasn't lit very well, but I could see that the passenger side seat was laid back into a reclining position.
“Car broke down, you said?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Engine went bust on me when I got to town.”
“Well that sucks. Ain't got anyone to call that could help you out?”
I frowned as a range of emotions rattled me. Even though my car wasn't actually broken down, and all I was doing was telling lies to help fabricate some fictional story, the question hit home. I didn't have anyone to call. My mother was dead. My father was psycho and had men hunting me down. My only friends were Buck, Mario, and the guys at the truck stop, and I'd had to leave them behind when I fled the motel, just like I'd had to flee all my other friends in all the other small towns and truck stops I'd lived in for the last five years. Even so, could I actually call them friends? Could you call someone who didn't even know your real name a friend?
“No,” I said simply, flatly, trying to hide the unexpected turmoil inside me.
“Oh,” he said, his voice seemingly a little more upbeat. “Well, guess you just gotta depend on the kindness of strangers, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said as we got to the van. I peered in through the heavily tinted windows but couldn't see anyone else in front or in back.
“Sorry. Mom's riding up front, so you'll have to ride in back with Danielle,” he said as he led me around the back of the van to the other side with the sliding door. “Hope that's fine.”
I shrugged, my eyes still straining to see inside. Something about this whole thing seemed off. Had I been more awake and less fucked, maybe my instincts would have alerted me to the danger.
He pulled open the sliding door without triggering the dome light and ushered me in with one arm. The smell of grain alcohol rushed out of the car, filling the air. Old bags of beef jerky, fast food wrappers, and empty liquor and beer bottles were strewn all over the back.
“Run a still in there or something?” I asked, wincing at the stench as I backed up a step.
He laughed, a little nervously, I thought, then put his hand on my lower back and tried to nudge me closer to the van. “Don't mind the smell. That's just my mom.”
I stopped at the edge of the van and didn't climb into it. I looked down, saw a drunk guy in his mid-20s, unshaven, occupying the laid back passenger seat. Realizing that definitely wasn't his mom, I scanned the backseats for Danielle.
“Come on,” he said, his voice losing the soft bit of kindness, and gaining a hard edge of anger and frustration. “We've got to go soon!”
My breath caught in my throat. I couldn't believe I’d fallen for this. Clearly, nothing good was going to come from me staying here. What did he think I was? Some kind of runaway, someone no one would come looking for if I disappeared? A girl the cops would have trouble identifying, or listening to when I told them I was raped?
I turned and went to run, but he was ready for me. His hand cracked across my face with a hard, open-handed slap that whipped my head to the side. Stars exploding behind my eyes and a hot, stinging pain on my cheek I stumbled back, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes, and hit the back of my legs against the van.
“I said,” he growled as he made a grab for my wrist, “get in the goddamn van!”
I panicked, swung the bag of chips in my hand at his face, tearing open the bag. Salty, greasy, deep-fried potato slices filled the air like snack-fetti, flying everywhere. We both stopped and looked at the aftermath of the explosion on the concre
te and inside the van.
It didn't slow him down, of course. He just shook his head and chuckled in disbelief as the sound of a roaring engine filled the air and tires crunched on gravel. He didn't pay the approaching car any mind, just came at me, pulling me into his grip and tried more forcefully to get me in the van. I threw up my hands, trying to defend myself, but he just grabbed hold of one of them and slapped around my other hand, knocking my head to the side. “Get in the fucking van, bitch! Stop fighting it!”
Dazed from the second slap, I reeled around. Even though I was confused and feeling the effects, I leaped at him, the fingers of my free hand curled into claws.
Clearly surprised by the sudden attack, he flailed and tried to get my striking hand. My hand slipped through and he screamed as I raked my nails down his face, over his left eye and down his cheek.
“Hey!” a man bellowed from behind my attacker. “Get the fuck off her!”
My attacker, blood seeping out from between the fingers of the hand covering his mauled face, turned to see who was coming at him. “Fuck you!” he growled like a dog, dropping my wrist from his grip and balling his hand into a fist.
I got up and ran from the van as the two men collided, headed back to the Camry I'd ditched earlier. I didn't care if the troopers picked me up in it, at this point, I just wanted away from this place, from this nightmarish parking lot.
Chapter Eight
Kort
The only two things I hated more than Joey Banks were men who beat women and rapists. And this stupid motherfucker was both.
He threw a sloppy right cross at me that he telegraphed loud and clear with his shoulders. I saw it coming from a mile away and just wrapped my left arm around his and twisted it up into my armpit, hooking my arm around it as I let loose three quick jabs with my right fist into his jaw and the side of his head. His head whipped back and forth, his eyes wide in surprise. They went even wider in surprise, when I brought my arm up, using the leverage to snap his humerus.
The rapist fuck-face screamed like a little girl, so loud and high I was surprised he didn't shatter the windows of the van. His knees buckled and I let him drop to the gravel-covered parking lot. “My arm!” he screamed. “My fucking arm!”
“What the fuck?” his buddy mumbled, clamoring up from his spot in the passenger seat.
Before he could even climb from the seat I'd laid into him. His head rebounded back off the headrest, my fist splattering his nose. His eyes shut again and he was out like a light.
In the maelstrom Lydia had taken off, lit out like a jackrabbit across the parking lot, heading for the stolen Camry. I was after her in a flash, my arms pumping, my legs launching me across the blacktop like a freight train. Lydia had long legs, and was keeping a good lead on me but I was still closing it with each stride.
Adrenaline flooded my veins. I was so close. Just a little bit farther and I'd have her. Then we'd be headed back to the Warehouse and I could get work on bringing down Joey Banks. She slammed into the side of the stolen car, pure anger on her face as she looked back at me. She turned back to the driver door, slamming her elbow into the window, trying to shatter it.
I tackled her to the concrete before she could get going again. I wrapped her in a bear hug, twisting her body around so it was on top of mine as we slammed his the parking lot together. I took the brunt of the impact, but I didn't get care. Gravel dug into my arm, into my shoulders and back, but I barely felt it. All I knew was that her warm, kicking, yelling, biting body was in my arms again, and she was going to stay there till I got through her daddy's front gates.
“Let me go!” she screamed, slamming her head back into mine.
I twisted my face away, and her head cracked into my forehead.
Enraged at the sudden pain to the back of her head, she yelled for help as she continued the fight to break free.
I struggled to my feet, dragged with me till we were both standing. I picked her up around the waist, leaving her legs flailing and kicking in the air, and started to carry her back to the car. I had cuffs in my back pocket, but I knew trying to get to them now would just cause more problems. I needed her at the car before I tried something like that.
“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”
No one came, though. We were in a podunk parking lot in the middle of the desert. Nobody gave a shit about anyone out here. After what seemed like ages, I managed to get her back to the Camaro. I dropped her to her feet and promptly grabbed her arm and twisted it up behind her back as I slammed her as gently as I could into the steel Detroit body like I was auditioning for a 70s cop show. I grabbed the cuffs from my back pocket.
She oofed in surprise, the wind knocked from her. All she could do was groan in muted pain as I slapped the restraints on first one wrist, then grabbed the other and finished the job.
She struggled again, but I grabbed hold of her hair and yanked hard, producing a stunned yelp. “Listen,” I growled as I threw the passenger side door open, “I saved you from getting raped just now. Least you could do is show me some goddamn gratitude.”
“I don't want to go back to that madman,” she replied through clenched teeth. “You don't understand, Kort. I can't go home to him.”
“Doesn't matter if you think you can or can't,” I growled as I shoved her into the passenger seat and bent down to strap her in with the seat belt. “Because you don't get a fucking choice in the matter. Got it?”
She growled at me in frustration as she tried to struggle against her cuffs. I straightened up, dusted some of the dust and gravel from my clothes. Lydia's eyes locked with mine in a death stare as she looked up at me from the passenger seat. “I'm going to get away, Kort. I promise you I'll get away,” she promised. “Just like I have with all the other assholes he sent after me.”
A flash of Milo passed through my mind. My best friend who had ended up sacrificing everything to try and take her home to her daddy. He hadn't deserved what he got, and I don't think she even knew what had happened to him when he got there empty handed. I wondered briefly if she cared.
Right now, I didn't need to talk to her. Instead, I needed to get back on the road. We had more than twenty hours on the road still to go, and the night wasn't getting any younger. I just looked at her, my face transformed into a grimace. She flinched back as I slammed the door shut. I went around to the driver side and got in, started up the car.
“Please, Kort,” she nearly whispered as I went to pull out of the parking lot, “you can't take me back to him. I'll do anything.”
I just laughed. “I got business with your old man, Lydia, which means I need you. So, either you can ride up here with me in your cuffs, or you can ride in the trunk with your cuffs.”
She groaned and sat back in the seat, twisted her arms and shoulders to try and get a little more comfortable. She turned and stared out the window as we pulled out of the parking lot, watched as the men in the minivan started to move and tend to their wounds.
“Thanks,” she whispered after the grocery store was just a memory in my rear view mirror. “For, you know, saving me.”
“Yeah,” I said. “You're welcome. Figured you didn't deserve to get hurt like that.”
She just chuckled and went to looking out the window again. “Irony, much?”
I just shook my head and turned on the radio, trying to find something to keep the silence at bay. We needed to find a place to sleep for the night, and the nearest motels were out of the question after the stunt she pulled tonight. Meant we'd be lucky to find a place in less than a few hours.
We had a long drive ahead of us.
Chapter Nine
Lydia
We drove through a chunk of the night and finally ended up at another shitty motel just like the one I'd been living at for the past few months. Only difference was that this one was about a hundred miles farther West.
He stopped and leaned in through the driver’s side, jabbing his finger at me as he spoke. “Just remember, you get the cops c
alled on me, they're gonna find out about you and that car. Gonna be as bad for me as it is for you.”
“Pretty sure kidnapping's worse,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at him.
“Maybe so, but I think I can pull down a couple years. You, girlie, you'd end up stuck, and your daddy would end up knowing exactly where you are. Just remember that.” He slammed the door shut and left me alone in the car as he went into check us into a room.
With him gone, I mentally went through what I could do to get away. I had my bobby pins in my hair still. When he'd yanked me back by the hair in the parking lot, he'd sprung a couple loose, but most of them had stayed put. I could use those, I figured, to get out of the cuffs. Provided, of course, that I could see them. But that meant I had to have my arms in front of me.