Sticks and Stones

by Angèle Gougeon

  Danny pushed her to the side. His knife slid in behind the knot and Jack jerked back, rolling and ready to kick out with his feet but he was free and Sandra wondered why she hadn’t thought of that. Her head was all muddled. She hated being so muddled.

  Jack sputtered, voice full of liquid. It was questioning and Sandra gently wrapped her hand around his. “We’re here,” she said again. She angled herself, let Danny move in behind, get his arm tucked around his brother to lift him off the floor. Easier said than done. Sandra hoped his ribs weren’t cracked. He resisted the move, in obvious pain, and his head fell forward. Sandra made sure he wouldn’t go falling the other way. His forehead ended up on her collarbone.

  There was fresh blood leaking across her skin.

  “C’mon, Jack,” Danny whispered, grabbing at him again. Jack’s jacket was gone. And his shoes. His shirt and jeans were in rough shape. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  He made a sound, agreeable, but couldn’t do much to help. Sandra kept him steady but Danny was the one who lifted him, had to get him right off his feet because his knees wouldn’t hold. It looked awkward and uncomfortable and probably caused more pain, but that didn’t matter as long as it got him out of there fast. Sandra led the way, holding Danny’s gun.

  For once it didn’t feel so wrong – it wasn’t horrible to hold if she was protecting them.

  They didn’t see Jeremiah Epps lurking around. They didn’t see anyone, even after getting outside. Sandra crawled into the backseat, cushioning Jack’s fall into the car and trying to keep him upright. “Where do we go?”

  Jack rolled his face into the skin of her neck. Sitting slouched was hurting him but she didn’t have the heart to move him away. Instead, she reached up; he curled his arms around his ribs and she carefully wiped the sweaty hair away from his face. It turned her fingers red. She could feel his lashes flutter against her skin as they watched Danny settle, listened to the engine purr with the turn of the key, rumbling awake.

  “No hospital,” Jack wheezed out.

  “Jack…” Sandra began.

  “That’s stupid,” Danny told him.

  “Is not,” Jack slurred, but his eyes rolled closed, body slumping further into hers. Danny didn’t bother arguing, but paused, undecided, before pulling onto the road. He met her eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “I don’t know.” Jack didn’t stir. “Stitches and Band-Aids won’t fix this.”

  “No,” Danny said. He still looked angry. Furious. And Jeremiah Epps had gotten away. Sandra couldn’t even imagine how horribly this could go. “The police will get involved.”

  Sandra knew. She kept her hand in Jack’s hair. “Do we tell them about Jeremiah?”

  Daniel’s smile turned particularly vicious. “I think we do.”

  ~

  Sandra didn’t have to try too hard to be upset, especially after they wheeled Jack away for x-rays. Daniel held her hand like a good pretend brother, looking angry and pale and drained. They both had blood on them, Danny more than her – a big mark right across his chest where he’d held his brother.

  “I don’t know,” he said to the police for the fifth time. “He went to get lunch and never came back.”

  They were just passing through, they said.

  Road trip, they said.

  Didn’t have any enemies, they said.

  Didn’t ever think something like this could happen.

  If the officers talked to Fred, they’d be screwed. You couldn’t leave out something like beating a man to get him to talk without looking bad. Couldn’t include it without looking bad either.

  Sandra sighed when the police walked away, wondering how long it would take them to realize they weren’t the Darius family – realize the credit card wasn’t theirs, either. They weren’t to go anywhere. The waiting room was quiet and so were the halls, intercoms crackling intermediately, calls for doctors and nurses and room numbers, muted from where they sat. The chairs were new and comfortable and Danny didn’t let go of her hand even after the policemen left. She wasn’t even sure if he was aware of the gentle sweep of his thumb, back and forth, back and forth. Sandra hated waiting.

  “The last time I was in a hospital, you were the one in the bed.”

  “I don’t blame you.” Danny squeezed her hand. “You can’t see everything.”

  Sandra made a thin sound. She might have rolled her eyes. She was too busy staring at their hands to pay much attention.

  “You’ve saved us a hundred times over. You can’t see everything.”

  “Apparently Jeremiah can,” she said, and Danny had nothing to say to that.

  ~

  It wasn’t so bad.

  Sandra stared at Jack in the bed, small and vulnerable, reminiscent of Danny years and years ago.

  His ribs were cracked, but not broken. And other than some superficial cuts that needed stitches, he really wasn’t that bad off. He’d had a minor concussion. Still had bruises and scrapes. No broken bones.

  Jeremiah could have done much worse; he’d slit that woman’s throat, after all.

  “Hey,” Sandra whispered, moving the cup of ice chips over and setting down a can of pop on the table. His face almost looked worse, all cleaned up. The old bruises were completely covered by the new. He had one cut on his cheek and another by his hairline, held together by little bandages, the skin around slowly turning a myriad of colors.

  “Huh?” he said, confused. Danny touched his shoulder on the other side, fleetingly light. There were chairs against the wall, at the foot of the bed, and he moved to sit down as Jack’s eyelids fluttered.

  “Ungh,” Jack moaned. “Where’m’I? Hospital?”

  “Yeah,” Sandra said.

  “Fuck you, ‘anny.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes, leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

  “Said s’no hospitals.”

  “We weren’t risking it.”

  Jack sighed, breath hitching a little, protesting lungs. “Hate tchu.” Jack cracked his eyes, but couldn’t find Danny in the direction he was staring and closed them again. He did manage to crook his middle finger up. Sandra thanked God that she’d never had brothers.

  “P’lice talked chtu me.”

  “Yeah?” Danny still looked pretty amused at the mangled words coming out of Jack’s mouth. Sandra thought it was partly from the drugs; partly from his horribly fat lip. “What did you say?”

  “Dunno. ‘M drugged, asshead.”

  Danny made that sound – the one that was almost a laugh. “Tell them the truth if they come back, okay?”

  Jack made a breathy sound, full of pain, and shifted even though it made him grunt. “Why?” he asked, the word finally coming out clear.

  Danny shrugged. “Because we weren’t in the wrong? I want him found. Hell, I’ll even sit down with a sketch artist if it’ll get them after him.”

  Jack’s face went numb, kind of mute and unreadable. It looked odd on him. Then his bruised eyes flickered and a sarcastic grin stretched at his cheeks and his puffy lip. “Don’t know if the police wan’ to talk to me. I called ‘em some not so nice things.”

  Sandra snorted, she couldn’t help it, and Danny’s lips twitched even though he was trying to look serious. “You make friends wherever you go.”

  “‘M drugged. Not my fault… Dick.”

  Jack’s smile looked painful and Sandra went and plopped down in the other chair, elbow digging into Danny’s side and eyes hurting with the effort to not laugh or cry. Danny’s knee jerked with nerves.

  “You didn’t get him,” Jack finally said, long after they’d thought he’d fallen asleep, room full of quiet and Sandra full of worry.

  “No.”

  “I almost—” Jack cut himself off. “I mean, I got loose, once. I got him, but…” His head shook, a head shake maybe. He looked sort of dement
ed and kind of really lost and Sandra had to look away. “I wanted to kill him. I came so close.”

  Which was a horrible admission. Sandra wanted to ask why he hadn’t. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “It felt like losing.”

  Danny made a sound, full of surprise. Sandra was sure, if he’d been the one kidnapped and he’d had the shot, he would’ve killed Jeremiah stone cold dead.

  Danny scratched at an old scar on his arm and wouldn’t meet her eyes.

  ~

  Danny woke her with a hand on her shoulder. His skin felt abnormally hot. Or maybe she was just very cold. There was a vent in the ceiling, cool air raining down. “Hey,” he said again, a tone that made her think it wasn’t the first time.

  “Mmmph?”

  “We’ve got to go.” He was whispering and Sandra turned over to stare at the clock on the wall. It was late. Really late, and she wondered how Danny had conned the night nurses into not kicking them out again. They’d been the bane of the hospital staff for the past two days. Danny shook her again, pulled her right up out of the chair. He waited, at least, until she had her footing before he let go. “We’re getting out of here,” he said.

  There wasn’t anyone at the desk.

  In her vision timeline, Sandra would’ve thought he’d killed the nurse. Here, the thought barely crossed her mind – made her follow Danny guiltily down the hall. There was a wheelchair waiting outside Jack’s room. Jack was waiting, too, in his bed, bleary-eyed and frazzle-haired. He wasn’t okay, but they both seemed eager to go and nothing Sandra would say would change that. They were both as stubborn as their father. Jack slowly rolled off the bed, too proud to take much help, even if it was from her. He grumbled about the chair as well, but Danny said it was either the wheelchair or his shoulder and Jack, predictably, chose the chair. A bit ungraciously, but whatever. Sandra kept watch down the hallway, waiting for one of the night nurses to come bustling out from a room and catch them in the act of fleeing. Her eyes felt crusted over, head all cottony.

  “Feel like I should be humming Batman,” Jack said, as Danny snuck him out the door and toward the corridor stairs. Sandra repressed the giddy urge to giggle. Daniel scowled at them, unimpressed. Behind his back, Sandra and Jack shared a smile.

  They left the wheelchair by the stairs, helping Jack all the way down. It was a slow descent, but there was far less risk of being seen. The front door had a manned desk and Danny had been busy the past few days. He knew exactly where to go. They escaped out a side door into the parking lot. Danny had left the car close.

  Jack laid down on the backseat. Danny didn’t tell her where they were going and Sandra’s eyes drifted shut after the first ten long minutes. When she woke, the car was stopped and Danny was on his way back from a motel office, harsh yellow light spilling out onto the night dark pavement. She twisted in her seat. Jack’s eyes were still closed, and she could see the slow, gentle rise of his ribs. The car door opened, dipped down slightly as Danny slid in. He’d left the engine on and it revved as he pulled into reverse. Sandra let her eyes fall closed in one long blink. Somehow, the car had turned off and they were parked, motel door opened. The car’s rear door was pushed wide. Danny murmured. Jack groaned and pushed himself half up before he relented and let his brother get a hold of him and help him from the car. Sandra got out, wincing, knees cracking. Then she got the bags from the trunk, along with the Tylenol Danny had pocketed from the hospital.

  The motel wasn’t so bad – definitely not in the top five they’d stayed in, but not in the bottom either. The air smelled clean and the beds were made. There were lamps on the side tables and the television looked like it might pick up more than two channels. If there was hot water that didn’t run out after just one shower, Sandra would be ecstatic.

  Jack groaned, tucking himself onto the farthest bed. He didn’t bother trying to remove his new boots and Sandra shucked them off on her way past, slinging the bags down outside the bathroom wall. Jack lay with his feet bare. He hadn’t done his jeans up all the way in the hospital and his large, worn shirt was half buttoned. Danny didn’t seem worried about Jack’s comfort, so Sandra left it, continuing on to the bathroom.

  The florescent light overhead was harsh and drained all the color from her tired face. There were plenty of clean towels and sharp little patterns in the tile of the bath. Sandra couldn’t tell if they were ivy or thorns all twisted together. She didn’t really care since the water was warm, but it gave her something else besides her toes to stare at as she stood there, trying hard not to think.

  She worried about Jeremiah Epps – what they’d do to him. What he’d do to them. It scared her, terrified her, that he knew the things she knew, maybe saw more than she did, and he was out there making a new future. Just like them.

  His was simply a lot more blood-spattered.

  She needed a clear head. She needed to see for Jack and Danny, and for Lem, too. Except, Sandra couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking; her fingers and her arms and her whole body on vibrate. She ended up on the bottom of the tub, thinking about Jack’s beaten face, his black-bruised ribs and wrists and ankles and how Jeremiah Epps could have killed him instead of leaving him alive.

  They kept trying so hard not to fall. But what would happen with someone there to push them over?

  Sandra shut the water off, let it sluice over her, her muscles left stiff and tight. She tried to get the shakes under control before leaving the bathroom but didn’t fare well, ending up back in the main room with Danny wrapped around her, standing in the narrow space between the two beds.

  Danny still had his gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  Sandra wanted to tug it away – throw it far. Instead, she tucked her hands into the hem of his shirt and held on tight.

  Jack’s face was pale over his brother’s shoulder, muted in the dim lamplight. His wounds looked like a patchwork pattern. His breath rasped out, short and shallow, wounded and making her chest hitch.

  She hated seeing them like this.

  Danny didn’t say a word, just pressed his lips to the top of her head, then tilted her chin up to press his lips there, too.

  Jack groaned.

  They separated. Danny got him Tylenol and Sandra got him water, and then she sat down beside him, resting her stretched-out leg against his ribs, trying to ease the pain and let him relax. When he fell asleep, Sandra looked over across the room at Danny and wondered what they’d do next.

  Somewhere out there, Jeremiah was waiting.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They didn’t see Jeremiah Epps for five weeks.

  Jack recovered slowly. They spent two days at the motel after their hospital breakout, before the chance of being found – by Jeremiah or the police – forced them to move on. Jack dozed on and off in the backseat of the car, face slightly strained and pale from the never smooth-enough roads they traveled.

  Danny drove real nice and slow.

  Jack dozed in and out and usually went right back to sleep when they reached their new motel, pillows and blankets rolled up on either side of him. Sandra couldn’t say he looked exactly boyish when he slept, but he looked younger with his hair all in spikes, drool sliding down his chin. So exhausted he kept forgetting to untie his boots.

  Sandra pulled them off, set them near the wall so no one would trip over them, and crawled on top of the opposite bed, working the television remote with the volume nearly on mute while Danny went searching for food. She tried not to be too worried – he’d taken his gun along. And his knife. And he knew what Jeremiah looked like now. He wouldn’t be so quick to help someone, either, even if it was some little old lady crossing the street.

  Because they just didn’t know these days.

  Some people just had dark eyes. And some people had black ones. And how was anyone supposed to know the difference?

  Jack mumbled something
that sounded like gibberish and Sandra settled on an ocean documentary that she was sure would wind off into some charity event in a few seconds, televised celebrities asking for money the Sloans and she didn’t have. The blankets smelled like fabric softener and the room was warm enough to make her drowsy, a background chorus of blue whales echoing quietly through the room.

  She didn’t know when her eyes closed. She wasn’t even sure if she was asleep. The blankets were still under her palms. The pillow was bunched high behind her head, body tilted, warm, stagnant air on her face. It didn’t feel like dreaming, yet she couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t hear Jack. She couldn’t hear the television set.

  There was smoke.

  Thick and billowing. Grey and rancid, not at all like cigarettes. It filled Sandra’s lungs and clogged up the room, burning black and leaving grime on her skin.

  Danny opened the door and Sandra took a deep breath, opened her eyes and sat up. She hid one trembling hand beneath her thigh, curled the other tight around the remote. Danny carried a bag full of takeout cartons, the smell of sauce and noodles and chicken making her stomach churn. She took the carton he gave her, picking until she could push it aside under the pretense of being full.

  She caught Danny staring and didn’t think he was fooled.

  Daylight faded behind the flimsy curtains. Warm and restless, Sandra let her eyes close again, and breathed in smoke until it settled into her bones and turned them to ash.

  “Hey,” Danny’s hand rubbed her shoulder, a gentle squeeze as he leaned over, pressed dry lips against her forehead. “G’morning. I’m going to go out. Get a paper. And coffee?” He made it a question but Sandra shook her sleepy head. “Okay.” Danny kissed her again, big hand on her hip, bed dipping as he stood up from the edge. He was in between the two beds, giving the still sleeping Jack a look as he left.

  He took the key – locked the room behind him.