“Happiness is a given in life,” my dad says. “So what do you really want to do when you’re older?”
My lips fold against each other, uncertain of an answer. “Why can’t I just be happy?”
Mom smiles, glowing with pride and youth. She reaches across the table and grabs my hand. “You can be whatever you want.”
“Being happy isn’t a job,” my dad grumbles. “How about a lawyer?”
I shake my head. “They lie too much.”
Mom and Dad both laugh, knowing from experience that it’s the complete truth. I laugh along with them, but I still have a childish cackle.
“What about a doctor, then? You could afford anything you want. A nice car and a nice house.”
“Dad,” I say. “Those things don’t make you happy.”
“Then I don’t know what does.” He laughs again and I go along with it, but even at a young age, I know money’s not the answer to life–and definitely not happiness.
“The only thing I’ll ever need is to be loved,” I say, bowing my head toward my cereal, where I’ve managed to spell the word someday.
The miles fly by with nobody in sight. I’m within elbow’s distance of this madman who’s kidnapped me and there’s nothing within my own power I can do to save myself. I never could have predicted the events of this past month, but what’s happening now is ripped straight from the pages of a horror novel. “Did you kill him?” I ask Rake softly, terrified of the answer.
He turns to me, his face haunted with restrained glee. “Uncertainty is a terrible feeling.”
I shift in my seat, scooting closer to the door. The farther away from him the better.
“You have any idea how long I waited?” he asks, his eyes now focused intently on the road ahead, seemingly lost in another world. “Not knowing where Trey was, wondering if he was lying dead in some ditch or just out on one of his spontaneous adventures.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. It’s true. I empathize with him to a point, but I’m under no illusion that he’s anything other than what he is—a villain.
“No, you’re not.” He shakes his head. “Lying won’t save you and it won’t save your boyfriend.”
I perk up, my body rising up against the torn leather seat. “So he’s still alive?”
“Before the end of the night, he’ll wish he wasn’t.”
“What are you going to do to him?”
With one hand glued to the wheel, he cranes toward me with a bent face, lost somewhere between a frown and a sinister smile. “It’s not him you should be worried about.”
If this were a movie, sinister music would kick in right about now. My hand searches for the door handle. We’re going about sixty miles an hour down this back road and I know the odds of survival if I should jump out are not good, but I can’t help thinking it’d be a better fate than what Rake has in mind.
His tongue clicks against his cheek. “That door doesn’t open from the inside.”
When you’re eleven years old, you think you know the world inside out. Like you could grab the universe out of your washer and hang it out to dry. Dylan, his plaid shirt, and I hide behind a thick green bush. The rest of our friends have been found in this hours-long scrimmage of high-stakes hide and seek.
Joey’s house is big and the property it sits on is even bigger. A pilgrim probably walked this land once and came to the conclusion that the world is flat. Dylan and I are huddled together, on the verge of a years-long relationship.
He peers through the bush, his eyes searching for our friends, who are looking for us. They’re devoted to the cause because once this game’s over, we move on to the next—a rousing game of spin the bottle. I’m surprised Dylan hasn’t given away our position because I know there’s nothing he wants more right now than to kiss me. My hand brushes against his. Not going to lie—it was intentional.
His eyes turn to me. His fingers tangle with mine. “What are we doing?” he whispers.
I sway on my feet, bold enough to make the first move, but not bold enough to say it aloud.
“You like me, huh?”
I shrug, but I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’ve loved him since I was five, but I’ve only recently became immune to the paralyzing fear of cooties.
He leans forward, his lips puckered as he pecks me on the lips. My eyes close at his touch, held tight until he pulls away and grabs both my hands. “We should get married,” he says.
My feet dig into the dirt, my heels pushing me higher.
“Found you,” Joey screams as he dives through the bush, landing squarely on the ground between Dylan and me.
Dylan grabs my hand and drags me away from our attacker. As we run by the line of bushes and toward the barn behind Joey’s house, Summer and Tyson spot us immediately giving chase. Dylan pulls me into the barn and grabs the door handle, prepared to push it shut. He grunts, but the door is too heavy for his young body to move by himself, so I give him a helping hand. We push the door shut just as Summer comes within tagging distance. We both lean against the door, out of breath.
“You know they’ll get in here soon, right?”
“I know,” he breathes heavy. “I just wanted you alone for a few more minutes.”
“My own personal hero.”
He steps closer, but keeps his hands to himself. “I’ll always protect you.”
“Blue’s dad tried paying me off. Five thousand blood-soaked dollars. Is that how much Trey’s life was worth?” Rake shakes his head viciously. “I took the envelope with my name on it and then saw one with Blue’s. You know how much cash was in his?”
I don’t nod or reply in any intelligible manner because I don’t care. This man has intentions to hurt me or kill me and nothing he says is going to change that. Nothing I say will change that. I’m out of options and I can feel the clock ticking in slow motion. The hour glass has been flipped and I’m running out of time.
“Ten thousand,” he continues. “Isn’t that something? So I took his, too.”
“He let you take the money?”
“Of course not.” He grins wickedly, the edges of his lips able to cut through glass. “I killed him.”
“Wha—?” I stutter, unable to form complete sentences. My lip trembles at the realization that he’s more dangerous–and crazy–than I’d realized.
“Don’t cry for him.” His voice vibrates, and I can feel his pitch shifting up. “Don’t feel sorry for him, Charlie. He was a terrible father,” he snarls. I jerk back, away from him, and fumble for the handle again, remembering full well that the door won’t open. “Do you ever wonder why Blue is so fucked up? Why he turned out to be the way he is?”
“You’re full of shit,” I mumble.
“How does a pretty girl like you fall in love with a fugitive, anyway?” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. Sounds more like fiction.”
“I don’t imagine you’re well-read.”
“Now I see it.” He shifts his focus to me. “You’re a smartass, but you’re not smart enough to know when to keep your mouth shut. This isn’t the place, it isn’t the time, and I am not the one, Charlie.” His entire face tightens. I’ve made him very angry. Regret settles in my stomach instantly. “I am not the one you want to fuck with.”
“You said ‘fugitive’?” I ask, a few minutes late on the uptake, but needing to change the course of the conversation.
“Hmm,” he muses aloud. “I think, before I put a bullet through your brain, you should really have a conversation with your boyfriend about honesty.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What’s not to believe, honey? You obviously know what he’s done. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have left your perfect little life behind.”
I turn away, glancing at my reflection against the window.
“Not that I have too much room to talk,” he says with a tilt of his head. “I’m a fugitive myself.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” What the hell is
wrong with me?
“That’s sarcasm again.” He shakes a finger at me and grins. “Didn’t I tell you that I am not the one?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him coming but can’t pull away quick enough. He backhands me across the cheek, twisting my face so I’m left staring out the window—waiting to be saved or waiting for my life to end. The difference between the two begins to blur.
Waves rush against my calves as I exit the warm blue waters of the Gulf. I take a seat on a faded beach towel right beside Summer, who is two shots away from a daytime hangover. Out at sea, Joey fumbles for a lost volleyball while screaming, “Wilson!”
“He’s such an idiot,” Summer huffs. “But he’s our idiot and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I don’t know. I think I’d prefer if he were just a little smarter.”
She sits up on her towel, pushing her shades to the top of her head. “I’ve got a theory,” she says. “He’s kind of like a dumb bimbo who isn’t so dumb. It’s all an act.”
“I wasn’t aware you had a degree in psychology.”
“Not yet, but I’m well on my way.” She lowers herself onto an elbow. “Have you figured out what you’re going to do with the rest of your life?”
“Do you have to put it that way? It sounds so terrifying.”
She shrugs. “That’s the three T’s of life; terrifying, traumatizing and…”
“Triumphant?”
“I was going to say terrifying again.”
I can’t help but chuckle. She’s not the biggest pessimist in the world, but she sure sounds like it. “I think I’m just going to file my major as undeclared.”
Summer raises herself back onto her ass, probably so that she has more advantage as she hovers above me. “No,” she shakes her head. “You absolutely cannot do that. It’s a death sentence.”
I breathe a heavy sigh. “But I don’t know what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
“You can just spend the rest of forever with me,” Dylan says from behind us. We both turn to face him and see that he’s well past drunk. His swimming shorts sag a good few inches beneath his pelvic bone, exposing the mound above his privates. Sunglasses sit on the shelf space at the end of his nose. He bends down to kiss my lips but gets my chin instead. “You know I meant to kiss you on the lips, right?”
I nod.
“I love you, and I don’t think you should go to college.”
I laugh. “You know I have to.”
He throws his head back, and I’m a little concerned his dick might pop out the top of his shorts. “But gas is so expensive,” he moans.
Tyson storms past us, cradling a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a beer-bong in the other. He races toward the ocean screaming for Dylan to come join him. Dylan steps a few feet back before he hurdles his body over us, knocking Summer’s beer over in the process.
As his strong body fights against the current, I turn to Summer. “I need to tell you something.”
She puts a hand to my face, turning her head away from me. “If you’re pregnant, I don’t want to hear it. I’ve been telling you to use condoms for years.”
I swat at her hand. “If I were pregnant, would I be drinking right now?”
She nods her head. “Good point. Continue.”
“I’m breaking up with him.”
“The hell you are!” She stands and hunches over me. “If you want to have a mid-mid-life crisis, then so be it. Go get hooked on heroin or buy a fancy car, but I’ll be damned if I let you break up this little family we’ve got going on here.”
“Are you done?”
She thinks about it for a second, then says, “Yeah.”
“Good.” I grab her by the arms and pull her back down. “I love Dylan. He’s all I’ve ever known—”
“You don’t get it, Charlie. You’re one of the lucky ones. Do you know how many people dream about marrying their high school sweetheart?”
Middle school sweetheart is probably more appropriate. “If I could stay here in paradise forever, then sure, I could stay with Dylan. But we’re going home in a few days, and a few months after that, we’re leaving for college and he’s staying in Lakeview.”
“It’s only an hour away from State.”
“It’s not the distance,” I say, exasperated. “Whoever I’m going to be, whatever I’m going to do with my life, the one thing I know is that I can’t stay in Lakeview. It’s never felt like home.”
Rake reaches into a loose pull-string bag that sits underneath the gearshift. He grabs a wrinkled sheet of paper and pushes it into my lap.
“What’s this?” I ask weakly, unfolding it to discover it’s a wanted poster of Blue. He looks different in the photo—rougher, older, and a lot more dangerous than the man I fell in love with. Whatever Rake’s intentions were, showing me this meaningless sheet of paper won’t work. He can play chess all he wants, but this queen won’t budge. I know–without a sliver of doubt–that the Blue in that picture is not the same Blue I know today.
Something in particular in Rake’s bag catches my attention. A fat stack of stolen cash—a third of it his, the rest Blue’s. On the offhand chance that I should escape, that money could come in handy. Blue and I could live off it for months until we’re able to figure out our next move. If Rake catches me reaching into that bag, he’d probably cut off my hand, and let’s be real fucking honest, he’d catch me. I push my back up against the seat and reach into my pocket, searching for a lighter. When I find it, I withdraw it slowly, peering over at Rake to make sure he’s not onto me.
He’s anywhere else but with me. It’s as if he goes in and out of consciousness. I wonder if that’s how all sociopaths function, barely able to maintain their grip on this world. I spin the edge of the metal—a spark first and then a flame.
His head snaps toward me as I set the wanted flyer on fire. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I force a smile but in the reflection of the window, it looks far too sincere. “I’m setting the past on fire. Want to know why?” I throw the flaming sheet into the backseat, praying it’ll set the car ablaze. “Because it doesn’t fucking matter.”
He slams on the brakes, pulling the wheel hard to the right. Sparks fly against the passenger side of the vehicle as the car grinds against the metal railing on the edge of the road. We come to a jerking halt as he throws the emergency brake.
He pushes his door open, hopping out onto the asphalt. As he grabs for the back door, I change course. There’s no sane reason to grab the money when I should just be running. I lunge across the gearshift while he pushes the flame to the floor, grinding it out with his boot.
My hands reach the surface of the highway. My feet scuttle past the gearshift. If I can make it out of the car, across the highway and into the woods, I’ll be safe.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rake asks from above me. When I crane my neck up to look at him, he brings his foot up to kick me in the chest. As my body jumps from the assault, his hands tangle in my hair, pulling me out of the car and onto my feet. “You’re pretty, I’ll give you that,” he grins, holding me by the crown of my hair. “But you are just about the stupidest girl I’ve ever met.”
With his free hand, he draws a gun from his hip and points it directly at my face. The scent of the metal terrifies me more than the sight. I can sense the power, the ability to end a life in the way the cool metal warms my nose. “Pull the trigger,” I say, taunting him with false nerves of steel. “Come on, what are you waiting for?”
His fingers tense around the trigger, as if he might just do it. He shakes his head, his teeth sinking into his lips. “I’m waiting for Blue.”
I haven’t heard from Blue since we danced in circles for hours. I have the permanent markings on my arm to remind me that I had a date, but I wonder if his have worn off. He’s fifteen minutes late, but I don’t know him well enough–yet–to know what that means. Does that mean he’s not coming? Does it mean he was caught in traffic? You c
an tell a lot about someone by the amount of time they make you wait.
I glance at my watch and think about all the things that I could have done today—shopping, showing up randomly at Summer’s dorm, drinking, or even pleasuring myself.
Blue pulls up to my house in the car of my dreams—a blue Jeep Wrangler. The top’s down, and while I’ve never been the type of girl to melt over a car, I’ve already lost an inch of my body to the depths of the ground.
He hops out of the Jeep and meets me at the edge of the driveway. He carries his hands behind his back and a smile passes my lips—this girl’s getting flowers. “What’s behind your back?”
His eyes shift to the side. “Just my hands,” he says as he pulls them out from behind.
“Oh,” I mumble. “I thought you had something for me.”
“I do.” He leans toward me and whispers in my ear, “But it’s a surprise.”
Chapter Thirty
Blue
I’ve only passed two cars since I peeled out of the motel parking lot. In that time, I’ve called Cookie twice more and my dad at least seven more times, but they’re both going straight to voicemail now. I’m worried about them, and my mind’s creating all these scenarios of what Rake could have done to them. It’s probably nothing. That’s what I’m forced to tell myself, anyway, while watching all these horror films in my head.
They’re right outside of Lakeview, though. Charlie’s out here on this highway somewhere. A part of me thinks she can protect herself, but the other part of me is hell-bent on reminding me that Rake isn’t just some ordinary guy. He’s the reason I fled the carnival, because I was afraid of what he might do. I can’t imagine what Charlie must be feeling. If it’s worse than the guilt that I feel from within my gut—well, it could bring me to tears.
But I can’t cry right now. I’m too overcome with rage. No longer will I hold back. Rake wanted a fight and he’s going to get one. There will be a funeral and I’ll attend, because ending his life isn’t something I can do with righteous glee, but it’s something I’ll do just the same.
What to Read After FSOG: The Gemstone Collection (WTRAFSOG Book 7) Page 82