by April Henry
When he was out of the house, he wore his shirts buttoned up to the neck, but people still noticed the scars. His shirt collar didn’t hide everything, and once people noticed, most of them couldn’t stop staring, whether it was in a movie line or at the grocery store. Some looked at him and quickly looked away. Some pretended not to look – and then stared if they thought he hadn’t noticed. And a few made a point of meeting his eyes and smiling, like he was some kind of a retard or a dog who might turn on them.
He hated the smiles worst of all.
Every day Griffin was in the hospital, his mother had visited him. And then one day, right before he was released, she didn’t come.
“So I’ve been kind of wondering – where’s your mom?” Cheyenne asked. It was spooky, like she could read his mind.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you live here with your dad, but you obviously had to have had a mom, so where is she?”
“She and my dad didn’t get along,” Griffin said shortly. “So she moved back to Chicago. That’s where she grew up.” She used to tell him stories about Chicago, about the lake in the summer and the wind in the winter. Roy didn’t like to hear them, so she only told them when he wasn’t around.
When Roy finally came to visit Griffin in the hospital, he had told Griffin that his mom had left. She had fought with Roy about the drugs, said she had had enough, and she had left. Roy was expressionless when he broke the news.
It wasn’t until he got home that Griffin could see that his dad really had been experiencing emotions. First anger (there was a great deal of broken furniture and dishes) and then despair (he hadn’t cleaned anything up).
Griffin had thrown away the shards, straightened up what was left, and gotten on without speaking about it. Just as he had with his burns. Just as he had when his mother never wrote or called. He had Googled her a few times at school, but the few Janie Sawyers he found were never the right age.
Cheyenne was quiet for a long time. Then she said in a low voice, “Do you think your dad will really let me go?”
“He says he will.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
The truth was that with so much money at stake, Griffin wasn’t sure how far he could trust what Roy said. If his dad did let Cheyenne go, if he left the actual doing of it to TJ and Jimbo, Griffin thought now that they might just take her into the woods instead and kill her. Rape her and kill her.
Griffin realized the only one he trusted to let Cheyenne go was himself. He had to do it, even if it meant risking everything. Meant he ended up in prison, along with Roy and TJ and Jimbo. The alternative was Cheyenne being murdered. He couldn’t tell her, in case she somehow let it slip to the others. But when everyone was out getting the drop, he would take Cheyenne and go. When there was no chance that one of them would show up at the house and try to stop them. He would put Cheyenne in the truck and drive like hell until he could get someplace with a phone, someplace with nice bright lighting and lots of people. Where even if they caught up with him, TJ and Jimbo might think twice about killing them. And then he would turn her loose and go back and meet his dad and they would go to Mexico or wherever. And he would hope that Cheyenne would keep her promise and not tell the police their names. And hope that the police didn’t show up before he could get the hell out of there. Because if they did, they might decide he was one of the bad guys and kill him.
Was he one of the bad guys?
Griffin didn’t know anymore.
TIME TO ACT
For the thousandth time, Cheyenne felt the face of her watch, making the tiniest of motions so she wouldn’t wake Griffin.
But now the time had finally come. It was two in the morning, the time she had decided to act. The afternoon and evening had dragged by. The three men had stayed in another part of the house, plotting, she presumed, their voices too low for her to hear. Griffin had mostly stayed with her, leaving only to get them something to eat. Cheyenne had catnapped or pretended to. For one thing, she needed to be wide awake when the time came. And the more she slept, the more they would think she was sick and helpless, even though she thought she could feel the antibiotics kicking in. Sleeping, or pretending to, kept her from talking to Griffin. Kept her from thinking that maybe she wouldn’t do what she knew she had to.
Miles from here, her father would soon be following instructions to drop off a black duffel bag stuffed tight with money. One that held no tracking devices or dye packs or anything else. Or they would kill her. And her father was to come alone, with no one following him in another car or in the air or even with a computer. Or they would kill her.
Cheyenne knew all this because Roy had made her stand by while he repeated the details. Then he had pressed the phone into her hand long enough for her to choke out “Daddy, please help me!” before he snatched it back and pressed the off button.
But it didn’t really matter if her father did or did not follow the rules. It didn’t matter at all. TJ had told Cheyenne as much when he attacked her. He had climbed on the bed and pinned her wrists against the wall and whispered in her ear.
“Are you a virgin, Cheyenne? Are you? Because maybe it’s time for you to become a real woman. Maybe you should let TJ give you a little loving before it’s too late.”
She had been too frightened to even make a sound. All she had done was shake her head violently. And one of her shakes had connected with TJ’s nose.
He had grunted in pain and then his voice became even more oozing and vicious. “Where you’re going, you won’t be getting any loving. They never talk about getting it on in heaven, do they, baby? Let TJ give you a sweet memory to take to your grave.”
Somehow, Cheyenne had mustered enough saliva in her mouth to spit at him. When he muttered a curse, she knew it had met its target. And then Griffin had stormed in and saved her.
But saving her from a would-be rapist was one thing. Stepping in when Roy told TJ or Jimbo to take her for a ride was another. Would he defy these men – including his father – to save her? When saving her would make it much more likely that he would get caught? Wouldn’t it simply be easier for Griffin to pretend to himself that they really were going to let her go?
Sure, these men might get caught and go to jail for murder, but they might not. And they were all about short-term thinking. Take TJ. He had wanted to bring her down to his level, so he had groped and pawed at her, not even worrying about Griffin being in the next room.
Cheyenne wished she had been able to reach her pocket before TJ had pinned her to the wall, wished she had used the broken piece of glass on him. She would have liked to have cut his throat. And she could have done it, too.
What she didn’t know was whether she could do what needed to be done now.
The men had left several hours earlier, getting into position to make sure that her dad was following the rules. If they were going to come back to the house for something forgotten, they would have done it by now. It was time to act.
Slipping her hand into her pocket, Cheyenne pulled out the piece of glass. Slowly, slowly, she crawled off the end of the bed. Griffin snorted and shifted, but then his breathing resumed a regular rhythm. She slid her feet forward until the cord that bound her ankle was taut as a wire. Bending down, she sawed through it in a few strokes. Her lungs ached, but she was too afraid to breathe except for the tiniest sips. Too afraid she might cough. The slightest sound might give her away.
When the cord parted, it was like taking a step into empty air. There was no turning back. If Griffin woke up, he would have to try to stop her.
Gripping the piece of glass tighter, Cheyenne held her breath and listened. But he was still deeply asleep, exhaling audibly every few seconds.
She tiptoed across the floor, testing each step. Putting her hand out for the knob, she found the door was not quite closed. It was a tiny thing, but still it seemed like a good sign.
She trailed her fingers down the wall of the hall until she reached the dining room. P
inkies leading the way, she ran her hands lightly over the table and what seemed to be a sideboard, but she found nothing more than dirty dishes.
In the living room, on a rough wooden table, Cheyenne found what she was looking for. Her fingers traced the shape of it and her mind supplied the picture. A big silver wrench. Heavy. She put the piece of glass in her pocket and then picked up the wrench and thwacked the end into her palm. If she hit Griffin hard enough, she could knock him unconscious.
If she hit Griffin hard enough.
And if she didn’t? Then he might wake up. Might chase her down. Might kill her.
Cheyenne could feel her heart rate speeding up, her breath quickening, all that fight-or-flight response they had learned in biology. She turned and walked back down the hall.
Outside the doorway, she stopped and listened. What if Griffin was awake and watching? What if she rushed him and he wrested the wrench from her hand and whacked her with it?
Nothing but the sound of his deep, even breathing.
She drew one last ragged breath and tiptoed toward him. Gripping the wrench in both hands, she raised it high overhead. Then, like a man splitting a log with an ax, Cheyenne swung the wrench in its swift and terrible descent.
BEFORE THEY COME BACK
Tears were still running down Cheyenne’s face as she closed the bedroom door behind her.
Oh, God.
Oh, God.
She was pretty sure that she had just killed a man. A kid, really. Someone her own age. And the only person in this house who had treated her with kindness.
Cheyenne had meant to knock Griffin unconscious, but after she had hit him once, he had started up, yelling.
Her heart had flopped in her chest like a fish. Without thinking, she had struck him again. Much harder. He fell back on the bed. And after that, he hadn’t moved. At all. She had dropped the wrench – wet now with his blood – on the floor.
Forcing her feet to move, she staggered down the hall. If she didn’t hurry, the men would come back and find her. And she knew they would kill her. Especially now. After what she had done.
Oh, God.
How long did she have? How long until they came back? Cheyenne tried to distract herself by figuring it out. The drop had been planned for three in the morning. And they had wanted to make sure the money wasn’t being traced or monitored in any way before they picked it up. Then they would drive back here and split it up. Now it was 2:12.
Cheyenne figured she didn’t have long – an hour, maybe two, no more. She had been around these men long enough to know that they would grow impatient, that their greed would trump any common sense. They wouldn’t be able to watch that lonely bag of money for long before they decided they had to claim it. Before they came back here, she had to get as much distance as she could between herself and them.
She wished she had Phantom. She thought of Duke. Barking, lunging, big. Clearly bought to scare people. Cheyenne felt a flash of unexpected sympathy. You couldn’t always tell what something was by looking at the outside.
In order to move with any speed, she would need something to tell her about obstacles. Her cane was a pile of melted rods inside the woodstove. What could she use as an emergency cane? While she had been lying awake, waiting for time to drag itself forward, Cheyenne had created a useless catalog of things they surely didn’t have – pool cues, ski poles, walking sticks, golf umbrellas. Now she forced herself to be practical. She would have to find a long branch, break it off, and strip it of twigs.
And then Cheyenne realized what this place did have. In bucket loads. Car antennae.
She opened the front door and walked down the three steps. Earlier, her brain had automatically counted the stairs, just as it had the number of steps from the car to the house. The air was so cold it felt like it was pulling her lungs inside out. Her breath shook every time she exhaled, but she still wouldn’t let herself think about what she had just done.
Remembering that the yard had been littered with junk, she took short steps, feeling with each foot before committing her full weight. Her right arm was folded across her belly, like a bumper, and she swung her left arm like a feeler. Cheyenne was alert to every sound, every smell, every bit of information. Her orientation and mobility instructors had tried to help her learn to use blindsight – a sense some blind people had of nearby objects and even their rough dimensions. But usually she relied on a cane or a dog to give her much more accurate feedback.
After a minute or two, Cheyenne hit the jackpot. Her fingers grazed a fender. She felt along the edge of the car roof until she found the antenna. Then she snapped it off.
At the sound, barking exploded from the barn. The chain rattled along the ground as Duke burst out and ran toward her.
Cheyenne threw her left arm over her throat and braced herself. But the impact never came. About fifteen feet from her, the barking suddenly ended abruptly with a choking sound. The dog must have reached the end of his chain. As soon as he got back on his feet, he started barking again. The noise made her wince. But there was no answering human sound. It was just the two of them, in the dark.
Cheyenne took a deep breath. Let it out. Coughed for a few seconds, then got it under control. She had to forget about everything. Ignore the dog. Not think about Griffin. Not wonder if he was dead. She had to focus on getting out of here before the men came back.
Waving the antenna in front of her, she took a few experimental steps. It wasn’t nearly long enough, and it was too flexible. Still, it was a lot better than nothing. Once she reached the woods, she could replace it with a long stick.
She started off. Behind her, Duke whined, low in his throat. She realized he had stopped barking. She could hear his breathing. The sound reminded her so much of Phantom.
Cheyenne turned. Not knowing if there was a moon out or how well the dog could see in the dark, she was careful to keep her face turned to the side, so he wouldn’t think she was challenging him with a stare. She kept still, with her arms at her sides.
“Good dog,” she said. She stretched each word out and kept her voice soft. “Did I scare you? I didn’t mean to.”
Duke whined again.
Cheyenne kept her words flowing, each one slow and soothing. “Do you ever get tired of being on that big chain? Do you ever just want to get out of here? To be free?” Her voice had been trembling, but now it strengthened. It was a crazy idea, but then so was walking through the woods whacking the underbrush with a car antenna. “Do you want to just go? Do you, Duke?”
Very slowly, she reached into her coat pocket. Her fingers closed on a piece of kibble. With an underhand toss, she threw it in his direction.
A yip let her know that she had spooked him. How many times had someone shied a stone at Duke? But he must have figured out it wasn’t a stone, because next he made a curious little whuff. The chain rattled, and she heard him whine as he strained forward. The kibble must be out of reach.
She threw another piece. Another whine. On the third toss, a snuffle, followed by a gobble, told her that he had managed to retrieve it.
He caught the next piece of kibble in midair. She heard the big jaws snap closed. Another low whine. Begging.
Cheyenne wondered if Duke had ever begged before in his life. Or if anyone would have listened if he had.
With each bit of kibble she took a step closer. Finally she was close enough that she could feel his warmth. Making a fist of her hand, she held it out, still not certain that he wouldn’t snap it off in a single bite. Instead he sniffed. She felt the dampness of his cold nose, and then, incredibly, a warm wet tongue. So Duke was a dog after all, despite what everyone else thought.
Moving with infinite slowness, Cheyenne placed the palm of her hand on his head. Duke trembled, but did not otherwise move or make a sound. She scratched behind one ear. When she moved her hand to his other ear, he pressed against her fingers, urging her to scratch right there, just as Phantom would have. She felt herself calming down, and she sensed that D
uke was, too.
Tracing their way down his neck, her fingers found the place where the heavy chain clipped onto the metal choke collar with a simple toggle. Could she walk him on the chain? She took a few steps away from Duke, letting the links play through her fingers. No. The chain was far too long and heavy.
Then Cheyenne thought of her belt. She walked back to Duke and began to scratch his head again. Even though every bit of her screamed that she had to get out of here as soon as she could, she knew she couldn’t hurry without risking spooking him. With her free hand, she undid her belt buckle. Awkwardly, she rolled it up one-handed, slowly slipping it loop by loop from her jeans.
She didn’t want Duke to see the belt loose, in case he felt threatened. Who knew if Duke had ever been whipped?
Cheyenne amended the thought. She knew.
All the while, she kept up a steady stroking with her other hand, tracing the shape of his head. Duke, with his short, flat fur, felt nothing like Phantom, yet it was as if Phantom was with her now.
When she had the belt free, her fingers tucked the end of it underneath Duke’s collar. He whined, quivering under her touch, but otherwise didn’t move. Threading the belt through the metal loop, Cheyenne pulled it until it became a makeshift leash. As if she were holding Phantom, she found herself taking her normal stance, her left leg ahead of her right, with the dog’s head next to her left thigh. Then she held her breath as she unclipped the chain.
“Duke, forward,” she said. “Come on, let’s get out of here!”
The dog whined deep in his chest but didn’t move.
“Duke, forward!” she said again. “Hop up!” Phantom would have known that meant she wanted to go fast, but what did Duke know? Then she felt him gather himself.
And they were off.