Brightest As We Fall

by Cleo Peitsche

  They’re locked.

  Fucking great. Of course Jason didn’t think of that. For him, locks don’t exist.

  A dark sedan is approaching. It’s still far away, but I crouch and wait for it to pass.

  When the road is empty again, I pick up a rock and am about to smash in a window when I decide to check for a spare key.

  I feel around in the wheel wells and, to my great pleasure, strike gold.

  Actually, I strike rust.

  I unlock the car—it smells inexplicably of popcorn—and load up our bags. Assuming Jason ever comes back, we’ll have to talk about paring everything down to two bags.

  Since I have the key, I try it in the ignition. The engine whines but doesn’t start; people don’t abandon working cars.

  Another vehicle is approaching. It’s small and looks nothing like a cop cruiser.

  Stepping into the road, I wave my arms.

  The car passes me, but then stops and reverses. Inside are a couple of kids. And I do mean kids; the ink on their licenses probably isn’t dry. If they even have licenses. They could be fifteen. Though for all I know, that’s the driving age in Nevada.

  “Hi,” I say. “Our car broke down. My fiancé went to get help. Do you think you can give me a ride?”

  The driver nods. “If you wanna cover gas.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t expected that. If I say no, will they just leave me here? Slowly, I nod. “As long as I can put it on a credit card.” I’d rather they think I’m broke as hell and have no cash at all.

  I grab our backpacks. Everything else can be replaced, I guess. Then, on second thought, I retrieve the suitcases. Why leave any clues behind?

  The driver screeches away from the abandoned car. I keep my eyes glued to the road ahead for Jason, for even a hint of where he might have gone.

  After the curve, the road is straight for a while.

  My heart jumps into my mouth.

  Jason is jogging toward us, his head bowed and his baseball hat pulled low. Did he have a baseball hat earlier? Obviously, he must have.

  “That’s my boyfriend,” I blurt out, and then I’m horrified because didn’t I call him my fiancé earlier? I’m a mess.

  The driver stops near Jason, who squints at the car before running over. When Jason gets into the back seat, the car feels tiny because he’s so large.

  “Thanks,” he says. “Appreciate it.”

  “She said you’ll fill up our tank,” the driver says. He twists to look at Jason for confirmation.

  “Uh, yeah. We can do that.”

  “All right.”

  I grab Jason’s hand. But I’m not looking at him. Instead, I’m staring out the window.

  The bus. Where the hell is it? The big rocks aren’t that big. For the first time, I notice an unassuming building in the distance. The gas station… and now I can see the pumps out front. It looks abandoned, actually.

  But there’s definitely no bus.

  Jason squeezes my hand, letting me know everything’s all right.

  The little car starts moving again, but Jason leans forward and says, “If you guys turn around and take us back to Vegas, I’ll give you ten thousand. Cash.”

  The driver’s eyes jerk to the rear-view mirror. They’re wide, incredulous.

  Mine probably are, too.

  But Jason sized these kids up just right because when he tosses a stack of crisp bills into the front seat, the car turns around so fast, I feel like I’m in a centrifuge.

  How did he know they could be so easily bribed, I wonder. What did he know about me?

  Couldn’t have been anything too bad, I reassure myself.

  Jason smiles at me. He looks calm for the first time since we took over the bus. I smile back.

  It’s not long before the guy in the passenger seat says, “Maybe you need a car, too.” His voice is squeaky and breathless, like he stepped out of a cartoon.

  “That could be,” Jason says. “We need to get to California.”

  “I’ve got a car you won’t believe,” Squeaky says. “Ford Focus, vintage 2009. Eighty thousand gentle miles. Handled with kid gloves. I’m willing to part with her for a mere ten grand.

  “What color?” Jason asks.

  “Black. Like the beautiful midnight sky.”

  I give Jason a look and wonder why he cares about the color.

  “What do you think, sweetie?” he asks me.

  I’m not sure what I’m supposed to answer, and I kinda feel like I’ve been dropped into a play where everyone knows the lines except for me. Ten grand sounds like a lot for such an old car, but I’m hardly an expert.

  “Um, black is a nice color,” I say.

  “You have excellent taste,” Squeaky says, more cartoonish than ever with excitement. “I’m Dave, and this is Billy.”

  “She’s Jane, and I’m John,” Jason says, not even trying to be convincing. “How long have you had this car?”

  Billy shakes his head. “It’s legit. Our cousin lost his license for DUI. By the time he gets it back, everyone will have hover cars.”

  “I didn’t mention the best part,” Squeaky Dave says. “You’ll get to see St. George.”

  “Oh?” I ask. “Where’s that?”

  “Utah,” Billy says hesitantly.

  “You could have led with that,” Jason grumbles. “Being that California is the opposite direction.”

  “I see your dilemma,” Squeaky Dave says, speaking faster than ever. “St. George isn’t far from the Nevada border. Don’t worry about that! For cash customers, I’ll throw in a GoPro.”

  “How about two good bottles of wine?” I ask. I’m going to need a few drinks tonight, but I get carded all the time, and I don’t want a liquor store clerk scrutinizing my face.

  “You drive a hard bargain, Miss Jane,” Squeaky Dave says with a grin.

  That’s how Jason and I find our next car.

  In addition to the bottles of wine, it also comes with cigarette burns in the upholstery, old food wrappers, and one suspicious stain in the trunk that Squeaky Dave says is “mild water damage.”

  I watch as our unexpected saviors turn into specks in the side mirror. Bill and Squeaky Dave offered to put us up for a couple of days, but no one seemed surprised when Jason turned them down.

  “God, that was close,” I say.

  “Agreed.”

  I’m bursting with questions. “What did you do with the bus?”

  “Gave it to a prince. Prince Bann O’Malley.”

  “What?”

  Jason grins. “My plan was to drive to the gas station and…” He doesn’t need to fill in the rest. Something illegal, obviously. “But when I got there, I found the station closed, abandoned. Probably has been for years. I walked around the back, hoping to find a dirt bike or something, anything. Instead, I found Prince Bann O’Malley. The gas station is a sovereign nation.”

  Trying to imagine this is making my head spin.

  “His throne is a repurposed lawn chair with pastel streamers wrapped around the metal parts. Anyway, I realized he could drive the bus away. We made a deal.”

  I feel sick, imagining what happened to that guy when the authorities caught him.

  “He must have gotten arrested,” I say, chewing my lower lip.

  Jason shrugs. “I gave him a stack of money. His royal highness had the presence of mind to hide it in the gas station, so he understood he might be caught and searched. He was willing to take the risk.”

  I try to imagine how much money someone would need to pay me to drive a stolen bus with the intention of luring the police away. A lot more than five thousand, that’s for sure.

  “Is it weird if I think we’re going through the money too fast?”

  “We have a million in the backpack.”

  “And how long will it last? Bribing teenagers, paying too much for a car. Plus all the hotels and restaurants, unless we start sleeping in the bushes.”

  Jason laughs. “Don’t forget the fifteen bucks for the bus ti
ckets.”

  Clearly he’s not worried, but I am. “If we have to bribe everyone we meet for the rest of our lives, we’re screwed.”

  “That’s not gonna happen. Once we’re away from here, it’s gonna be smooth sailing, just like a beautiful woman told me this morning.”

  Jason switches on the radio, and an angry rock song blasts from the speakers. He flips around until he finds the news.

  We listen in silence, waiting for our names to be mentioned. And, of course, they are. The latest update is that we’re loose in the desert, and drivers should beware of hitchhikers.

  I feel bad for anyone out today who legitimately needs help.

  “Do you think Bill and Dave know who we are?” I ask.

  Jason shrugs. “Probably not, but they’ll likely try to figure it out now. I was thinking we should grab a cabin somewhere and lie low. In Nevada, maybe.”

  I roll onto my left hip and lean my face against the headrest. It smells faintly of cigarette smoke and cheap pine air freshener. “What happened to getting as far away as we can?”

  “I don’t trust those yahoos not to sell us out,” Jason says, and I laugh. “What’s so funny?” he wants to know.

  “My high school history teacher always called us ‘yahoos.’ I’ve never heard anyone else say it.”

  “Mr. O’Neal.”

  I slap the seat. “You had Mr. O’Neal?”

  “Three times. He’s a stickler for attendance.”

  “Ohmigosh.” I cover my mouth with my hands. “You didn’t graduate high school, did you? My husband is a dropout! I can’t believe it.”

  He’s grinning as he shakes his head, and all I can think is that he’s the most perfect man I’ve ever seen in my life, even including TV stars and musicians.

  “I graduated. It just took me a couple of extra years.”

  “Why? Didn’t you want to get out?”

  Jason’s grin fades. “I’m ashamed to say that there were reasons for me to want to stick around high school.”

  My smile fades, too. “Girls, huh?”

  “Girls. Boys. Anyone who could pay for my little baggies of joy. You know I’ve done things I’m not proud of, DeeAnn.”

  “Well…” I try to think of a positive spin to put on it. “It’s not like you were selling to middle school kids.”

  His mouth firms into a line. He doesn’t look at me.

  “It’s behind you,” I say.

  “It’s far behind me.”

  Chapter 53

  Jason shook his head.

  Why the hell had he told DeeAnn that? Some things were better left unshared.

  Her cheeks were touched with pink. That usually made him think about the other things that caused her to blush, but not this time.

  “I’m glad you told me,” DeeAnn said. “I don’t want there to be secrets between us.”

  That was easy for her to say. She hadn’t done anything shameful.

  “The reason I want to lie low instead of running is because people are consistent,” Jason said.

  DeeAnn looked at him. “Consistent?”

  “Yeah. You saw how easy it was to buy those kids. They caught a whiff of money, and they were falling all over themselves to get more of it. They might not say anything to anyone. But there’s a reward for information leading to my capture.”

  “How did you know you could pay them to turn around?”

  “They stopped to pick up hitchhikers. I figured they didn’t have anywhere they needed to be in a hurry. Plus, they asked a hot woman for gas money.”

  “It was a gamble?” She sounded surprised.

  “Can’t read minds.”

  “I would have been too nervous to even try,” she said.

  “And if you were on your own, you would have been right. I’m bigger than the two of them put together. They weren’t going to try to rob me.”

  “All right,” DeeAnn said. “So, if you were me, what would you have done?”

  He grinned. “A guy with my face has to pay. Always. But if I were you, I’d have said I was broke but promised to give them my last ten dollars to take me as far from Vegas as possible.” He turned off the radio. “I’m thinking if we hole up for a month, that’s more than long enough.”

  “A month.” She sounded like she was mulling it over.

  “It’ll give us time to repaint the car and make a few other preparations. The more decisions we make under the gun, the bigger the chance that we fuck up.”

  “I could drive while you sleep in the trunk.” DeeAnn blinked at him, her eyes innocently wide. “We’ll put a pillow back there for you. Maybe a water bottle. When the bottle’s empty, you can pee in it.”

  “Glad you’re in a good mood.”

  “Are you kidding? A few hours ago, I thought it was over. A month in a cabin sounds like heaven. Remote, private, and cheaper than a hotel. But how will we find one?”

  “I’m still working on that part.”

  When they stopped at dusk to refuel, DeeAnn volunteered to raid the attached convenience store for snacks.

  Jason didn’t like that, but their route, avoiding highways, meant it would be another hour before they reached a drive-through.

  The area seemed quiet enough. The only action came from the moths attacking the dim lights that hung over the gas station’s entrance. Beyond the store lay a rocky field.

  “Go ahead,” he told her.

  “I was planning to anyway,” DeeAnn said.

  Jason reached up and drew a vertical line in the air. “One.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Keeping track of how many punishments you’ve earned.”

  After he’d finished pumping, he leaned against the car and watched DeeAnn through the glass.

  She’d loaded up on bags of chips, a box of white powdered donuts, and other junk food, and now she was standing in front of the refrigerated section, staring at rows upon rows of drink options.

  An ache spread through Jason as he remembered how she’d sworn off junk food soon after their escape from Rhodell Heights. She deserved a better life.

  So long as they were on the run, that was nothing but an impossible dream.

  Her comment about having to bribe everyone forever had struck a chord. If Jason didn’t make the right decision now, they would never be able to get free.

  DeeAnn danced with the glass door to a refrigerated case, pulled out a couple of plastic bottles, and gingerly carried her overflowing armful of bounty to the cashier. Bottles and bags spilled all over the counter.

  The clerk, a moon-faced man in his early twenties, didn’t react.

  “Good,” Jason muttered. If the man barely looked at her, then he wouldn’t remember her later.

  Jason glanced around. No one in sight. Might as well meet her at the door and help her with the bags.

  He reached into the front seat and grabbed the backpack of cash and was about to head for the convenience store when a pickup roared up the road.

  It was swerving slightly but was clearly heading for the gas station.

  Jason folded himself into the little car and started up the engine. He planned to pull up to the store’s entrance to collect DeeAnn.

  But the pickup charged toward him, like the driver wanted to drag race. Jason braked.

  So did the pickup. Then it reversed jerkily.

  Jason didn’t like any of this. His instinct was to solve this problem, whatever it was, quickly. His head, however, counseled caution.

  Because DeeAnn was nearby, Jason decided to be careful. He assumed he was dealing with a vigilante opportunist hoping to win the reward for Jason’s capture.

  Inside the store, DeeAnn was shoving her purchases into bags as the cashier slowly, so very slowly, rang her up. Jason was glad for the man’s sluggishness because he didn’t want her coming out, not right now.

  He flashed his lights, indicating that the pickup should pass.

  It didn’t.

  Instead, a big man climbed out of the passenger’s
side. He walked in a semicircle, focusing on Jason.

  Good, Jason thought. So long as they ignored DeeAnn, this wasn’t anything Jason couldn’t handle without breaking a sweat.

  He leaned forward and groped for the flashlight under the seat… Except this wasn’t his car, and there wasn’t a handy flashlight.

  Jason palmed his gun, the familiar heft warm in his hand.

  He switched off the dome lights, then eased the door open and slid out. Slowly. Non-confrontationally.

  Keeping the vehicle between himself and the stranger, Jason said, “You might want to rethink your intentions, friend.”

  The man was large. Jason had already noted that. He had a few inches on Jason, and a hundred pounds. It was fat, not muscle, but the man moved with the certainty of someone carrying a weapon.

  And there was someone else still inside the pickup. If Jason moved his head even two inches, he would lose sight of either the pickup or DeeAnn inside the store.

  Jason’s heartbeat remained steady. He pitched his voice low. “That’s close enough.”

  “Your bumper sticker,” the man said. “You crazies are what’s wrong with the world, and we don’t want you here.”

  Jason hadn’t even noticed a bumper sticker. He wondered what it was. Political? Religious?

  “It’s not my car,” Jason said, “but I’m responsible for it, so whatever you’re planning to do, reconsider.”

  The man was edging closer. “Leave. So long as you get the fuck outta town, we’ll pretend this never happened.”

  “I’m happy to do that as soon as my wife finishes inside.”

  “All right.” The man nodded, satisfied that he had the biggest dick in Nevada. “Get back into your car.”

  And leave DeeAnn to walk past this guy on her own?

  “Not gonna happen.” Jason suspected he’d have to involve the gun, but he didn’t want to escalate the situation unnecessarily. Couldn’t afford to.

  “I already gave you a second chance,” the man said. “That’s my good deed for the day. Get in your fucking toy car and wait for your wife off to the side. You’re blocking my truck.”

  “There’s plenty of room for you to pass,” Jason said.