by Leddy Harper
She nodded without taking her eyes off the invisible filth.
“Make sure you latch the top and use the chain lock, too. I’ll knock when I come back.” I headed to the door and waited for Maggie to snap out of the trance and follow behind me. I refused to leave until I was confident she was safe inside without me. Honestly, I was relieved they only had one room available. Otherwise, I never would’ve gotten any sleep. This area reminded me so much of home—and a girl her age should never be alone in a place like that.
As soon as I heard all the locks engage, I hopped in my car, making a mental note to grab another hoodie while I was there. And while I was at it, I also needed a package of boxers and a couple of extra shirts. I hadn’t planned to leave town so quickly, so I had nothing on me other than the clothes I wore and the money in my wallet.
And when I returned, I did so with far more bags than I’d intended—one sack included toothbrushes and body spray. If we ended up staying at other places like this one, we’d need something to rid ourselves of the stench.
I knocked twice before Maggie peeked through the curtain. Good girl. She may have ignored everything she was ever taught about safety when it came to me—hiding inside a gas-station bathroom together, getting into my car on the side of the road, sharing a room with a stranger—but at least she didn’t seem to be as reckless with the motel locks.
She opened the door and grabbed a couple of bags from my hand to help me in. She laughed when she set them on the tiny table next to the TV. “You said you were only going for blankets and pillows.”
“Yeah, but I remembered a few more things. I didn’t exactly wanna shower and then put on dirty clothes. Jeans are one thing, but everyone needs clean shirts.” As soon as the words left my tongue, I noticed her damp hair streaming down the front of my hoodie, and then my gaze fell to the pair of tight, ripped jeans she’d had on prior to me leaving for the store. “Why didn’t you change? Those jeans can’t possibly be comfortable to sleep in.”
She glanced down her body to her feet adorned with socks and shrugged.
I pointed to the backpack sitting next to the bed. “You didn’t pack anything to sleep in?”
“No…I guess I forgot.”
I dug through the bags and found the boxers I’d added to the cart, as well as the pair of sweatpants. “I was gonna wear these to bed”—I held up the pants—“but you can use them if you’d like. We can swing by on our way out in the morning and grab you something in case we have to stop again overnight. The only problem is, that means I’ll be in my boxers. If that makes you uncomfortable, you’re more than welcome to wear them and I’ll take the sweats.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“No…you know what? I’ll just sleep in my jeans. You should at least get some decent sleep. You have enough discomfort to worry about between the cut and your swollen lip.” I tossed the sweatpants to her and continued to go through the shopping bags.
“You wear these. I can take a pair of boxers.” She exchanged them for the other.
Honestly, I would’ve rather her be warm, yet at this point, as long as she wasn’t sleeping in jeans that looked painted on, I couldn’t argue.
“Why’d you get cupcakes?” she asked and held up the package of treats.
“It’s your birthday, right? At least, that’s what your license said. Well…I guess technically, it’s past midnight, but we haven’t gone to bed, so it still counts.”
Her eyes lit up like a cloudless summer sky. “These are for my birthday?”
“Yeah. Except, I totally forgot candles. And a lighter.”
She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, I couldn’t miss the sheen of tears that made the color brighter. “Thank you. That was really sweet.”
And just like that, another side of her came out. The humble side.
If I could, I’d pull it out of her every chance I got, because it was the one that made her the most human. In that moment, she wasn’t too young. She wasn’t shy or quiet, or defensive. There was no embarrassment shutting her down, either.
She was just herself.
She was just Maggie Abrams.
And I wanted to know everything about her.
Maggie
I wasn’t sure how long I’d slept or what time it was. Actually, I had no idea what time I’d even fallen asleep. Shortly after taking off last night, I received a string of alarming texts, so I’d turned my phone off and was too scared to look at it again. All I could focus on was that my eyes felt swollen and scratchy—like they were filled with sand—as I blinked them open.
Cheap motels and prisons more than likely used the same mattress manufacturers. When I rolled over to sit up, I groaned at the pain and stiffness throughout my body. I was convinced my spine would never be the same, and I assumed my hip had been dislocated from lying on my side. I wasn’t sure how it was possible, but I actually felt worse after getting sleep. Dealing with exhaustion was definitely better than dealing with a broken body.
I covered my face and focused on the noises in the room to see if Talon was awake—or if he’d taken off and left me in some deserted town in the middle of nowhere. Knowing I more than likely looked like crap, I hoped the silence meant he was still asleep; that way, I’d have time to freshen up. The last thing I needed was to scare him off…in the event he hadn’t already run away. And as soon as I contemplated the possibility of him leaving while I slept, I remembered the backpack.
I dropped my hands and whipped my head around to check the bed next to me. It wasn’t empty…nor was he asleep. He sat against the outdated headboard with his legs bent, his arms propped on his knees and his focus set on me. I was given enough time to calm my racing heart before I noticed the hard line of his mouth, the tic in his jaw, the creases between his eyebrows, and the intensity in which he regarded me.
Something was wrong.
“Did you not get any sleep?” Palpable hesitation filled my voice, and I practically held my breath waiting for him to answer. My pulse galloped, and I suppressed the sudden urge to race to the door and escape this stale room. The truth was, I didn’t know this man, knew absolutely nothing about him. There was a real chance that he could be a sadistic monster.
“No, actually. I haven’t been to sleep at all.” Not once did he look away, and when he spoke, his masculine rumble sounded even deeper than normal, making his words almost menacing. They were harsh and resembled a growling beast.
“Oh, why not? You said last night that you needed some rest in order to keep driving. Was the mattress too hard? Oh my God, I wasn’t snoring, was I?” Based on his demeanor, I assumed it wasn’t that simple, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to lighten the mood and attempt to earn a smile from him.
Which didn’t work.
As if his eyes could bore holes into my head, he continued to glare at me for a few more seconds before answering. “I offered to get you out of town because I was under the impression you’d been attacked or abused. I never believed your story of running into a door; I assumed you got smacked around by a boyfriend or a parent. I thought I was getting you away from a bad situation, and now I’m wondering if I did the right thing.”
“I wasn’t lying.” I sighed, shifted on the bed, and faced him. My shoulders sagged as I settled in to give him as much of what had taken place as I could. “I opened a door a little bit to sneak out, and apparently, I didn’t give myself enough room. While trying to fit my body between the opening, my face caught the corner.”
“I want to believe you, Maggie. I really do. Your story makes sense and it’s something that could totally happen—not to mention, you don’t look like you’re lying about it. The only problem with it is…it doesn’t explain why you’re carrying around a bunch of cash.”
My heart stopped. Just quit beating and pumping blood to my brain. The room began to tilt, and my stomach twisted so tightly I could’ve thrown up all over the floor if I’d had anything more than a small cupcake in the last twen
ty-four hours or so.
“You…you went through my bag?”
“Don’t put this on me, Maggie. Don’t turn it around to make me look like the bad guy. I’m not. I’m the guy who gave you a ride, no questions asked. You’re the one walking around with so much cash I can’t help but think you’ve robbed a bank. And I refuse to be pulled into whatever mess you’ve created.”
“I didn’t rob a bank. It’s nothing like that.”
“Then tell me…what’s it like?”
I dropped my head and covered my face, only to be reminded of the cut along my brow bone the moment my finger grazed the edges of the bruise. I just needed a minute before explaining something that didn’t even make sense to me. He was right—he’d offered to get me out of town without asking for anything in return. I deserved the ache that spread along the side of my battered face, and he deserved an answer.
Keeping my eyes on my lap made it easier to speak, so without lifting my head, I began. “I was hanging out with this guy I’ve been seeing. It was my birthday, and since my friend had bailed on me earlier, I agreed to go with him when he asked me if I wanted to get some ice cream, but he said he needed to stop by someone’s house first.”
I lifted my gaze and met his eyes, unable to look away.
Taking a deep breath, I readied myself to continue with the vaguest explanation of my night. “We arrived at this house. He handed me the backpack and asked me to hold it while he talked to his friend in the other room. He left me on the couch with some guy I’ve never seen before. He creeped me out, saying things that didn’t sit right with me, and then he tried to touch me. It wasn’t like that…just a hand on my thigh or running his finger down my arm. I didn’t like it, except I wasn’t sure how to make him stop. So I ignored it and sat there, waiting for my boyfriend to return to the living room.”
Talon grimaced, yet he never looked away.
“Their voices started getting louder, until the guy next to me on the couch got up and went in the kitchen to check it out. I followed, but I stayed behind the wall to keep them from seeing me or catching me eavesdropping. What I heard freaked me out, so I left.”
“What did you hear?”
“Most of it didn’t make sense. What I did understand scared me. As I stood there, listening to them argue, I realized the guy I was seeing sold drugs—or used them, whatever. He’d seemed a little off when he picked me up, but it’s not like we’d been together long enough for me to tell if it was normal or not. I just assumed he was happy.”
“So you just left?”
I nodded and then cleared my throat to finish explaining. “I wasn’t about to wait around for that one creepy guy to find me, or for the others to return from the kitchen, so I took the opportunity and snuck out the front door. That’s when I ran into the corner of it.”
“And you took the money?”
“I didn’t know what was in the bag at the time. And when I left, looking inside wasn’t the first thing on my mind. The fact that I even still held onto it barely registered—all I wanted to do was get out of there.”
“Why didn’t you take his car? I mean, why walk if he drove you there?”
“The doors were locked and he had the keys.”
His tongue ran along his plump bottom lip. “When did you find out what was in the bag?”
I shrugged, and then I decided he deserved a real answer. “At some point, after walking for however long, I stopped to get my phone. I figured I could use the GPS to find out where I was. That’s when I noticed the cash. There was no way in hell I could return it, which meant I had a choice to either leave it where I was or take it with me. And by then, I was already on the run. I needed the money if I had any chance of making it very far.”
“And what…? You don’t have family to go to?”
My heart sank, stealing the chance of a verbal reply, so I simply shook my head.
“Why not go to the cops?” His question was sincere, honest, even if his interrogating tone sounded more like a lecture than curiosity.
I almost laughed, despite the fact that he wouldn’t understand the irony. “How long do you think I’d last if I turned him in? Haven’t you ever seen Law & Order?”
He finally broke our eye contact by glancing around the room, at anything other than me. “So your only plan is to get out of Dodge? No idea what to do when you get there?”
“My grandfather lives in Florida. He’s older, and I’m not sure how much time he has left. I figured I could go see him and start a new life for myself.” Honestly, it was the only place I could go. And even though there was a chance it would merely be a temporary stay, I didn’t have any other option.
He stared across the room, fixated on the wall while barely blinking, as if held captive by his thoughts, and it made me wonder how much of my story he believed.
He snapped out of his trance and returned his attention to me. “Well, they’ve more than likely figured out by now that you’re not coming back with the money. So I guess that means we keep going.”
I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve this stranger. He wasn’t giving up on me, and he truly did seem to have my best interests at heart, which allowed me to breathe a little easier. “Can I ask why you went through my bag in the first place?”
“You left your jeans out, so I went to put them away.”
That could’ve been a lie, yet I doubted it. And the idea that he’d cleaned up after me nearly made me melt. “Well, I guess you noticed I don’t have any other clothes. I’m sure that’ll be incentive enough for you to get to Florida faster so I won’t stink up your car.”
For the first time since we ate my birthday cupcakes last night, a smile graced his face, drawing my attention to the dark scruff that lined his jaw and accentuated his lips. It was utterly breathtaking.
“We have to pass Walmart on the way out. Might as well stop and pick up a few things. Plus, while you were asleep, I tried to plot out some driving directions. I’m not sure where in Florida we’re going, so I wasn’t able to plan much beyond crossing the state line.”
Listening to him reminded me that he’d stayed up all night. It also rendered me speechless to hear him talk about how he’d spent his time—after discovering the cash in my bag. “Why would you even entertain the idea of driving me farther if you assumed I’d robbed a bank?”
“I didn’t actually think you did, sweetheart. Tony used to always say, ‘If it looks like a duck, smells like a duck, sounds like a duck…it’s probably a chicken—a distant relative of the duck.’” He dropped his head and chuckled under his breath. “When you work side by side with troubled teens, sometimes you have to give them the benefit of the doubt. If you’re always expecting them to fuck up, they eventually will, simply because no one expects anything different from them.”
“So you gave me the benefit of the doubt? Even without knowing anything about me?”
Rather than say anything, he offered a shrug and rubbed his eyes.
“You’ve gotta be exhausted.” I was still tired, and I’d gotten some sleep, so I could only imagine how drained he was. “How long do we have the room? Do you think maybe you can close your eyes and at least get an hour or two of good rest?”
“I’ll be fine. I just need an energy drink…or seven. The sun will keep me up, but once it starts to set, it’ll probably be a smart idea to start looking for another place to stop. We’re roughly seventeen hours away from New Orleans. Providing we can log a solid seven hours of drive time in today, we could be there as early as tomorrow night. I figured we can spend half the day in town, and after lunch, we can head east to the panhandle.”
I clearly hadn’t gotten enough sleep last night, because I had to swallow down my dying need to cry. And not just a few tears, either. I’m talking about the need to sob like my dog had just died in my arms after getting hit by a car before my very eyes.
“You…you’re taking me to New Orleans?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, you said you’ve always dream
ed of going, no?”
“But…but…” I lost the battle with my emotions and decided to just shut up before he thought I’d lost my mind. When I’d mentioned it to him last night, he’d become quiet, and immediately, I felt like a moron for bringing it up. It was obvious he hadn’t meant it the way I’d taken it, so to hear that he’d mapped out our trip just to take me to New Orleans made my heart rate skyrocket.
“Go get dressed,” he said through a laugh. “We still have to hit up the store before we head out. And I’m starving.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I have a bunch of money, huh?”
The humor lining his eyes lessened. “You probably shouldn’t touch that if you don’t have to. These people obviously know your name, so it’s not completely outside the realm of possibilities that they could find you.”
“I don’t have any other way to pay for things. I turned eighteen yesterday; clearly, I don’t have a credit card. And there’s probably less than two dollars in my bank account, so my debit card is worthless. That cash is all the money I have.”
“It’s okay,” he offered with a gentle smile. “I don’t have a lot, but I should be able to get us to Florida. Once we get there, it’s not like I can’t fix a few cars for a couple bucks. We should be all right. In the off chance they track you down, things could go from bad to worse if there’s any money missing.”
There were so many things I wanted to comment on, yet I wasn’t sure where to begin. “First of all, I can’t ask you to pay for everything. That’s ridiculous. Secondly, should I be worried about your familiarity with drug money? And third…does this mean you’re planning to stay in Florida after we get there?”
“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I already told you I was a troubled kid, so don’t act surprised. But just because I’m aware of how things work doesn’t mean it came from personal experience. And I’m not sure where I’ll go after I drop you off. I might stay, I might visit long enough to earn some cash to take me to the next stop, or I might just turn around and head somewhere else. I’ve already told you…I have nowhere to be.”