She leans back on the mattress and rests her head on her elbow. “It would take a miracle.”
I turn back to Cory. “I guess we’re spending the night here. I wish we had some blankets to make you comfortable, but we’ll just have to make the best of it.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need blankets. I’m just glad to be safe.”
Michelle speaks up. “You couldn’t be safer than you are here.”
“I wonder what will happen when we leave tomorrow,” Cory muses. “Those guys will follow us.”
“They’ll have to track us down first,” I tell him. “Now tell me more about what you found on your dad’s computer.”
“He had some embezzlement scheme going. He installed a spider program on his computer that grazed pennies from hundreds of accounts and siphoned them off to an shelter offshore.”
“How did you find it? What were you doing hacking your dad’s computer in the first place?”
He looks away. He’s ashamed of it now. “I just wanted to see how far I could go, how good I really was. My friend hacks some files on the school computer and changed his grades. I wanted to show him up, so I hacked my dad’s connection to the bank. At first, I didn’t know what I was looking at. I found a bunch of boring financial stuff I didn’t understand. Then I found a file labeled in red and protected with a password. It took me a long time to break that password, but I did it in the end.”
“And that’s when you found the spider program?”
He nods. “I realized that, if he got away with it, he would be able to pull off the greatest bank robbery in history without setting foot in a bank. I copied the file and the program onto a memory stick, but I guess I left traces on his computer.”
“What happened then?”
“I went back to working on my homework. A few hours later, my dad called me downstairs. I could tell by his voice he was angry. I thought, ‘If he gives me any static at all, I’ll threaten to expose him’. So I put the memory stick in my pocket and went downstairs. I guess you know the rest.”
Darkness falls, and the warehouse has no power, so we all settle down for a long night. I don’t get much sleep, what with all the coughing and hacking from every corner of the room. Sometime around midnight, something shakes me awake. I rub my eyes when I realize the bed isn’t shaking after all. Michelle huddles next to me with her arms clutched around her shoulders. She shudders from head to foot, and sweat soaks her clothes. Her hands tremble, and she grinds her teeth.
I roll over to face her, but I don’t dare touch her. “Are you okay?”
She mutters through her gritted teeth. “Gotta.....gotta get....a fix.....Get my stuff...hurry!”
“You threw it in the dumpster. Don’t you remember, Michelle?”
“Gotta....gotta get it.....gotta get a fix. Hurry!”
I take hold of her shoulders. “Fight it, Michelle. Fight the urge to poison yourself.”
Wordless shaking and teeth rattling answer me.
She’s not arguing, so maybe I have a chance to encourage her. “Don’t throw your life away anymore, Michelle. This is your chance to break free of it, once and for all. Hold out a little longer, at least until the withdrawals wear off.”
Her head snaps up, and she fixes me with wild eyes. “Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Aimee. Don’t you remember me from last night? Let me help you. Don’t get high. Fight it. You’re strong enough to beat it this time.”
She whimpers under her breath. “I can’t! It’s too strong.”
I shake her by the shoulders. I’m as desperate as she is. “You can! I know you can. Think of your family. Think how wonderful it will be to see your parents again. Think how you’ll be able to hold your head up around them and tell them how you beat this addiction. Don’t give in! Hold out a little longer, and the worst will pass.”
She clamps her eyes shut and hugs herself tighter. “Help me!”
I put my arms around her and hold her through the shudders. “I’m here. I’ll help you. I’m not leaving. You’re not alone. You can get through this.”
She buries her head in my chest and lets the shaking take her. She moans and cries into the night, but closer to morning, everything stops and she falls asleep. I hold her until dawn streaks through the windows. The other street people start getting up and making noise.
Cory rolls over and scratches his head. He sees Michelle asleep and smiles at me. “I’m going to get my car,” I whisper. “Keep an eye on her until I get back.”
I hurry out the place and take a deep breath of the fresh air. It’s a perfect autumn morning. Too bad the bad guys are after us, so I can’t enjoy it. I race back to Fairview Terrace, but I don’t see any meatheads.
I get in my car, and my heart patters when I start the engine. I weave through the streets and pull up outside the warehouse. I recline the passenger seat and run back upstairs to find Cory and Michelle where I left them.
“Come on,” I whisper to Cory. “We’re getting out of here.”
He nods to Michelle. “What about her? Aren’t you going to wake her up?”
“Not right now.”
He watches wide-eyed while I pick her up in my arms. That whiplike body doesn’t weight very much, and she’s totally out of it. I hoist her into my arms like a sleeping child and carry her downstairs. I settle her in the passenger seat and point Cory to the back. “Keep your head down. Don’t let anyone see you.”
He stretches out on the seat, and I gun the engine. I don’t spare the horses until we hit the main highway headed west. Then I drop to the speed limit and chew up the miles.
Chapter 4
It’s a long, hard road across empty, barren country. As soon as we leave Wisconsin, the Bad Lands swallow us up. Michelle sleeps most of the morning. She wakes up when we stop for lunch, but late in the afternoon, the withdrawals take her again. I pull over at a rest stop and haul her out of the car. I hold her on the grass and try to encourage her anyway I can.
She can understand me better now. She recognizes me and begs me to help her fight off her demons. She wants to leave the drugs behind her. She doesn’t ask me to get them for her anymore.
She passes out again afterwards and sleeps into the night. I stop for gas outside Fargo and get me and Cory a sandwich. I load up on supplies for the road. I’m out of cash, so I put it on my credit card. I’ll figure out how to pay it off later. This is a different life than the one I had when I bought those Symbiosis concert tickets. I’m only twenty-five, and now I’ve got two people depending on me.
I drive as long as I can, but I can’t keep my eyes open anymore. I pull into a motel and tell Cory to stay hidden while I check in. I get one room for Cory and another for Michelle and me. If she wakes up with the horrors in the night, I don’t want her waking him up.
She perks up again. When she’s not suffering withdrawals or passed out, she’s cheerful and talkative. I take her and Cory to a truck stop, where we stuff ourselves with everything we want. Michelle keeps up the conversation, but halfway through the meal, I catch her looking around for something. She clasps her hands in her lap to stop Cory seeing them shake.
Cory goes straight to bed while Michelle and I go back to our room. She sits down on the bed and starts chewing her fingernails. I have to distract her. “So what did you study in college?”
She smiles. “I was going to be a medical researcher. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Not so crazy,” I reply. “I bet you were good at it.”
“I was, while it lasted.”
“So what will you do once you get these drugs licked?”
She spins around to stare at me. Then her shoulders slump. “I won’t get them licked. I appreciate everything you’re doing, but it’s hopeless. They always win in the end.”
“They will win, if you talk like that. You have to believe in yourself, or we’re both wasting our time.”
She shrugs and turns away. “You should concentrate on helping people who actually want to be
helped.”
“You want to be helped, don’t you? You’ve held out for three days. That’s pretty good, considering what you’ve been through. Just a little longer, and the worst will be over.”
“How do you know? Are you some kind of drug counselor or something?”
I don’t say anything. I pull the curtains and check out the TV schedule.
All of a sudden, she takes my hand. “Talk to me, Aimee. You know all there is to know about me, and then some. Tell me what’s bothering you and let me help you.”
“You think it’s crazy that you wanted to be a medical researcher,” I reply, “but I wanted to be a teacher. Isn’t that silly? I spent three years in college, and then I dropped out to become a teller in a bank. I hate the banking industry. I’m an idiot. I should have my head examined.”
She won’t let go of my hand. “You’re not an idiot. You’ve helped me more than anyone else in my life. I’m sure you would make a good teacher. Why don’t you go back to it and give it another try? If you finished three years, you don’t have much more to do.”
“When this all over, you mean?”
She chuckles. “Yeah, when this is all over.”
“I’m not cut out to be teacher. I tried to seduce Cory’s dad into giving me a promotion I didn’t deserve. You wouldn’t want someone like that teaching your children.”
“That only proves you didn’t belong at the bank in the first place. You missed your calling. You should go back to school and become a teacher.”
“What about you?” I ask. “Why don’t you go back to medical research after this is all over?”
“I’ve got a lot longer to go than you do before this is all over. I have to get through these withdrawals, and then I’ve got a long road to recovery before I can think about going back to school.”
“So what’s stopping you?” I ask. “You’ll get through these withdrawals, and you’ll walk the long road to recovery, and then you’ll go back to school. You can do it. Nothing would stop you if you set your mind to it.”
She squeezes my hand. “Nothing would stop me if I had someone like you helping me.”
“I already told you I would help you,” I reply. “I’ve been helping you all along. Why would I stop now?”
She draws nearer on the bed. “I’ve never met anyone like you before, Aimee. You’re special. You care about people, and you’ve helped me more than I expected anyone to. I don’t want to let you go.”
I open my mouth to say something when she leans in and kisses me. I start back in surprise, but she’s not sorry she did it. She gazes back at me with her clear grey eyes. I recognize a deeper understanding in her than I saw before. When I first saw her coughing in the alley, and even when I held her that first night in the warehouse, she was nothing to me but a junkie in need of help.
Now she’s so much more than that. Beyond the drugs, beyond the wasted years, she’s a part of me. I know that now, and I’m a part of her. I wasted myself and my years as much as she did, only I wasted them on married men who didn’t respect me. I wasted them on jobs I hated, and I wasted them not respecting myself. Can she bring me back from that the way she wants me to bring her back? Can we rescue each other, simply by holding hands?
I already know the answers to all those questions. Without a moment’s hesitation, our lips fly back together, and this time, they won’t come apart again. We devour each other’s lips, and our hands can’t get enough of each other. I’m holding her against me and kissing and tugging while she tugs at me with equal ardor.
We fall over on the bed in a tangle of bodies. How did I know this was going to happen? Is this why I got two rooms? It doesn’t matter now. Every shred of clothing disappears and gives our hands free range to explore and discover our bodies. My mouth caresses every inch of her gorgeous length, but it’s not enough. I need more. I need to possess her in her entirety before I can rest.
Her body stretches hard and tough, but I find her gentleness in her kiss and her touch. I’ve never experienced the delicious rapture of her skin against mine, of her legs entwining through mine and nuzzling forgotten places to quivering life again. Where was I before I met her? Was I alive before she touched me?
Her mouth gobbles down my neck to my breasts and beyond. She dives under the covers into the dark hot river where dreams become reality. Her soft warm tongue delves into my soul, and her quick attention ignites my passion to a burning inferno. She awakens my flesh with her tongue and fingers, and I can’t hold back from reciprocating.
I push her legs apart and explore the wonder of undiscovered territory. She falls back against the pillows in a swoon. Her skin glows with inner vitality, and her eyes sparkle with long-lost knowing. She’s everything I admire and worship, spread out before me in majestic glory. She is pure woman, with a strong light glowing from her heart.
Her hands probe my body while I guide her to the heights of rapture. She fingers and stimulates every crevice until I can’t hold still to take her. I thrash in wild abandon, but she pins me to the bed to drive me to my limit. She owns me and completes me as no one ever has. I could swim in this water of bliss forever and never return.
I drink her fullness and draw the pleasure from her while my own ecstatic cries rise higher and higher. In a moment, they crash over me and sweep us away in a sea of oblivion. In the throbbing torrent of climax, she succumbs to a fit of coughing, but neither of us will stop until the tempest passes and subsides. Our joining heals her cough, and her breath rides in and out through her lungs on a smooth tide as we both drift off to sleep in each other’s arms.
Chapter 5
As soon as I wake up the next morning, I notice Michelle is gone. She isn’t in bed next to me and she isn’t in the room. Well, that was nice while it lasted.
I get dressed and head out to collect Cory from the next room. Maybe Michelle caved in the night and went out to get herself a score. She can’t have gone far since she doesn’t have a car, and if that’s where she did go, I’m better off without her. Still, I can’t help kicking myself for falling for her. What was I thinking? She was never anything more than a junkie with a hard luck story.
The minute I stick my head out the door, though, I catch sight of Cory and Michelle standing next to my car. What the dickens is going on? Is Michelle trying to make off with my car?
At that moment, the red Honda Civic screeches around the corner and barrels into the motel parking lot. I scream for Michelle, but the noise of screeching tires already catches her attention. She grabs Cory by the scruff of the neck and hurls him onto the ground as the first spray of bullets rips across the side of my car.
I’m halfway across the parking lot when the Civic skids to a stop and the two meatheads jump out. They start toward Cory and Michelle with automatic rifles at the ready. I put on fresh speed, but there’s no way I can get there in time.
Michelle leaps to her feet and launches herself at the men. She grabs the barrel of one rifle just as Meathead #1 raises it to fire at Cory. She tilts it up into the air, and a shower of bullets flies over our heads and over the motel roof.
Meathead #2 gets ready to fire, but Meathead #1 wrestling with Michelle blocks his way. I see my chance and yell at Cory to get up and get in the car. He stares at Michelle. My voice doesn’t penetrate his mind. He’s frozen stiff.
Michelle hears me, though, and looks back at me over her shoulder. She sees me dive behind the steering wheel and fire that mother up. Meathead #2 tries again to get a clear shot, but Michelle throws Meathead #1 between herself and him again so he can’t gun us down.
I throw open the passenger door, and it hits Cory in the head where he cowers on the ground. That wakes him up, and he hears me screaming at him to get in the blinking car. He jumps in the back. I drop it into Drive and burn rubber away from those two meatheads. Meathead #2 swings his rifle around and aims at us, but Michelle shoves Meathead #1 into him and runs for it. Meathead #1 staggers back and collides with Meathead #2, and Michelle gets away in t
he confusion.
She meets me at the parking lot entrance and hops in through the open passenger door just as the two meatheads recover from their tussle. Bullets pepper the car. Michelle ducks for cover and protects her head with her arms as the passenger window rains shards of broken glass into the car.
Cory screams, but I drop my foot onto the accelerator and peal out of the parking lot. The two meatheads get smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.
Michelle lets out a maniacal laugh. “That was great! We showed them, didn’t we?”
“Not so fast,” I tell her. “They’ve got a car, too, you know.”
She looks in the side mirror, and the smile vanishes from her face when she sees what I see. The Civic swings out of the parking lot onto the highway after us. You wouldn’t believe a Civic could go that fast, but my car isn’t exactly is a dinosaur. The Civic looks like a rental in top working order.
They have no trouble closing the gap. Cory hides on the back seat and keeps his eyes shut tight. He’s too scared to think about what might happen. Michelle sits silent and drawn on the passenger seat. She doesn’t gloat anymore, and I’m fresh out of ideas.
There’s nothing I can do but floor it, but the Civic overtakes us with no problem. It weaves back and forth behind us for a minute before the driver (don’t ask me if it’s Meathead #1 or Meathead #2) yanks out into the oncoming lane. Good thing there’s not a lot of traffic in the middle of North Dakota. He’s got the whole lane to himself and all the time in the world for his friend to take careful aim at you know who.
Could my life really end this way? I never had a chance to help Cory or Michelle, but at least I got one night to love her. It was a nice idea, but it came to nothing like most of my nice ideas.
The shooter’s finger tightens on the trigger, and at the last second, I jerk the wheel sideways. He shoots, and the bullets miss my head and skitter along the front fender. The driver’s side tire blows out, and the steering wheel flips in my hands. The car teeters and tilts sideways.
I can’t keep the car on the road. No matter how hard I wrestle the wheel, the car leans left. I fight it all the way, but it veers behind the Meathead Mobile and cuts across the other lane, where it bounces over the shoulder and into the ditch.
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