I spared him. “The barn toilet wasn’t working.”
“The barn doesn’t have a toilet,” Cade said.
“Exactly.”
“Was that a joke, Jane Doe?”
“Maybe.”
My knees abruptly felt weak. This was the longest walk I’d taken since Mattey stitched me up. Cade came around to support the other side of me, and the boys guided me back inside the barn. Once I was lying back down, a slow smile crept onto Cade’s face.
“Whoo, girl. I thought whoever sliced you up was back for more. And here you were just taking care of business,” he said, laughing.
I made a face at him. I mean, whatever. So I had to go to the bathroom.
“Hospitals have real bathrooms,” Mateo pointedly remarked. “And real doctors.”
“I like this doctor,” I answered.
Mateo let out a little snort to signify his continued protest while fussing with the pillows and towels around me. Cade tossed a shopping bag down.
“What’s all that?” I asked.
“I thought you might want to get cleaned up a little,” Cade said. “I, uh, got you some shampoo. And a fan.”
“Well, thanks, Lancelot.”
“Who?”
“Knight in shining armor. You didn’t have to do that.”
“This place’ll suffocate you.”
“Where are you going to plug it in?” I asked.
“It’s batteries. Don’t you worry, li’l lady,” Cade said, fumbling with the plastic casing on it.
Mateo blobbed a huge squirt of antibiotic ointment over my cut. I shifted my gaze back and forth between them. What was in it for either of them? Why help me?
“That looks way better already.” Cade pointed to the Frankenstein crisscrosses lacing me up.
“Where is your spleen?” I asked.
“Your spleen is fine,” Mateo answered, gently laying my shirt back over the cut.
“What about kidneys?”
“Also fine.” Mateo looked at his watch and scrunched up his face. “I’m sorry, guys, but this doctor has to get home before his mama starts looking for him.”
“I got it from here,” Cade said. “Thanks again, man.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Mateo said.
“You don’t have to,” I interjected. “I’m going to head out soon.”
Cade rolled his eyes. “Says the girl who can’t even take a crap without help.”
“For the record, Mateo only helped me get outside.”
“Yeah, she pooped on her own,” Mateo added and then turned about eight shades of red. “Sorry. Bye. Feel better. Call me if you need anything. Okay. Yeah.”
Cade let out a snort of laughter at Mateo as he hurried out the door, but it was short-lived. His forehead had a worried furrow.
“So how is the cut?” he asked after a beat.
“Still stitched up,” I said. “So there’s that.”
“Hurts bad, huh?” Cade’s eyes landed on my shirt. Little spots of red had already seeped into it from the spots between the stitches.
“You don’t even know.”
I pulled the fabric away from my skin, letting a little air in so it wouldn’t catch. I didn’t know how to explain everything to this normal high school guy who for some reason was doing things like buying me shampoo and bringing me breakfast.
Cade, I wanted to say, there are people out there who only care about money and power. They will shoot a person like we kill a bug against a window, smeared and in pieces on the glass with no second thought. Something is missing inside them. You can look and look into their eyes, trying to find a way to show your life counts and they shouldn’t take it. But all that’s there is the dark flash of a pupil, no different than a shark or an alligator.
“I’m going to get out of here as soon as I can. I don’t want to cause any problems for you. You’ve already done enough . . . more than enough.”
“One day at a time, Jane Doe, okay? When you’re healed up enough to travel, we’ll figure it out,” Cade said.
“Any luck finding my bag?” I asked.
“It’s definitely not in the fields, far as I can tell. Haven’t really gone into the woods.”
Cade reached into the shopping bag and pulled out a knife to cut off the plastic around the fan. All of a sudden, I was shaking. The blade flashed, and I saw that face. It was like I could feel it happening all over again, how he grabbed the back of my head and slammed it into the side of the car. His fingers over my mouth, trying to keep me from breathing. How he wrapped his arm around my throat and pressed, and I kicked, hit, threw my weight against him. And then the tear of the blade through my skin.
CADE
Total freak-out. When I went to cut the plastic backing, Jane Doe started shaking and sucking in air like a freshwater drumfish when you pull it off the hook. I dropped the knife as quickly as I could and put my hands up to show her.
“It’s gone. Look, no knife. It’s all right.”
She pulled her knees to her chest, crying out in pain at the sudden pressure on her cut. Her hyperventilating got thicker.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I was only opening the fan.”
She gave me a little nod, her breath still coming out in short catches. I reached out and took her hand.
“Let’s just lie here, okay?” I helped guide her down. “Close your eyes, maybe?”
She shook her head no.
“Okay, leave them open and look at me. You’re safe in the barn.”
Jane took a giant inhale and managed to calm her breath, but she was still trembling.
“Jeez, girl.”
She wiped hard at her eyes, looking pissed she had allowed even a tear to slide out. I had started subconsciously rubbing the inside of her wrist with my thumb. It seemed to calm her down, so I kept doing it.
She needed to get out of her head. I should say something, anything, just to distract her. I started rambling about football to her. Not that she probably cared, but I didn’t know what else to talk about. I told her how practice starts now even though it’s still summer vacation, and about Coach Hollis, how Gunner and I call him Coach Holler, or Coach A-hole. I said Gunner always makes fun of me and calls me out on everything, but it’s what makes me like him. I talked about how in a town this small, scoring touchdowns makes you feel like you’re frickin’ Superman or the president, and they give you free ice cream sundaes at the diner when you go there after, and we eat them like we’re little kids, all happy about the whipped cream and caramel syrup. We have big rallies, I told her. Even the mayor shakes your hand.
“Do you score all the touchdowns?” she asked after just lying there, listening for a long time.
“Well, hey, look who’s back,” I said, disentangling my fingers from her grip. “Do I score all the touchdowns? All the amazing ones.”
“So you’re the star quarterback. Big man on campus. Hanging here with me . . . while I lose it.”
“Not gonna lie: That was intense. How about I get the fan going . . . later?”
“Uh, yeah, probably a good idea.”
Jane’s cheeks were pale, and little lines of sweat ran down her forehead and neck. She lay there staring at the ceiling. Hunter stayed by her side, and she reached over and took his paw in her hand.
“Did you say you got me shampoo?” she asked, lightly touching the ends of her hair. Her voice was deliberately crisp, like she was announcing she had turned the corner and was going to be okay now.
“Yes.”
“I still can’t really lift my arms up to my head.”
I looked at her. She looked at me.
“Um, I guess I’ll do it for you?” I said.
I helped Jane sit back up and then stand. There was a hose back by the old stalls. I propped her against one of the half walls and loosened
the squeaky faucet until a nice steady stream of cool water came out. It felt good in the heat, and I splashed some over my own face.
“Okay, tilt your head.”
Jane was leaning heavily against the stall wall. She adjusted her weight to balance better, and when she dropped her head back I could see a big raw patch on the side. My head had looked like that plenty. It was gonna sting. I aimed the water away from the sore spot, but it still ran pink from the dried blood. I squirted a huge blob of shampoo into my hands and lightly patted it onto her head.
“You have to mush it around,” she mumbled. “I want to be clean.”
She winced as the shampoo hit the raw, scraped place, but I could tell she wanted me to keep going. It felt weird, washing someone else’s hair. Like with me, I dig in and mess the suds around really fast and call it a day, but she had all this hair.
“I don’t know what to do with the long part.”
She let out a little laugh at me and immediately winced and placed a hand over the cut.
“Bring my hair up on top of my head and kind of scratch with your fingers,” she directed. “Thank you. This water feels nice. I’m so hot and thirsty.”
“Here—open.” I aimed some of the cold water into her mouth.
Jane closed her eyes and let it run down her chin, down the curve of her neck, soaking the front of her shirt. Her left eye was less swollen, even though the lid and skin around it was still bruised.
“I’ve been beat up, but never this bad,” I said.
“I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Settle down, Jane Doe. I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s your business . . . why you’re running,” I said. “But I do need to ask: Is whoever attacked you still looking for you?”
Jane Doe hesitated. That equaled yes.
“Would they know where you are?” I asked.
“I don’t know where I am.”
“You’re in Tanner.”
“Really? I’m farther than I thought,” she said.
“Where are you trying to go?” I asked.
“North.”
I got the last of the shampoo out of her hair and dabbed at her head with a towel. “How far north we talkin’?”
“Canada,” Jane said.
“If you wanna get out of the country, Mexico’s right here,” I pointed out.
“That’s the problem,” she answered.
“What do you mean?”
“I got caught up in something.”
“What kind of something?”
“It had to do with drugs. Kind of.” Jane didn’t offer up a real answer. Of course she didn’t.
“Look, if I’m going to help you, you gotta tell me something. I don’t need to know all of it—hell, I don’t want to know it. But give me something here.”
Jane paused. “There are some guys . . . who are worried about what I might know.”
“What you might know?” I pressed.
“What I do know.”
The uneasiness that had been nagging me ever since the ride home from practice came back around full throttle.
“And do any of these guys who are worried about what you know drive a black SUV?” I asked.
Jane froze.
“I saw someone on the side of the road,” I said. “White T-shirt. Dark jeans. Long, scraggly hair. Big sunglasses.”
With each description I gave, Jane got paler. She sank to the wet, gritty floor of the barn.
“He’s going to find us.”
JANE
My shoulders caved in. My chin tucked down. I shrank against the side of the stall. If Cade saw who I thought he saw, I needed to already be gone.
“Listen.” Cade put his hands up in a warning. “If you’re some kind of drug-running mule, I’ll call the cops right now. I don’t care if they’re two-faced. Y’all can rot with the cartels together.”
Everything I could cry over but don’t, then this? This is what makes it happen? Tears spilled over and ran down my face.
“I’m not that,” I whispered.
Cade kept his eyes fixed on mine as if daring me to lie to him.
“I’m not running drugs,” I said. “But . . . my boyfriend, he knew people who did that sort of stuff.”
“Your boyfriend? Well, where the hell is he right now?”
“Dead.”
Silence hit and held.
I hadn’t said any of it out loud yet. And when I did, it came out in a monotone. “He got killed. I ran.”
“Ran from where?”
“I told you: Mexico.”
“You said that Mexico was the problem. You didn’t say you were there.” Cade was trying to put the pieces together.
“I lived there.”
“And the guy that stabbed you?”
“He’s from the US but goes back and forth.”
“Why is he after you?”
“Lots of reasons.”
“Can you give me at least one?”
“I had all of my boyfriend’s money. He wanted it.”
“How much?”
“A lot,” I said.
“Where is it?”
“In the bag I lost.”
Cade shook his head in frustration. “Mattey’s right. We gotta go to the sheriff. It’s Gunner’s mom. She’ll know what to do.”
“No! I’m not eighteen yet,” I told him, holding myself back. Something about Cade’s sincere gray eyes made me want to tell him too much. I couldn’t say anything that would put him in danger.
Sun and blood, I wanted to say. Where it starts and where it ends.
The sun was Raff, loud music, speeding in his sports car or motorcycle. The nights were me, dancing outside under the little lanterns with the swirls of smoke, tobacco, pot. I laughed when Raff showed me the guns he’d bought. I thought he just wanted to look badass. And he did, especially holding the big black one, the AK, AR whatever— no shirt, all the muscles in his arms and abs, like a guy in an action movie.
In Playa Lavilla, the resort town where we lived, I was in a bikini all the time. Bare feet. Salty hair. Raff said all his friends were jealous. They’d say things in Spanish that made him say, “Back off, she’s mine.” I liked them before I knew what they did. No—even after I knew what they did. They had dark eyes and lazy, suggestive smiles. I was safe with Raff’s crew, always a hand on my back, an eye on the door. We had tables and bottles at the clubs, and we partied at condos on the beach. We had anything we ever wanted. But more than that, we had each other. Raff would pull me in close, extend his arm, and snap a picture of us on his phone, our faces pressed together, saying, We’ll want to remember this. All of it.
I’d never been the best thing to anyone. But to Raff, I was. How he looked at me, how he touched me, talked about me—it made me forget social workers, foster parents, my mom shooting up somewhere, hungry, hollow. Being with Raff made the edges smoother. Maybe there was something to like about myself.
The blood was how it ended. The blood was now.
Now I was just another seventeen-year-old runaway.
Seventeen meant back in state custody, as if none of this last year happened. Raff’s blood never spilled out of his head, fast and silent. I wouldn’t know anything about the ice picks. Or the gasoline. Or what happened to Raff’s friends and their girlfriends.
No, I needed to keep going, somewhere new, far away. An island. A gray one with cliffs and rain and the needy echo of seals and gulls, the kind of island where old wooden ships had wrecked in some other century’s winter storms.
“Cade . . . ,” I began. “If you take me to the police, I’ll get put back in foster care. Once I’m in the system, anyone can track me down. They’ll come after me.”
“Over one bag of money? Come on, Jane, I’m n
ot stupid. What is this really about?”
I could barely breathe from the pain of the cut. This boy was my only chance. My hands were shaking as I thought about the possibility of being hunted . . . forever. I had to tell him something more, something that would make him help me get out of here.
“I know how they smuggle their drugs.”
I saw the information register.
I hated to ask.
I had to ask.
“Can you maybe . . . drive me as far north as you can and then let me go from there?”
“So, what?” Cade said. “So you can go find another messed-up boyfriend and wind up half dead again?”
My face flashed hot.
“What do you care?” I defended myself.
“I saved you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You’re asking now.”
CADE
Jane Doe was only half right. She might not have asked me to save her. But she did ask me to hide her. And I’d agreed. Even though I knew better. I’m from Tanner, Texas. We have a mayor and police, but everyone knows who really runs this town. I don’t live under a rock. I read the news. I go to school.
“If I don’t, what will happen?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
I wasn’t going to get her backstory. There was no time for it. If I was going to drive Jane Doe, it was now or never. The reality sank in. If I didn’t, and they found her, killed her, it would be on me. A death. Her life. And if they found her, they could find me.
“Fine,” I said.
Jane squinted at me.
“Let’s get moving. That guy was over by Maddison Electric, which isn’t far at all. We need to get a move on.”
“To the police station.” Her voice was flat.
My mind was racing. “I’m not sure yet. Let’s just head to the truck, and we can figure it out from there.”
I scooped up the clothes Mattey brought her and a blanket in one arm, then held out the other for her. She hesitantly took it. After about ten super slow steps down the path from the barn she started panting so loud she sounded like Hunter. Another couple of minutes and her knees were buckling and she was half bent over. This was not going to work. I picked her up along with all the stuff.
Hide with Me Page 4