by LS Hawker
The blond took his place next to his friends at the bar and leaned around them, eyeing Jade and Olivia. “Hello, ladies!” He turned to Steve and said, “We’d like to buy these two a couple of beers.” He leaned again and raised his eyebrows at them.
Jade laughed and then got a look at Olivia’s face, which advertised her obvious distaste. What was her problem? The guy reminded Jade of her best friend from high school, Kenyon. He was a goofball too, but a great linebacker. She held up her beer bottle in his direction and said, “Hey. How you guys doing tonight?”
Olivia leaned into her line of vision, giving her a “what the hell are you doing” look, as if Jade were teasing a pack of dogs suffering from distemper. Olivia didn’t understand that these guys were harmless. They were good ol’ boys. Nothing to be alarmed about, but like so many girls of her generation, she’d been taught to fear guys who were just wanting to chat, to believe that unless the guy approached with a notarized negotiation about appropriate actions, he was a creepy, dangerous dude. It made her sad, but also cemented her belief that she didn’t belong anywhere but here.
The blond guy’s friends turned from the TV to look at her and nodded then turned back to the TV. Olivia watched it all without expression.
“Fine, fine,” said the blond, winking at Jade. “Bartender! Three Buds and two of whatever they’re having.” He pointed theatrically at Jade and Olivia.
“No thanks,” Olivia said, and Jade turned to give her a look of consternation.
“Since when do you turn down free drinks?” she said.
Olivia’s expression turned frightened, which irritated Jade, then she immediately felt regretful. Olivia couldn’t help it if she felt threatened, even if she had no reason to.
“I’ll drink hers,” Jade said. She turned back to Olivia and said quietly, “These guys are harmless. Trust me. I’ve been around guys like this my whole life. They’re not going to drag you out into the alley by the Dumpster and assault you. They just want to have a little fun.”
“I can just imagine what their idea of fun is.”
Jade labored to suppress her impatience.
“We need to be getting back anyway.” She gave Jade a meaningful look.
Jade now leaned toward the blond and whispered, “My friend is a little nervous. She thinks you guys might be dangerous. But I know you’re all gentlemen, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” the blond said. “I’m Rodney, and this is Dave, and that’s Fireball.”
“Fireball?” Jade said, and Rodney and Dave collapsed against each other laughing. Obviously, there was a story there.
“Shut up,” Fireball said, his red face getting redder and scowling.
“We need to go,” Olivia said to Jade, her voice almost pleading.
Jade leaned toward her and said, “These guys are innocuous.”
“I’m not used to being harassed by drunk hillbillies, I guess,” Olivia said.
“Do you see any hills around here? I realize these guys aren’t exactly Rhodes scholars, but that doesn’t mean they’re out to take advantage.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes,” Jade said. “I do. Like I said, I’ve been around guys like this my whole life.”
Olivia remained freaked out and unconvinced. Jade couldn’t help but feel not only disappointed but suddenly judged to be a small-town inbred rube as well as an innocent who had to be protected from imaginary threats.
Olivia’s expression was inscrutable. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Drunk guys are kind of a trigger thing for me.”
Jade hated that word with every fiber of her being. But she wanted to respect her friend’s fears and anxieties. “I’m sorry. But if you feel uncomfortable, why don’t you just go on back to the house, and I’ll hitch a ride with one of these nice gentlemen or the bartender.”
Alarmed, Olivia said, “Like hell. Have you already forgotten what happened today? A guy tried to kidnap you!”
“But that guy was older, and he wasn’t a townie, I’m sure of that.”
This gave Jade pause. He was the oldest man she’d ever seen in town, probably in his forties. He unmistakably wasn’t from Miranda. But no one in this town seemed like they were from Kansas at all—except the three guys who’d just entered the bar.
“I’m not leaving you here alone,” Olivia said, “the only woman in a bar surrounded by horny drunks. Just one more beer, okay? And then we leave?”
Jade was still ruminating. “Okay,” she said.
Then Olivia did this amazing one-eighty. She waved at the guys as Steve the “bartender” opened two more beers for them. “Hi,” she said. “I’m Olivia, and this is Jade.”
Rodney lifted his Coors bottle off the bar and walked over to them, and they both swiveled their stools to face him. “Ladies,” he said, and kissed each of their hands, Olivia’s first, then Jade’s. His mustache tickled. As he looked up from Jade’s hand, a wave of recognition swept over his face. “Hey,” he said, letting go of her and pointing at her. “I know you. Where do I know you from?”
“Where’d you grow up?” Jade asked, taking a drink.
“Medicine Lodge. How about you?”
“Ephesus.”
“Well, God dog,” he said, the dawn breaking. “You’re that girl kicker, aren’t you? Holy shit. Hey, you guys, this is that girl kicker from Ephesus!”
They leaned back on their stools to scrutinize her face and nodded.
“I knew that was you! Holy smokes!” Rodney said, taking a drink. “What are you doing here?”
“Well—”
“Of course, what is anyone doing here, huh?” He studied the barroom as he had when he first arrived.
Did he mean it in an existential sense, or . . .
“Right,” she said. “You planting?”
“Yup,” he said. “Just got done. That’s why we’re celebrating.” He leaned toward his friends and said, “Right?” And the three of them whooped in unison.
Then Rodney turned his attention to Olivia. “What happened to your hair, gal?” he said.
“Nuclear accident,” Olivia said.
He looked at her as if trying to decide whether she was kidding or not. “No, really,” he said. “Were you trying to dye it blond or something?”
Olivia laughed and sipped at her beer. “It was intentional,” she said. “I dyed it blue on purpose.”
“Where are you from?”
“New York,” she said.
“No, I mean where are your people from?”
Oh, crap. Jade tensed.
“Eastern Europe,” Olivia said.
Fireball grabbed Rodney by the arm. “Let’s shoot some stick,” he said.
“Girls want to play?” Rodney said.
“You go on ahead,” Jade said, in deference to Olivia. “We’ll wait here.”
“I’ll be back,” he said, and followed his two friends to the empty pool table in the back. Jade heard the clunk-whish of the balls dropping and rolling.
Now that the farm boys were occupied, Jade thought she was ready to bring up the child situation. She cleared her throat. “Hey, Olivia, I wanted to talk to you about—”
Rodney reappeared at Jade’s side and said to the bartender, “How about a round of Jack Black shots?”
“You know what?” Steve said. “I think you all’ve had enough.”
Jade stared at him. Yes, the guys were tipsy, but they weren’t can’t-serve-you-any-more drunk.
“What happened here?” Rodney said. “Used to be you could get any kind of liquor at this place before everything closed and—”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you and your friends to leave.”
“What the hell, man?” Rodney said, getting red in the face.
Quick as a flash, one of the guys from the other pool table rushed up and shoved Rodney’s face into the bar, twisting his left arm up behind his back, forcing a squeal of pain from him.
“Hey,” Jade yelled. “What are you doing?” Her e
yes drifted downward and she saw the pool player had a holstered pistol on his hip.
“Rodney,” she said, in as calm a voice as she could manage, “you and your buddies need to go. All right? This man has a gun. Do you understand me?”
“This is none of your concern, miss,” the player said.
“Jade,” Olivia said in a small voice. “Just mind your own—”
“I’m trying to help,” Jade said. “Dave. Fireball. Get Rodney out of here. Now.”
They dashed forward, and Jade saw what was about to happen in slow motion in her mind’s eye. “Stop!” she shouted, and stood between them and the gun-carrying pool player. Everyone froze, the pool player’s hand inches from his piece.
“They’re leaving now,” Jade said. “Aren’t you?”
No one said anything, the only sound panicked breathing.
“Right? You’re taking off. Everything’s cool. Okay?” She slowly put her hand on the pool player’s arm and he turned and eyed her. His arm relaxed, and he let Rodney up and backed away.
Dave and Fireball each took one of Rodney’s now-bruised arms and led him out of the bar.
The pool player went back to his table, and everyone else stood staring, until Olivia, her terrified face flushed and damp, stepped forward and slapped Jade’s arm. “What the hell were you doing? You could have been killed!”
Jade turned toward the pool player, who lined up a shot back at the table as if nothing had happened. No sweat, no panting, cool as a cucumber. He didn’t look at her. She turned back to the bar, where Steve the bartender stood looking up at the television.
The car with no muffler started up out in the street, music blaring again, the engine being revved over the red line, the engine screaming, and then the tires burning rubber out of there.
“I think we’d better go,” Jade said to Olivia, who followed her out the door.
She looked up and down the deserted dark street.
Olivia got into the Volt’s driver’s seat while Jade climbed into the passenger side and stared out the windshield.
What was with this town?
Why did it seem less like reality and more like a reality show?
Chapter Nine
They sat in the Volt in front of the bar, and Olivia kept turning to look at Jade, as if she had something to say but wasn’t sure she should. Then she said, “Jade, we have a responsibility here. The project is largely in your hands. You realize that, right? Putting yourself into a dangerous situation like you did tonight, you could have gotten hurt. Even killed. And if something happened to you, then what does that mean for the project and all of us?”
Conflicting emotions warred inside Jade. She did have a responsibility to her coworkers. But she could also take care of herself. She didn’t believe the guy with the gun would have shot her. She felt scolded and manipulated simultaneously, because Olivia knew she carried a lot of people’s burdens for them, and now she was loading up a few more—the team. The project. Their futures. All up to her.
“Listen,” Jade said. “The situation needed to be defused. I did that. I saved that hayseed Rodney’s life. And do not throw my family in my face again. I know what my responsibilities are.”
Olivia didn’t react to this, just started the Volt, backed out into the empty street, and drove toward the county road. Jade stared out the window at nothing, drained. She didn’t want to talk about the peculiarities of the town anymore.
This had been, without a doubt, the weirdest day of her life.
Until the road next to the car got brighter.
Jade looked back at a vehicle coming up fast behind them. Olivia’s eyes darted back and forth from the rearview mirror.
“Guy came out of nowhere,” Olivia said, her eyes on the rearview. “Must be doing seventy at least.”
“Maybe slow down and let him go on by,” Jade said.
Olivia eased her foot off the gas and the other car slowed down too. Olivia sped up again, and the other car followed suit.
“What are you doing?” Jade said. “Just let him go around us.”
“I tried, but he—”
“Pull over, Olivia,” Jade said.
Olivia pulled over, rolled down her window, warm air whooshing into the car, and stuck her arm out, signaling for the guy to go around. But the car kept pace with them until Olivia stopped altogether, continuing to motion with her hand for him to pass them.
The car behind them stopped too.
Jade glanced behind them again. A figure stepped out of the driver’s side.
Her mouth wouldn’t work, as if she had ALS and couldn’t speak, as in a dream. But she finally shouted, “Go! He got out of the car! Go!”
“But maybe—” And then Olivia’s eyes got wide. “It’s them,” she said. “Isn’t it? It’s those guys from the bar.”
“It’s not them,” Jade said. “Just go!”
Olivia floored the accelerator, spinning the wheels on the dirt road, and lurched forward.
Jade kept looking back as the car started up and gained on them again.
“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” Olivia said, eyes tracking back and forth from the rearview to the road.
Then Jade felt the impact, the car’s front bumper striking their back bumper.
“Fucking environmentally friendly hemp burner!” Olivia said, pounding the steering wheel. “Go faster, you piece of shit!”
The speedometer showed they were going seventy miles an hour, and still the car behind them kept ramming.
The dashboard light illuminated Olivia’s frightened face. “What do I do?”
“I don’t know!” Jade shouted.
About a mile ahead, she could see the lights of the Compound.
“Can we get in there before he—”
Jade didn’t finish her sentence before the car behind them gave one final mighty push. As if the steering wheel had been ripped from Olivia’s hands, it started spinning of its own accord. She lost control of the Volt in the gravel and slid sideways toward the shoulder. Everything slowed down as the world outside Jade’s window spun crazily and her own head followed its trajectory, wrenching her neck as the Volt tipped and then slammed over sideways, all the loose items inside flying through the air. Jade’s head smacked into her window and then jerked backward as the Volt came to a stop on the passenger door.
Jade’s ears rang but she could hear dust settling and the engine clicking. Olivia hung above her, held in place by her seat belt and the middle console.
“Are you okay?” Jade asked her.
“I hit my head,” Olivia said, her voice hollow and strained. “There’s blood coming from somewhere.”
“Let me get out of my seat belt and then I’ll get you free. Just hold on.”
Jade unbuckled her seat belt and knelt on her door. She reached up and tried to undo Olivia’s seat belt.
Through the broken glass of Olivia’s window, Jade heard running feet. The Volt began to shake and then rock. The man was trying to right the car, to bring it back to its wheels. But one man alone couldn’t do that. Which meant there was more than one of them.
Once the car was upright, what were they going to do?
“Do you have that pepper spray you talked about?” Jade asked Olivia.
“I don’t know where it is,” Olivia said, her voice rising in hysteria.
Jade heard talking outside the Volt.
“Jade Veverka,” a man’s voice said.
Olivia looked frantically at Jade.
“Who is that?” Olivia said.
“I don’t know.”
The Volt rocked and Jade realized they would be successful in righting it, so she scrambled into her seat and hung on until the car came over straight and Olivia undid her seat belt.
“What are we going to do?”
“Jade,” the voice said again, coming from a dark figure who stood at Olivia’s door. “Get out of the car. You’re coming with us, right now, and—”
And then Jade heard pop-pop-pop nearby.
/>
Gunshots.
Jade folded in half as Olivia fumbled for her hand and squeezed it until Jade yelped and Olivia let go.
Scuffling feet, flesh hitting flesh, grunts, shouts, but no actual words Jade could make out.
A body falling to the ground.
Jade put her hands over her ears. Someone was getting the shit kicked out of them.
Now the body was being dragged away.
Jade made out the shouted words, “Shut up!”
In all the confusion that followed, huddled against Olivia in the front seat, Jade couldn’t see what was happening, but it appeared several men were standing across from each other shouting and brandishing weapons.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said. “What is going on?”
Finally Olivia’s door opened and a flashlight beam shone in their faces.
“Come out of there,” a voice said.
“No,” Olivia said, shielding her eyes. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Jade, Olivia,” another man’s voice shouted. “You can come out now. We got them.”
But Jade couldn’t make herself move, and neither, it seemed, could Olivia.
Jade’s door opened, and she cowered as another flashlight beam illuminated the inside of the Volt.
They were still bent over, heads nearly touching their knees. With her face right next to Jade’s, Olivia shrieked, “No!” so loud Jade was temporarily deafened in her left ear.
“It’s all right, ladies,” the voice said. “We got them. It’s okay.”
A man in camo with a rifle crouched down next to her open door.
“Who the hell are you?” Olivia yelled.
“We’re the good guys. You can—”
“What do you want?” Jade said, shielding her eyes.
“Sit up,” the man said. “It’s okay. We got them.”
“Who?” Olivia demanded. “Who did you get? What happened?”
Jade heard a siren in the distance. The rifleman’s head turned toward the sound. “You are not to talk to county law enforcement,” he said.
“According to who?” Olivia demanded. “By whose authority?”
“Is the car drivable?”
“We’re not moving or doing anything else until you answer my questions,” Olivia said.