Rhapsody

by Heather McKenzie

  I hoped Oliver was right. At least I could take solace in the fact that if I could trust anyone with my sister’s life, it was Lisa.

  Kaya leaned against me. “So, here we are, running again,” she said, weaving her fingers with mine and sending exquisite jolts of electricity through my entire body. “I don’t want to do this for another two and a half years, but there’s no way to fight Henry. We’ve gone over everything.”

  Marlene looked at us in the rearview mirror. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” she said. “Could that apply here?”

  “It would if that enemy, mainly John Marchessa, didn’t want Kaya dead,” Oliver said.

  “Then maybe she should be,” Thomas said.

  Marlene swerved slightly. “What? Thomas, you ass—”

  “No! I didn’t mean it like that. Good Lord, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying, maybe we should pretend she is dead. Fake it. Buy some time until all this passes.”

  Thomas’s suggestion was lost to the startling wail of a police siren. A cop car with flashing lights was barreling down on us quickly.

  “Crap!” Marlene kept the truck steady, not slowing down. “What do I do?”

  “If you pull over and they’re cops working for Henry, we’re in an entire world of trouble. If they’re only regular cops…” Oliver twisted around to glance at me. “It could be really bad for Luke.”

  Marlene stomped on the gas. At the first road off the highway onto a barely plowed strip of white with a few tire tracks, she turned with enough speed to almost flip the truck. The trees were thick on either side, the road narrowing. A sign reading ‘Warning: Yellow Lake Road Closed Ahead’ came into view and quickly went out again. We were bounced and jarred over ruts, the cops staying in full pursuit.

  “They’re gaining on us, Marlene,” I warned her.

  At a fork in the road, Marlene gunned it and headed left, causing the three of us in the backseat to slam into each other. Thomas’s hand pressed against Kaya’s thigh, steadying her, either not caring or not remembering that I was there.

  “This old truck ain’t going to outrun that car,” Marlene said.

  “Where’s your gun?” Oliver asked her.

  “Glove box.”

  “You can’t shoot at cops for God’s sake!” yelled Thomas.

  But no sooner were the words out of his mouth when gunfire ripped through the truck, shattering the back window—they were shooting at us.

  We both reached for Kaya. I felt his hand over her head as he pushed her down, and I met his eyes as her body slammed into his when Marlene swerved.

  “Over there. Take that road!” Oliver yelled. The truck swerved again and hit a wooden campground sign, not slowing. “Up ahead around that bend, floor it and head into the ditch. Hide us up in the trees and snow.”

  The truck sped on as Marlene did as she was told, then a whoosh of branches scraped the windows and we all flung forward with a crashing halt.

  I had to shake the sense back into my head. “Are you okay,” I asked Kaya, reaching desperately for her, thankful the seat belt held us in. I lifted her chin to inspect her face, heart breaking at the fear in her eyes. “Answer me,” I said, maybe a bit harshly.

  “I’m okay,” she stammered.

  Oliver was out and stomping around to the back of the vehicle. He started running toward the road we’d turned off, Marlene’s gun in his hand. He was going to try to take out the cops before they got to us.

  I turned to Thomas, queasy over what I was about to say. “Get Kaya out of the car and head away from the road. Go up into the trees,” I ordered.

  He nodded, hand latching on to her wrist before she could follow me. The deep snow and Kaya pleading with me to stop, made slow going getting to Oliver where he kneeled in the ditch.

  “Give me the gun,” I said, reaching for it.

  Oliver squared his shoulders, keeping aim on the road. “You idiot, Luke. Get back to the truck and hide Kaya somewhere. I’ll look after this.”

  He was wheezing. There was blood on his chin. He was sacrificing himself for us.

  “You couldn’t shoot your own foot with the state you’re in,” I said, snatching the gun from his shaking hand when he doubled over with a cough. I had to take over, so I shoved him as hard as I could, sending him backward into the snow where I hoped he’d stay. Then I took his position. Getting low, I aimed at the road, not glancing back to see Thomas and Marlene wrestling Kaya into the trees.

  The cop car had slowed to a crawl, siren off, windows down. They were onto us. I could see the muck turn on the tires as it approached, and the sloth-like movements of Officers Harris and Gabe. My heart-rate slowed. I embraced that scary part of me that brought time to a standstill. It made judging the distance and seconds easy, and I quickly realized I wasn’t at the right angle to take out my targets.

  So I ran straight for them.

  Once on the road, I squeezed the trigger and shot Officer Gabe through the passenger window.

  The car stopped. I kept running toward it. Except when I fired this time, the gun jammed. The piece of crap froze solid in my hands. I tossed it aside and dropped to my stomach, squirming quickly up to the car so it was between me and Officer Harris, who had gotten out and slammed the door so hard my ears rang.

  “Dammit, you’ve made a mess of my car!”

  He wasn’t at all concerned about his dead partner.

  “All I want is the girl,” he said, angrily spitting at the ground. “You give me Kaya Lowen, and I’ll pretend you didn’t just shoot a cop.”

  “You’re outnumbered,” Oliver answered.

  Somehow, he’d sidled up next to me. I shook my head in disappointment because I had hoped the big lug would just play dead in the snow. Now he was on his belly, weaponless and wheezing. He was focused though, reaching for the side mirror and angling it so we could see Officer Harris checking the cartridge of his gun.

  “No need for a shootout,” Harris said, unaware we had nothing but our wits. “With one press of this little button on my radio I can have a hundred RCMP here in moments.”

  Something didn’t seem right about that threat. “Why don’t ya then?” I challenged.

  Officer Harris pretended to not hear me. “Just hand over the girl, and I’ll let you go.”

  “Kaya Lowen is Seth’s friend. He won’t like that very much.”

  Officer Harris laughed. “Friend? Hilarious. Seth doesn’t have friends. What he does have are plans for Miss Lowen, and I have recently discovered that those plans don’t involve us. Or, me rather, since you blasted my partner’s brains all over my car.”

  Officer Harris was stalling, crouching lower, readying his gun.

  “We were coming over to get wasted and pound the crap out of Seth,” he continued. “Who would imagine that we’d find Miss Lowen hiding in his house. What an unexpected bonus! And you did me a favor, asshole. Now I won’t have to split the hefty payout I’m gonna get for handing her over to her daddy.”

  Harris fired a shot that sent us circling away from him, scrambling around to the other side of the car.

  “Where is she?” he demanded.

  “Who?” I said, playing dumb as I pulled Oliver along behind me when he started to cough.

  Harris’s voice cut through the serene winter air. “Kaya Lowen. The billion-dollar skin bag you’ve been hiding. Bring her to me now.”

  I felt my body flood with heat, and I couldn’t stop myself. I was standing and facing a cop who had a gun pointed at my head. “She is not a skin bag. Why don’t you put that gun down so we can have a man-to-man conversation about that?”

  I marched away from the car and onto the open road. Harris grinned as I approached with my hands up to show him I was weaponless. The sun going down at his back was almost blinding, but not so blinding that I didn’t see the outline of someone sneaking up behind him.

  “Let’s talk, man to man, shall we?” I said, challenging him as a distraction. I knew the spineless prick wouldn’t drop his
gun.

  Harris was drunk with the power the gun gave him. Snickering, he kept his aim. “Nothing to talk about. You can call her what you want, but I’m going to call her ‘paycheck’. I’m also going to call you and your pal over there ‘dumb and stupider’ for not following orders when a man is pointing a gun at your face.”

  “It’s dumb and dumber,” the person sneaking up behind him said just before sending a bullet through his chest.

  Harris slumped to the road, and there, standing stoically behind him, was Marlene. Her jaw was set in determination, birthmark almost black, amber hair flowing around her shoulders as she lowered the gun to her side.

  “Are you okay, big guy?” she asked, chest heaving.

  I nodded before realizing the question was directed at Oliver, who open-mouthed stared at her like she’d grown wings and descended from the heavens. There was a hot-chick superhero vibe about her, and I had to give my head a shake.

  A scream breaking through the trees brought me and Oliver back down to earth.

  Marlene smiled. “That’s just Kaya. She’s kinda agitated with Thomas for following your orders.” Marlene cupped her hands to her mouth. “It’s safe, Thomas,” she yelled up at the trees.

  “The gun?” I asked, motioning to the piece of junk safely in Marlene’s hand.

  Marlene stepped over the cop she’d shot, cool as a cucumber. “Oh. It’s just a little sticky, like Ron, the thieving uncle who gave it to me. You just gotta know how to handle it right.”

  Indeed. But how to handle a raging Kaya, who was running out of the trees and into my arms after losing her mind that I had risked my neck for hers? Kiss her fiercely then nod approvingly at Thomas, who took a bit of a beating from her by the looks of it.

  Thankfully the radio in the cop car was off and so was the GPS. I was careful not to touch a thing. With my sleeves pulled down around my fingers, I put the car in drive and took it off the road and into the ditch. I got quite a few feet into the trees before the snow and a few large stumps stopped the wheels. I decided to check the trunk for guns and ammo or anything we could use before I covered it up, hoping no one would find it until spring, and gagged when I turned off the engine. The bodies in the backseat were already emitting that horrid stink of death.

  I got out, slipped the key into the trunk lock, and popped it open.

  Then I threw up.

  I didn’t even make it five feet from the rear of the cop car when my stomach decided to purge every bit of food I had eaten for the past year.

  “Luke, what’s wrong?” said Oliver, marching toward me from the road.

  I put my hand up. “Just stop there. Oliver… this… uh oh—”

  I heaved again, unable to warn Oliver to not look at what was in the trunk.

  “Holy mother of—” Oliver paused. “What the heck were these cops up to?”

  It was a body, slightly decayed, and next to it a few brown packages that were so familiar I could picture the hands that had wrapped them. “That’s my old boss,” I said.

  “Holy moly.” Oliver had his hands over his mouth and nose. “And I’m assuming those packages are drugs?”

  “Yup. Probably a few million dollars’ worth.” My legs were not holding me up so well.

  Oliver studied the scene then spun to face Kaya who was heading our way. “Stop right there, Kaya, I mean it,” he demanded.

  Of course she was defiant. “What`s going on? Luke, are you okay?”

  “Kaya Lowen, I mean it!” Oliver growled, putting one hand out for emphasis and using the other to pull me to my feet.

  Thomas was next to Kaya, encouraging her back to the road and out of earshot.

  “So, ex-boss, as in the drug dealer?” Oliver said quietly.

  I nodded. “Can we keep this between you and me?” This part of my past was so ugly, so brutal and horrific, I just couldn’t talk about it with anyone.

  “Of course,” Oliver said.

  I took in a few deep breaths, glad the world had stopped spinning. “I recognize those tattoos on his neck even if the rest of him is completely—” my stomach twisted at the thought of the blood and the mangled body with hands and feet bound and mouth covered in tape. But that wasn’t what had sent me dry heaving into the snow again.

  “What else, Luke. Tell me.” Oliver put his hand on my back.

  I could barely say her name. “Angela. The Girl in the dungeon. She said she was getting me a part of my past to ‘play with’ as a gift. I had told her my ex boss’s name at one point, it was impossible not to—and how he’d taken Louisa from me and held her for ransom and… Oh, my God, I told her everything.”

  “Louisa is fine, Luke. I promise.” Oliver had a hand on my shoulder. “She’s with two of the toughest bad-asses we know. Lisa and Regan will protect her no matter what. Besides, you have to remember that no one is interested in them. It’s Kaya they want.”

  The world around me became so heavy I thought I might fold under the weight. “We are standing amidst a crime scene, Oliver. The murder of two corrupt cops and a notorious drug lord.”

  “Yeah. So it kinda removes us from the spotlight, don’t it? Your past may have just saved our butts in the long run. Cops will be piecing together connections between the body in the trunk and the dead officers. They won’t think twice about the likes of us.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “Well, whether I am or not, it’s time to get the heck outta here.”

  We wiped down every inch of the car to erase our prints, then covered it in branches and as much snow as we could. Hopefully the cover of winter would conceal my past a little longer, until we were far, far away.

  By the time we got Marlene’s truck out of the ditch and back on the road, the sun was starting to go down. We were all soaked and shivering as the heat was sucked out through the broken back window. I pulled Kaya close, aching to make her warm, but my hands were blue. So were Thomas’s; he had his between his thighs, trying to rub the circulation back into his fingers after he’d taken off his own jacket to drape over Kaya. I was grateful for that, but I still hated him.

  “Where to now?” asked Marlene, cautiously pulling back onto the highway after we’d taken every back road we could find first. She cast a worried glance at Oliver next to her in the front seat, then accelerated onto the desolate stretch that would weave us between the mountains.

  Oliver coughed, his eyes watering. “We will freeze to death in this truck when the sun goes down,” he said through chattering teeth.

  Trees whizzed by. Minutes felt like days. When Marlene slowed to let a family of deer cross the highway, I noticed a sign: Rosewood Lake Cabins, closed for winter.

  “There, to the left, Marlene,” I said.

  She was already on it, taking the truck off the highway and onto a narrow stretch of white.

  The road was plowed for the first few miles, but came to an abrupt stop where a long length of chain blocked the continuation of what looked like more of the same road. There weren’t any tracks or signs of human activity past it, and no way was the truck getting through the snow. Thomas was out of the truck and grabbing whatever he could carry, trudging ahead without even a glance back to see if we were following.

  Teeth chattering, I dragged Kaya along beside me. She was quickly exhausted marching through snow up over her knees. At one point, despite her protests, I just scooped her up into my arms. Thankfully, Marlene was strong as an ox and able to help Oliver. By the time we got to the first of eight cabins, I was glad to see Thomas at the door of one using a credit card to try and slip it between the lock. He was swearing under his breath, hands shaking too hard to break in. Oliver marched up behind him, leaving Marlene doubled over and panting with exhaustion, and kicked the door off its hinges.

  “Well, that solves the lock problem,” Thomas said.

  The cabin was colder inside than it was outside and there was no power, but at least there was a fireplace and a stack of dry wood on the hearth. Collectively, we got a fire goi
ng, found every blanket in the place, and huddled together in front of the flames to get warm and dry.

  Marlene and Oliver sat on the mattress they’d pulled off the only bed. “I hope we didn’t set off an alarm or something,” Marlene said, arms around her knees.

  “As long as the power is out, we should be okay,” Oliver said. “It doesn’t look like these cabins are used at all in the winter, anyway.”

  “Geez. Who would even wanna stay here in the summer?” Marlene said, cringing. “Crammed into the trees with no running water or indoor bathroom. I’d rather stay home and shovel poop.”

  Oliver laughed, and it wasn’t lost on any of us that his eyes lingered too long on Marlene. “Ah, it’s not so bad. Heck, I’d rather do anything than shovel poop,” he said.

  “Yeah? You tell me if you still feel that way after you spend a few minutes out back on the love shack’s frosty throne.”

  Kaya was leaning next to me on the couch, her feet bare and thrust toward the fire. I recalled the vision of her pink-painted toes in the sand, and the river water clinging to her skin as the moonlight shimmered behind her. I had to think of anything else.

  “I didn’t know there were places without bathrooms,” Kaya said with a yawn, and I could feel her body getting warmer. “You mean you really have to go outside? I know that’s protocol when you’re camping and all, but at a place like this?”

  “Yup. Lots of places have biffies, Kaya. I’d suggest you just squat in the bushes though,” Marlene said. “It’s better than holding your nose and burning your lungs from the fumes.”

  “Fumes?” Kaya said innocently, and her voice sent a wild tingle through me.

  Marlene was enjoying educating her friend. “Yeah. Nothing gets flushed away there, princess. It’s a hole in the ground where uh, stuff, just stays.

  Kaya’s eyes widened. “Holy shit.”

  “Exactly,” Marlene said.

  Thomas remained quiet, and I pulled Kaya closer when his eyes met mine; he was dying to hold her, everything about his posture screamed it. If I let go—

  “Did anyone see any food in the kitchen?” Oliver asked.