Rough & Ready

by Pratt, Lulu

  That was the thought that propelled me into the door once again.

  And on the third try, it worked.

  The metal crumpled beneath my bone. I felt a sharp impact as the frame of the trailer curled around me, burning a hole through part of my T-shirt. There would be a scar later, I knew, but couldn’t think about it just then.

  Smoke poured out of the hole I’d just put in the structure.

  I didn’t pause to call for Phoebe. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was inside.

  So I dove into the trailer, fighting off the smoke that was stinging my eyes and choking my airways.

  Through a bleary vision, made worse by smoke and confusion, I looked for Phoebe.

  Sure enough, through fog and flame, I saw her, lying on the bed, apparently passed out alone.

  I ran to her, feeling something hot streak my face, wondering if it was fire only to realize later that they were tears. The fire surged around me as though it were a living thing, anxious and hungry to consume my flesh. I would let it, too, if only I could get Phoebe out alive.

  In one swift move, I scooped her up in my arms and stumbled to the door, trying not to fall as the smoke messed with my mind.

  Against all odds, I made it through the gaping hole the discarded door had left in the trailer and flew down the steps. But I didn’t stop there — Phoebe still limp in my arms, I hit the concrete and began running to the truck. Henry was in the front seat, crying and screaming.

  I made it halfway when a noise split my eardrum asunder, the sound of an enormous explosion, the shocks of which I felt from the soles of my feet up through the hair on my neck. I dropped flat to the ground, cradling Phoebe against me and hoping, praying that my body would be enough to protect her from whatever evil had just been unleashed.

  After a moment, I turned to look back, and saw desolation and total destruction.

  The trailer had caught fire. Even as my mind careened with adrenaline, I guessed that the flames had gotten to the tank, igniting the gas. It’d been a miracle that it hadn’t exploded earlier, that I’d seen the flames just in time, that Phoebe was in my grasp.

  My lungs ached, but I maintained consciousness, enough to lay Phoebe flat on the concrete beneath me and check her air flow.

  “Fuck!” I screamed.

  Her pale face was cold, her mouth hanging open. She wasn’t breathing.

  Over the sounds of Henry’s cries, piercing even through the whoosh of the flames in my ears, I began CPR.

  CHAPTER 26

  Phoebe

  I REMEMBER there was cold, and then there was heat. Lots and lots of heat, pressing down on me as though it had taken a single, human form and sat on my chest, pinning me to the bed and toying with me.

  Had that been the flames? Or had that been something else?

  There was more heat. There was waking, and then there was the state between, where everything ran together like colors down a drain, sifting out of my mind, moving away with the flow of the tide.

  I remember, very specifically, knowing that I was going to die. There wasn’t fear — it was too late for fear — just an utter certainty. In fact, a kind of calm descended on me. Dying was out of my control. All I had to do was lie still and let it happen.

  But then there was weight against my own, and death receded into the background, angry that it’d been cheated. There was warmth again, only now, the warmth didn’t feel like it danger, it felt like home. I wanted to wake up, to see the warmth, but my eyes seemed taped shut, my mouth stuffed with invisible socks of dry heat.

  There was something hard beneath me again. Why was this all so confusing? Why had death left? I’d just been getting used to her.

  “Phoebe,” a familiar voice said, its low tones rasping. “Phoebe, please, I’m begging you, wake up.”

  A mouth was on mine, lips that tasted like soot and sweat, that clamped down on my own as if spasming with fear.

  I came to all at once, like the priest was pulling me out of the water post-baptism. The world cramped in around me, each piece anxious to make itself known, everything demanding my attention.

  Above me hovered a man, tears and grime streaking his face.

  The name came to me as though it were inscribed on my tongue.

  “Carter?”

  He sat back on his heels, shutting his eyes and murmuring something I could not hear, before leaning back over me.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  I reached up with one weak, shaking hand and wiped the tears from his face. “Yes.” And then, “You saved me.”

  He shook his head. “I was the one who put you in danger. I was the one who brought Meghan here, who — Phoebe, I’m so sorry. I abandoned you. I knew what she was capable of, and I abandoned you. And that was after I myself made you her target. Where’s Jo-Beth? She wasn’t with you.”

  Life was resolving around me. Memories were coming back into place, understanding and insights gleaned from existence were settling into their carved out hollows. I was reemerging from the depths of the great beyond.

  And I knew that Carter was referring to Meghan, and I knew that he was wrong.

  “Jo-Beth went for a walk, but you came back for me,” I said. “That’s what matters.”

  “Phoebe, I have so much to say but right now… we need to get the fuck out of town.”

  Wordlessly, he lifted me up off the ground. I nestled into his chest as he jogged forward, my head bumping against him.

  “What’s wrong!” someone screamed.

  Henry, my brain supplied.

  I was deposited into the seat, and Henry’s small hand fell on my face. “Daddy?! What’s wrong with Phoebe!”

  “Phoebe’s gonna be all right,” Carter said, trying to maintain his composure. “Please sit still. Daddy has to drive now.”

  Turning to me, Carter asked, “Do you know where Jo-Beth went?”

  “Miss Keller’s,” I managed to say, though it felt like cotton had been knitted to my tongue. “Jo-Beth went for a walk and she said she was going to Miss Keller for some food.”

  The truck jerked ahead, and Carter slammed the wheel. “Shit, I’d forgotten. We’ll have to switch cars at the garage or something, we can’t fit four in this seat, it’s not safe. Godammit!”

  “It’s fine,” I reassured him, trying to sit up and failing.

  “It’s not fine. I don’t see Meghan, but she can’t be far behind.”

  Oh. That seemed like a good point.

  Carter’s truck lurched back and forth across the highway. This couldn’t be safe, but what other choice did we have? Better a zigzagging truck than an ex-wife who was out for blood.

  Carter stopped in front Miss Keller’s. I could see Jo-Beth nursing a cup of coffee and reading her book with her backpack beside her.

  Turning to me, Carter asked, “Are you able to get her from inside? I want to keep the truck running.”

  I nodded and moved clumsily out of the truck, my legs quivering beneath me as blood flow resumed. Under normal circumstances, I probably would’ve been confined to a bed for hours, but this was life and death.

  Stumbling like a drunkard, I scrambled headlong to the entryway, throwing my body against the glass. I slammed on the window with one hand, not sure I had the dexterity of my fingers had returned enough to manage the door.

  Jo-Beth looked up, and immediately spotted me. Her mouth dropped open as she pushed back from the table and raced up to me. I stepped back just in time as she got to the door.

  “What the fuck is this?!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, eyes racing over my smoke-blackened body.

  “Fire. Carter’s ex. Et cetera.”

  “Are you okay?” Her hands ran over my skin, checking for cuts and breaks and burns, finding none.

  “We’ve gotta go.”

  She nodded, suddenly all business, running back to grab her backpack and throw a couple of dollars on the table, before put an arm beneath my underpit and helped me back to the car.

  He
nry opened the front door and, with Carter’s help, Jo-Beth got me back in the front seat.

  “Where the hell are we going?” she asked, climbing into the bed and talking through the window.

  “The garage,” Carter explained. “We can’t drive like this out of town.”

  “We’re leaving town?!”

  My head lolled to her and I explained, “The Airstream burned.”

  “Oh my God, is that why you look like this?”

  I tilted my head forward, approximating a nod.

  “And our stuff inside is gone.” A statement, not a question.

  I did another half-nod.

  “Well, it was just some clothes,” Jo-Beth said. “At least you are safe.”

  She reached in and rubbed my hand and looked at me with tears in her eyes. “And we’re on the run why?”

  “Long story.”

  She looked at me and asked, “Is this what you were talking about earlier, the story I wasn’t allowed to know?”

  “Yuuup.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Well, at least you weren’t exaggerating. That’s something.”

  I snorted and she smiled, as I wiped dust off my face while Henry squirmed in his booster seat. Carter’s hand fell reassuringly on my shoulder, its very weight a safety blanket against the outside world.

  Had he forgiven me? Better yet, had I forgiven him?

  It was a matter for later. Right then, I was pretty focused on, like, surviving.

  We pulled up to the garage. The drive hadn’t been long. Even Henry stayed quiet as we all kept our fingers crossed and our eyes searching the road before us. Our heart rates seemed to move in unison.

  “We’re here,” Carter announced, as though we hadn’t already deduced as much. “I’m gonna go see if, by some miracle, your car is ready. If not, maybe Big Bob has something I can buy off him.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I do,” he said, turning to face me as he climbed out of the truck. “I absolutely do. Just stay here.”

  Carter walked out of my line of sight. This, at last, forced me to sit up. I was anxious to watch his every move, so if he was going to walk to the garage, I was just going to have to get over my wooziness and become upright.

  Jo-Beth climbed out of the flat bed and helped me into a sitting position, and Henry’s little fist tapped on my head.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, innocent and confused.

  “Yeah, little dude, I’m okay.” I most certainly was not, but a six year old didn’t need to know that.

  Carter stopped in the middle of the garage, and Big Bob — that old asshole — came out to meet him.

  “Yeah, part came early, and I did most of the fixin’,” Big Bob said.

  Wait, what?!

  “So we can drive it?” I shouted.

  Carter sighed, a little exasperated by my unwillingness to just stay put, but shouted back, “Big Bob was in uh… in the mood to do me favors today. I just gotta put the final touches on and we can go.”

  That was good enough for me.

  I scooted opened the door, and hopped out. Jo-Beth was taking the booster seat out of the truck as Henry stood beside her watching.

  “How’d you get the part, Bob?” I asked, strolling — well, limping — up to them, my lungs still burning from oxygen deprivation.

  The auto repair owner looked sideways, his cheeks going red. “Figured it was the least I could do, after how I behaved.”

  I looked to Carter. “Did you put him up to this?”

  Carter shrugged. “Do you care if I did?”

  So that was a ‘yes.’ But he was right, I didn’t care.

  “Okay,” I said. “Go fix the car and we’ll get the hell out.”

  Carter jogged to my rustbucket, which was sitting just around the side of the building.

  I began to follow Carter. Jo-Beth and Henry were somewhere close by, but out of my line of sight, and I didn’t have the energy to track them.

  Big Bob shouted at me, “So Carter’s leaving town, huh?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Tell him to pay me back!”

  I rolled my eyes. “All right, Bob.”

  Old coot. I was clearly injured and unwell and all he could do was ask after some fucking money. Though, frankly, it was better that than our first encounter.

  Anxious to be far, far away from Big Bob, I left the garage in disgust and walked around the side, to where Carter was busily repairing the car, sliding his body beneath the vehicle.

  “How long?”

  From under the car, he called out, “’Bout five minutes.”

  “Okay.”

  Big Bob got into his car and drove off, perhaps annoyed that we were getting on without his commentary.

  I stood there staring at Carter’s legs peeking out like he was the Wicked Witch of the East, smashed by one wayward house flying through a cyclone. They’re good legs, I thought in my dazedness. Strong. Can legs alone keep you safe? Because it felt like his might be able to manage the task.

  Jo-Beth and Henry were straggling somewhere behind me. I heard her fussing with his clothing – something had come unbuttoned. We’d all gotten awfully close in such a short period of time. My friend, who hadn’t even slept with Carter, was fixing up his son’s top. How had that happened? How had life zoomed by without ever announcing its intentions? Is this what adulthood was, things just happening all at once without the courtesy of so much as an Evite?

  I would miss Rough and Ready. I would miss Henry. Most of all, I would miss Carter. Even just then, as we were racing away from danger — only to presumably separate once we made our way to a bigger city — I felt a tangible loss at what was certain to be gone by morning.

  And then I had another stark feeling:

  Thin metal against my neck.

  I screamed.

  CHAPTER 27

  Carter

  IT WAS A dull, raspy cry, one I could barely make out from beneath the car.

  I turned my head to the side, away from the car’s low hanging parts, to the concrete wall of the garage.

  There, alongside Phoebe’s sweet little sneakers, was a pair of tennis shoes, their tops covered by the blooming hem of black yoga pants.

  Meghan.

  I pushed myself out from under the car, banging my head as I went but not caring about anything so mild as a bruised skull.

  As I emerged I rolled onto my stomach and darted to my feet, and was met with a horrific sight.

  Meghan had a knife at Phoebe’s throat. Phoebe was trying to push away, but though Meghan was small, she was strong.

  Not far behind them and a little to the left, Jo-Beth was holding Henry’s hand. Both of them stared, transfixed in horror.

  Even through the sweat and haze of the moment, I saw Jo-Beth mouthing something. What was she saying? My vision was narrowing as Phoebe’s screams filled my ears.

  Car.

  That’s what she was saying — car.

  Jo-Beth held Henry’s hand up meaningfully, then gestured with her head to the car, which was directly behind me. She and my boy were out of Meghan’s sight line.

  Ah. Got it. If I could keep Meghan distracted, turn her around somehow, Jo-Beth and Henry could get in Phoebe’s car. Even if I died in the process, at least Jo-Beth would be able to drive off with my son. It wasn’t a good solution, but it was the best I had.

  “What are you doing, Meghan?” If I could just keep her talking, maybe walk forward and maneuver her one-eighty degrees, Henry stood a chance.

  Phoebe’s face was white and the knife was pressing against her neck. God, what had I wrought?

  “You locked me up,” Meghan spat, “for years. Years! I missed a whole world.”

  “You tried to kill me and my son,” I replied, walking forward.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Jo-Beth lift Henry into her arms and prepare to make a run for it.

  “Only kind of,” Meghan said. “Now, enough of this nonsense. Take me back, Carter. You’re
the one man who gets me.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “You love me,” she said simply. “Even if you don’t think you do. I’m your kind of crazy, sweet cheeks.”

  I shook my head, my chest rising and falling fast. “That’s not true. And I know it’s not because I’m in love with someone else.”

  Meghan pressed the knife closer to Phoebe’s throat. “Surely you don’t mean—”

  “Phoebe,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.

  If this was the last thing I ever did before Meghan murdered me, then so be it.

  I stormed up to Meghan and Phoebe, shouting as I walked, “Phoebe, I love you. I’m sorry it has to be like this, but I love you.”

  Meghan’s mouth tightened into a hard line. “You don’t know what you love. You love bitches, assholes. Scum. You love me.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Stop right there!” she shouted. “Don’t take another move, or I kill her!”

  I looked in Phoebe’s eyes, and knew Meghan wasn’t joking. Phoebe couldn’t stand much longer. Between the fire and this, she was on her last legs.

  I stepped to Meghan’s side, as if circling her. She pivoted, forcing Phoebe to move with her, using the woman I loved as a shield. I circled another ninety degrees, and now my back was to the wall.

  Over Meghan’s shoulder, I saw Jo-Beth, with Henry in her arms, run to Phoebe’s car. Good. Now all I had to do was tear Phoebe from Meghan’s grasp and we could get the hell out of Dodge.

  But how could I? If I took another step in Meghan’s direction, she’d cut Phoebe. Given Phoebe’s current state, that wasn’t a risk worth taking.

  Distract her, my brain supplied. Buy time.

  I leveled my gaze at Phoebe and began to speak from the heart. For the first time, I didn’t modulate my words, didn’t wonder whether or not it was a good idea, didn’t question how much I should say. This was do or die, and if we both should fall, she should hear the truth.