Abi and the Boy Who Lied

by Kelsie Stelting

  “Is this the way to your house?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I wanted to show you something else first.”

  I looked around us, trying to make out any landmarks in the black landscape, but I couldn’t see much except lights of various sizes and colors in the distance.

  He parked and killed the headlights, bathing us in total darkness.

  I looked over to his features outlined in pale silver light. He would have been handsome to me in another life. One where I hadn’t met and been ruined by Jon Scoller.

  He turned his gaze on me. It seemed flat. “Do you see that line of lights up there?”

  I nodded.

  “It’s a feedlot,” he explained. “Most of the ranchers around here send their cattle there to fatten them up. At night, a lot of people meet the dealers there from across the border to get drugs.”

  Ice water dripped through my veins at the mention of drugs. I tried not to show just how much that word impacted me. Shook me to my core. So I just nodded.

  “They leave us alone, and we leave them alone. It’s just part of life by the border. I used to take my girlfriend—Lupita—out there at night to watch our cattle. We’d sit in the view box overlooking the lot and talk about our future. Her dad has a ranch just like mine does. We were going to merge our properties one day. Become one of the biggest operations in southwest Texas.”

  Why was he talking about her in the past tense? He’d never told me about her. “Where is she now?” I asked.

  His lips curled downward, and he rubbed his brows. “We were going out there one night, and there were police lights everywhere. They’d decided to bust them. This SUV came flying toward us, trying to outrun the cops, and clipped our front end. He kept going, but we caught the drop-off on the road and went flying.”

  A mental picture flooded my mind of Dad coming home after one of his stints away, our SUV with a damaged front end sitting in front of the house. He told Mom he’d driven into a fence. It couldn’t have been him. There were plenty of SUVs in the world.

  “My pickup rolled. Eight times. She was sitting by me in the middle seat. Wasn’t buckled up.”

  I covered my mouth, stifling the urge to vomit.

  “She flew through the window. The pickup crushed her, Abi. I found her, twenty yards off. I couldn’t even recognize her through all the blood, the meat.”

  I gagged.

  “She was dead before I even got to her. I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

  My eyes watered, while my throat stayed so dry I couldn’t even utter a worthless apology.

  “I swore I’d find the piece of shit who did it. Make them pay for what they took from me. From Lupita and her family and our future.” He stared at the lights, his face twisted. “So I went back, every night, waiting for that SUV. And it came back. I followed it, all the way through Texas. Back to some shithole town.

  “And I found exactly what I could take from him to make him feel even a little bit of the pain he caused me.” His eyes met mine, dark black and dead inside. “You.”

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  He lunged for me, but I reached for the door handle and scrambled out of the pickup. I fell onto the uneven ground, my hands scraping over rough weeds and cacti.

  I got my footing under me and ran, as fast as I could, as hard as I could, plucking spines from my hands.

  “GET BACK HERE, ABI!” Eric bellowed behind me. “WE’RE NOT FINISHED!”

  There was no time to think, to respond, only adrenaline flowing and arms pumping and legs burning to carry me as far away as possible.

  Footsteps pounded behind me, but I’d gotten a head start. I was fast. And the meal earlier combined with adrenaline rushing through my body gave me the energy I needed to outrun him. Or die trying.

  The footsteps stopped, but I didn’t give up, still racing as fast as I could. I didn’t trust my ears or anything other than my legs moving and moving until I was away from the monster I’d thought was my friend.

  The ground was uneven, but my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, going hyper-alert. I made sure to dodge the taller scrub bushes, the holes that randomly peppered the ground.

  An engine roared to life, Eric’s, and headlights flooded the pasture in front of me, blinding me.

  I raced down the hillside, panic rising up in my throat. I couldn’t outrun a pickup, not out here, and not forever.

  A gully at least five feet deep appeared in front of me, and I leapt over it. It wasn’t far enough. I scrabbled on the edge and pulled myself up. My survival depended on it.

  The horn honked loudly, repeatedly, and a little bit of me gave up inside, knowing there was no one near enough to hear what was happening. To save me.

  The earth in front of me started rising, but I knew going up a hill would just slow me down. I ran alongside the gully, clods of dirt dropping to the bottom and busting open.

  Tires spun against dirt behind me. He’d gone around the drop-off and was driving along the hillside, coming closer and closer.

  I chanced a glance back and caught sight of his arm sticking out the driver’s side window, a gun in his grasp.

  My heart stopped. Stalled. Gave out.

  But my legs kept working.

  I couldn’t outrun a bullet any more than I could a pickup.

  It fired off, the roar of the gun ringing in my ears.

  I waited for pain, but none came.

  He’d missed.

  Two more shots fired, but neither of them hit me either.

  Then came the sound of crunching metal, the headlights spewing all over the countryside, turning and making me dizzy.

  I chanced a look back. The hill had gotten too steep, and the pickup was rolling, down into the gully.

  My foot caught on a scrub bush, and I tumbled to the ground, scraping my already wounded cheek against hard earth. I got up just in time to see the pickup come to its final stop, lying on its side in the middle of the gully, headlights pointed straight ahead.

  For some strange, sadistic, masochistic reason, my heart went to the man inside the pickup. But I couldn’t let my thoughts stay there if I wanted to keep my life.

  So I ran. I ran with tears streaking down my eyes. I ran until every single breath burned and my feet ached, begging me to stop.

  I ran until the floodlights of a simple country home came into view and I reached the front door, banging frantically.

  A Hispanic woman in nightwear and her husband came to the door, their eyes squinted against the newly lit lights in their home.

  In a fraction of a second, their expressions fired from drowsy to shocked.

  Exhausted, ragged, bleeding, I couldn’t manage more than a gasp. “Help.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  They spoke to each other in hurried Spanish as the man hooked his arms under my elbows and brought me inside to their kitchen.

  She shoved the chairs aside, and he lowered me to the floor, still speaking in Spanish. Giving orders, I realized, as his wife left, returning with wet rags and a brown bottle.

  “Que paso?” he asked, his accent thick.

  “What?” I muttered, eyes darting from him to the hands fumbling with the brown bottle.

  “What happened?” he asked with a heavy accent.

  The woman whispered, “Be painful,” and then splashed peroxide over my arm. I cried out as she began plucking what looked like cactus spines from my skin.

  My words ached against my throat as I gritted them out. “He tried to kill me.”

  “Alguna persona trato a matarse,” the man said.

  His wife gasped.

  “Where?” he demanded, standing up and going to the doorway. To the shotgun that leaned against the coatrack.

  I managed to point in the direction I’d run from. “He wrecked. A white pickup.”

  His eyes went wide, and he said, “Llama la policia. Y los Shepherds.”

  I recognized Eric’s last name.

  They knew him. His pickup.

  Th
e door slammed behind him, and the woman left me to go to the phone. She spoke in hurried Spanish before hanging up.

  “Cops be here soon,” she managed, carefully picking each word. She held the phone out to me. “You call?”

  I reached for it, my fingers going to the keys, pressing out the numbers that were more familiar than my own.

  “This is Jon,” he answered.

  And at the sound of his voice, I broke down into sobs.

  Chapter Sixty

  The police came to the house. They brought paramedics with them who picked up where the woman left off.

  I still didn’t know her name.

  They spoke to her in Spanish, and then one of the officers left.

  An older man crouched in front of me on the kitchen floor, then sat down cross-legged like he hadn’t been lower than a chair in twenty years.

  He wrapped his arms around his knees and laced his fingers together. “You’ve been through a lot tonight.”

  I nodded.

  “And it’s not over.” His voice was firm, urgent. “I need you to tell me what happened.”

  As I repeated the nightmare I was still living, my voice didn’t even sound like it belonged to me. It was impassive, numb, stating gory details that would horrify another person as appalling facts.

  But I’d been through pain before. I’d tried to run away. I’d suffered beatings, wondering if it would go on until I died. I’d been through police interrogations.

  There had just never been a gun.

  The enemy had never been someone I trusted on my own volition.

  Never someone unrelated.

  The only part of me that felt anything was the part that held on to Jon. I’d managed to tell him I was somewhere in Texas. That the cops were coming. That I loved him.

  When the lights flashed outside, the woman took the phone from me.

  He still didn’t know where I was.

  But he’d made me a promise. “I’m coming.”

  The cop tore my thoughts away from Jon. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re about an hour southeast of El Paso.”

  The door to the house opened, and two people who looked to be hastily dressed walked in. They immediately went to the officer.

  “Sheriff Anderson. Where’s Eric?” the woman demanded while the man looked around the house. At me.

  He had Eric’s wavy hair, though it was thinning at the top. And his chin.

  I cringed away from him.

  The Hispanic woman noticed and pulled me into her, protecting me from him.

  “What’s going on?” the man said harshly.

  The sheriff answered, “We have reason to believe your son attacked this young lady as revenge for Lupita’s death.”

  The woman who had to be Eric’s mom covered her mouth and sagged into her husband. “No.”

  “He wrecked his vehicle in the pasture south of here. We have officers searching for him now.”

  “Is he alive?” she asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  She came closer to me, yelling, “What did you do to him?”

  Her husband held her back, but that didn’t stop her words. “Eric would never hurt anyone! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM?”

  The woman holding me stood up, positioning her petite body between me and Eric’s mom, pointing at the door. “OUT!”

  She didn’t have more words in English, but she didn’t need them. The officer herded them outside where there was more yelling. More wailing.

  Soon, lights flashed, and Eric’s parents disappeared. I still couldn’t get them out of my mind. Eric’s face when he’d said he knew what to take from my dad.

  Eric had everything. Parents who cared. A true love. A job and a path to a degree. A future to come home to. And he’d wasted it trying to get back at a man who couldn’t care less about me.

  A few knocks sounded on the door, and a woman walked in. She looked…normal. Too normal for the situation, dressed in jeans and a plain T-shirt, a cardigan wrapped tightly around her.

  Her eyes were sharp as they met mine, and then she went to the Hispanic woman who still paced the kitchen, guarding me like I was her own daughter.

  My heart ached for her loss. I didn’t think I could feel any more hatred toward my parents, but what I felt for my dad went beyond that. I despised him for doing this to them.

  And for what? Another fix? Some extra cash he would just use on more drugs?

  It disgusted me in every possible sense of the word. His web had stretched far beyond my bruises. Beyond our family. How many people had been affected by the drugs he and Mom used, bought and sold? How many families?

  The woman with sharp eyes came and crouched in front of me. My protector let her by, so I immediately trusted her.

  “Abigail,” she said. “I’m with the El Paso PD. The sheriff thought you might be more comfortable staying with me instead of at the jail until arrangements can be made to get you home.”

  I looked between her and the other woman, nodded.

  “Follow me.” She started toward the door, and I trailed behind her. I didn’t have anything to bring with me.

  I was about to shut the door behind me when I looked back and saw my self-appointed caretaker standing in the kitchen. In the last few hours, she’d been more of a rescuer—more of a mom—than mine had ever been.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Mireya,” she said.

  “Thank you, Mireya.” I stalled. “For everything.”

  My words would never be enough, but they were all I had.

  Chapter Sixty-One

  The cop, Sheila, let me sit in the front seat of her patrol car. She waited for me to get belted in before driving down the dirt road, headlights illuminating the path ahead.

  I sank low in my seat, remembering the sounds of gunshots behind me.

  I could be dead in the middle of a pasture right now, but instead, I’d escaped. I never could have done that when I’d weighed more than two hundred pounds. But I couldn’t have done it this morning either.

  I needed to treat my body better. Like the useful, life-saving tool it had been for me. Not something designed to earn respect or affection. Jon had done what he had to for my protection, but the truth was, it was never his fault. I’d tortured myself all on my own, holding on to fabricated evidence that told me I didn’t deserve any good in life.

  “Do you have questions?” Sheila asked.

  I dragged myself away from my thoughts. “When…how am I getting home?”

  “We will make calls tonight to get you back. We have the resources to drive you there if needed.”

  I nodded. “How soon will we leave?”

  “As soon as we know the plan.”

  Now that I’d escaped, I wanted to get back to the safety of Woodman as soon as possible. To tell Jon how wrong I’d been. To thank Nikki for caring for me like I should have been caring for myself. To hold my grandma tighter than I ever had before.

  “How far is your house?” I asked.

  “Another ten minutes.”

  I waited, my body still strung tighter than a guitar string ready to break. Adrenaline was slowly dissipating from my system, leaving only pain behind. The morning would be rough, but nothing compared to what I’d been through.

  She parked in front of a simple stucco home with a one-car garage. My eyes darted around us on the way to the front door to see if anyone was watching.

  At least we seemed to be alone.

  She let me inside and flipped on the lights, revealing a warmly decorated living room. Somewhere deep inside me wondered whether she regularly brought people here. Victims here.

  “This is the living room,” she said, locking the door behind her. When both deadbolts were secured, she started through the room, indicating I should follow her.

  She showed me the kitchen, where the food was, the bathroom, her room, and the guest room. We stood inside the latter together as sh
e retrieved extra blankets and some generic sweats from the dresser that told me she certainly had done this before.

  Then she showed me the windows—the locks on them.

  “You are safe here,” she reassured, meeting my eyes. “I know it will be hard to sleep after everything you’ve been through, but you are safe. I will be awake in the living room all night, looking out for you.”

  My eyes watered as that word—safe—echoed in my mind.

  “You must be starving,” she said. “I’ll bring you some food.”

  My chest constricted the second she closed the door behind her. I busied myself changing out of my track clothes that were still stained with blood and dirt. I hoped the athletic department would be okay with the damage, then realized I was ridiculous for thinking of that in a time like this.

  Sheila came back in, bringing a tray of food and drink options, and then left me to myself. I wasn’t hungry at first, but I forced myself to eat—to do what I knew was good for me. When the food passed my lips, I became ravenous, eating and drinking until every bit was gone.

  My eyelids got heavy, and I fell asleep, dreaming of all I would say when I finally saw Jon.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  My dreams became so real, it almost felt like Jon was lying in bed next to me, holding me tight and cocooning me from the world. I needed him—his protection and warmth. His love.

  Dream Abi relaxed into him, letting Jon cradle her.

  Real Abi blinked her eyes open and realized she hadn’t been dreaming at all.

  I sat bolt upright in the bed, and Jon rose behind me. He was fully dressed, in jeans and a T-shirt, his tennis shoes still on his feet. My heart clung to him, something familiar in this unfamiliar space—unfamiliar situation.

  He moved to sit beside me, his hand on my back. I felt every single one of his fingers, the comforting pressure soothing my aching body.