by Skyler Andra
“Right,” Rane continued. “I’m not going to handcuff her, for the love of…”
What the hell? Why was the person on the other end of the call suggesting such extreme measures? I’d already agreed to come to Seattle hadn’t I?
“Well, I do,” he said. “And I’m the one calling the shots here, so shut it. I put a tracking app on her phone. That’ll help.”
Whatever faith I had in Rane crumbled to bits in that instant. He didn’t trust me. He’d played me for a fool. Memories of the night we shared in the hotel flooded back. How I thought him sweet and considerate for buying me clothes and a new phone. At the time, it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask for them, and they had made a world of difference. Now it looked like a ploy, and my heart ached.
No. No heart, not right now. Scratch that off. I couldn’t risk getting all mushy about Rane, not when the stakes were suddenly much higher. A sickening feeling spread across my stomach, at how much I had come to depend on him, how often I had thought that Rane would handle things. Now I couldn’t let him handle anything. Not when I didn’t trust him or whoever he talked to behind my back. Everything had changed, and I had to figure out what came next very quickly.
Careful not to make too much noise, I crept back to the campsite. I snatched the keys ready to take off in the car when Rane approached. God, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
“Locke,” he growled. “Come on. We should hit the road. We can make some good distance today, I think.”
“Oh, good.” Something about my noncommittal reply made Rane take a closer look at me.
“Are you all right?” he said, noticing the keys in my hands. “You look a little pale.”
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Think I just slept wrong last night. I’m really not used to roughing it.”
Rane smiled a little, and it made my chest flush with heat, at how sweet and easy he was with me. How sickeningly charming he could be as he delivered me up to a place that certainly did not sound as if it had my interests at heart. How he did sleazy things like tap the phone he had given me. What he heck was his game anyway? Did he think I might run? Well I sure as hell felt like it.
“Maybe sometime after this is all over we can go to Yellowstone,” he said, prying the keys from my fingers. “If you don’t mind dodging grizzlies, it’s beautiful there.”
Refusing to join Rane in his little charade, I just nodded unenthusiastically. When we got back in the car, I leaned back in the seat and pretended to fall asleep as soon as we got on the road. It wasn’t much of a defense, but it was all I had when I desperately needed the time to think.
The miles rolled away behind us, and when Rane pulled into a busy gas station a few hours later, I’d hatched a plan. It wasn’t a very good one, and there were a million places where it might go wrong, but I had to take my chances because it was evident that I couldn’t trust Mads or Rane. The other option was to keep on living in ignorant bliss, pretending everything was all good, falling for Rane, and to let whatever happened to me happen. I had never been okay with just going with the flow like that, so terrible plan it was.
Rane got out to gas up the car, and I joined him, stretching and moving around a little. He shot me a disapproving look. Ever since the news broadcast painting us as robbers, he didn’t really like us both being out of the car at once. It made us too obvious to any cops who might happen to pass by. Besides the big truck and the SUV, we were the only other people at the joint.
To one side of the convenience store, tables under a sheltered area, housed a picnic area for visitors. The woman from the SUV rushed over there to changed her baby’s diaper.
Gross. Remind me never to eat from one of those tables ever again.
Time to make my move.
“I’m going to run in there to use the bathroom really quick, all right?” I said.
Rane nodded, probably biting his tongue to tell me not to be too long. As I walked up to the convenience store, I kept an eye on him in the glass windows. For a moment, I thought he’d watch me all the way to the door, and then my plan would be screwed. Thankfully, he turned back to the car, and as luck would have it, a truck with out-of-state plates rolled out of the gas station. I sent up a prayer, to god, to Eros, and I lobbed the tainted phone that Rane had given me right into the truck bed.
Not looking back, I entered the store, scanning it quickly for a possible escape route. There was nothing special about it, with all the usual fanfare from a gas station. Chip and candy stand besides a newspaper and magazine rack. A counter along the side stocked with hot foods like hot dogs and pies. Refrigerator up the back packed with sodas. Gas pumps and a rack of beef jerky blocked the glassed cashier’s booth from sight.
An older woman behind the counter scowled at me as if she thought me a thief canvasing her shop.
I approached her and asked, “Can I hide behind the counter?”
She blinked at me, her eyes a tired and slightly confused brown. “Read the sign. It says employees only.”
“Please,” I begged. “Just for a few minutes. I need to get out of sight. It’s incredibly important that I do.”
I risked a glance over my shoulder, catching Rane wiping the road grit off of the car’s windshield. Trust him to be so very diligent. All that really mattered was that it would buy me a few extra moments.
“Please, this is really important,” I told her. “That’s my boyfriend out there. We’re not having a great time. Last night he…and I need to get away from him. Please.” I put some of the desperation that I felt in my voice.
Sure, I stretched my imagination, and made up stories for my phone sex job. But lying to someone’s face didn’t leave me feeling like an upstanding person. It left me feeling sick to the stomach. I didn’t make up anything else, because hopefully the woman behind the counter—Lisa, according to the faded red letters on her name tag—would fill in the blanks herself. To get past the guilt of misleading her, I told myself that it was barely a lie, that my desperation was real, and somehow she managed to pick up on that.
“All right,” she said with a sigh. “Come in. But get your head down so he don’t see you.”
I felt weak with relief when she opened the door and let me into her tiny glassed-in cubicle, barely spacious enough to fit two people. Stowing myself under the counter, I pressed myself against the crates of illegal fireworks stashed there, wondering how much she sold them for and if the local sheriff turned a blind eye. The floor was terribly sticky as if the place hadn’t seen a mop for years, but it was perfect for my plan, and all I had to do was check if Rane took the bait.
The door clicked close as someone entered the convenience store. It could have been the father who owned the SUV that had just used the gas pumps, but I doubted it. At some point over the last few days, I had learned to recognize Rane’s step, a purposeful and careful gait despite his big frame. Boots shuffled across the floor as if he searched the aisles restlessly. They retreated and I imagined him heading to the back of the store, rapping on the door to the women’s restroom.
“Hey!” the cashier shouted. “That’s the ladies’ room. You don’t have any call to be messing around back there.” Her voice shook a little even as she scolded Rane. I knew she had nothing to be afraid of, but of course she could have no idea.
“Sorry,” Rane said, his voice sounding harried. “I was just waiting for my friend.”
“Brown hair, black T-shirt?” the cashier asked.
“Yes,” he replied a little too desperately.
“She left just a second ago,” the cashier advised. “Probably in the little picnic area off to the side of the store.”
I heard Rane curse low and forcefully, and storm out of the store.
“Stay down,” Lisa hissed.
But I couldn’t resist peeping above the counter to see him stalk around the side, then reappear a few minutes later, running his hands through his hair. He pulled out his cell phone as he marched back to the car. From my position, it was impossible to see w
hat he did next.
As I crouched, I imagined him checking the app he’d installed on my cell phone, to locate me, swearing as the dot representing me moved away quickly with a few minutes head start. My plan wasn’t perfect, but it was better than nothing, and I knew it worked when Rane roared out of the parking lot.
I stood up on shaky legs.
Lisa eyed me with sympathy. “He did a real number on you, didn’t he?”
I laughed, sounding a lot more hysterical than I wanted it to. “Yeah, you could say that.”
For some reason, I was on the brink of tears in the face of Lisa’s kindness. Deep down, I’d buried my feelings for Rane, and I also wanted to cry about that, but I couldn’t focus on that right now.
“Now, now, honey.” Lisa hugged me. “It’s all right, we’ve all been there.”
No, you really, really haven’t, I wanted to say, but I didn’t have the time to get into the concept of possible godly powers with her. “I need to get out of here. He’ll figure out soon that…”
Lisa brushed away hair from my eyes. “Well, I’m getting off my shift in a ten minutes, when Randy arrives. Why don’t you come home with me, honey? We can get you where you need to go, and it’ll be fine, all right? I promise you, this is not forever. Things won’t always be this hard, so it’s best to just keep going.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled. “Thank you so very much. I…I have nothing to give you, I just…”
I tried to hold her words close to me. It wouldn’t always be this hard. My heart wouldn’t always feel as if it had been shredded to pieces and then left to lie where it had fallen.
True to her word, Randy arrived for his shift, his shirt untucked, hair all messy. Lisa didn’t waste a second, sweeping me into her care, and driving me to her home. It turned out that she was something of a family matriarch. At her ramshackle house that had likely started as two double-wide trailers, she shooed away the small children who gathered to stare at me curiously, sending one out for someone named Jeff.
“Now, you look like someone who needs to get somewhere in a hurry,” she said once we were inside. “Is that right?”
“I do,” I said. “But I also have no idea where I am, and he has all the money.”
The urge to cry rose again, because I’d been so woolly-headed that I had never even questioned letting Rane hold all the cash. I felt raw, helpless after just a few days with him, and I had to work to turn it back into anger before I started to weep.
Lisa clucked her tongue wisely, patting my hand. “He looked like a hard man, too. You mustn’t blame yourself, hon, but look out. Men like him are a dime a dozen.”
They really weren’t, and that was probably a good thing. Think of the damage that a dozen Rane Elladons could do.
“Thank you for being so kind to me,” I said. “You don’t even know my name.”
“And I don’t want to know it,” Lisa said briskly. “That way, if someone comes by asking for Meg or Amy or Carolyn, I never heard of ’em, got it?”
“Got it,” I said, attempting a wan smile. There was something tough about Lisa, and though I didn’t want to rely on others, something told me she would get me where I needed to go.
“All right,” she said. “Right now, you’re in Idaho, real close to the border, near Oregon. You got any people in the area?”
I blinked, surprised, because I did. Fancy that. I knew a guy who lived in Boise. However, my mind might be overstating the degree to which he would help me. Byron Sevarin and I hadn’t parted on the best of terms, but there was a time when he’d been the person I’d trusted most.
Five years ago, I had been an idiot, he had been a jerk, and things were said that I’d thought we could never recover from. Now I had better hope that we might put those things behind us, because the other people I might be able to beg for help, like my sweet old neighbor, were across the country from me.
“Yes I do,” I told Lisa. “I could get to Boise, and I might be all right from there…”
“All right.” She patted the sides of my shoulders. “Let’s get you fixed up before Jeff gets here, and then we’ll get you going.”
Chapter 13
Before I could protest, I was dressed in the skinny jeans and school T-shirt of a University of Idaho undergrad, and a dorky snapback hat so I could shield my face a little as I went. Lisa packed me a lunch, giving me a running commentary on how I was the only one who would look out for me, all the while, she herself was looking out for me.
“Oh, Jeff, you’re here,” Lisa announced, as a lanky man in his late teens or early twenties, arrived. He looked as if a firm wind might blow him over, but listened carefully as she told him about my plight.
“Sorry that happened to you, ma’am,” he said. “Come on. I’ll take you to Boise. Isn’t that far from here.”
I was a little startled to be called ‘ma’am’ when I was at most two years older than Jeff.
Lisa gave me a big hug. “Now you be careful, hon.”
Somewhat to my own surprise, I returned it, tears in my eyes. “You’ve been great.”
She brushed me off and pushed me away. “Get your life back on track, young lady. Remember that you only get one life.”
“I will,” I promised.
I followed Jeff to his ancient boat of a car parked in the driveway. It turned out we were only three hours from Boise. I fully intended to stay alert and to entertain him, but the events of the morning caught up with me. A stray ray of autumn sunshine came into the car, and I was out like a light.
I couldn’t remember any of my dreams when I woke up, but my jaw was clamped tight. When Jeff saw that I was awake, he passed me a bottle of water and a granola bar, which I ate gratefully.
“You and Lisa have been really kind to me,” I said. “I’d like to pay you back for it if I can.”
He shook his head firmly. “Better if you don’t come back this way, especially if your man comes looking for you. All we need is you safe, okay.”
I felt like crying again, and it didn’t matter if I never saw him or Lisa again, because I would always remember them. Jeff had the gift of an easy silence, and we entered Boise just as the light began to weaken in the late afternoon. I had an idea of how very fast evening would come on when it started. The autumn days were getting shorter, and I shivered at the prospect of night coming on with nowhere to stay.
Hey, toughen up, I tried to tell myself. People survive a lot worse.
They did, but they probably didn’t do it with two mysterious forces looking for them. The disguise that Lisa had given me would work for a cursory glance, but it would hardly stand up if anyone looked too closely. I wondered if the police out this way were warned of me, and if I had to keep up my guise.
“Where do you need to go?” Jeff asked me.
“The main library will be fine,” I said. “It’s better this way. If you don’t know where I am, you can’t let anything slip, right?”
Jeff reluctantly agreed, dropping me off outside the library, and accepted a hug when I got out of the car. It was strange. I wasn’t a very friendly person under the best of circumstances, but something about his stoic nature and his sweet homey face made me warm to him.
I had just let him go when he cleared his throat, looking awkward. “Excuse me, miss.”
I looked up with surprise. The whole trip, he had never volunteered anything on his own, and when I’d said things, he’d been more apt to reply with a grunt or a nod than anything substantial. Now a slightly dazed claimed his face, and I wondered what in the world was up.
“What is it?” I asked. “Are you all right?”
“Um.” He hung his head sheepishly. “There’s this girl.”
“All right.” I was a little bewildered, wondering why he told me this, but I waited for him to get to the point as he hemmed and hawed over it.
“Her name’s Jenny,” he added. “She’s…she’s great. I knew her in high school; we were good friends. She married someone from California, packed up a
nd moved there for a year, but now she’s back. Got a kid too, a cute little boy.”
Confusion settled in and I frowned.
Until he uttered the next sentence. “I love her.” It was miserable and small but heartfelt.
Damn. Were my cupid powers somehow affecting Jeff? Encouraging him to confide in me about his love life? Or did he just feel comfortable around me?
“Does she like you?” I asked him.
“Maybe?” He shrugged. “We been spending some time together. I’ve been helping her around her new place, and she keeps sending me home with chili and cookies and stuff.” He hung his head. “I don’t know what happens next. I’ll see what the guys at the garage say.”
In response, something clicked in my chest, activating something inside me. Suddenly it was as if I could see another world overlaying the real one. A red thread extended from the center of Jeff’s chest, and when I glanced to where it led, it traveled to the chest of a girl sitting in a tiny apartment in the town we had come from. The pretty black girl with her hair tied back in two natural puffs, dressed in a T-shirt and a long, and calico skirt. A tiny boy tugged at her hem, and she reached down with a smile to move his little hand.
During the scant space of half a second, I felt the shape of her heart, the strength of it and the shyness there as well. An overassertive man steamrollered her into moving far away from the town she loved. But she was strong and had left him to come home. Attraction brewed between her and Jeff; a love that would grow like a bonfire if someone gave it the right push.
Someone with the power of Eros. So I gave it the nudge it needed.
“Jenny seems wonderful. You should go see her tonight.” There was a strange echo in my voice, something brassy and resonant like a singing bowl rung in just the right way. “Go see her. Tell her what’s in your heart and listen when she tells you what’s in hers.”
That was not the kind of advice that I usually gave on the phone sex line. I knew the kind of advice that I would usually give. In another time and place, I would shrug and tell him to do whatever made sense. It wasn’t as if I were overly-blessed with experience in the romance department, and I had strong feelings on telling people what to do if you had a complete lack of knowledge. But I realized in a heartbeat, however, that I wasn’t just giving advice. The words I offered Jeff sunk into his mind, into his heart, and he nodded at me with a vaguely dazed look on his face. He’d forgotten confessing to me at all. Almost like a zombie, he got back into his truck, giving me a cordial nod goodbye, before driving away.
