Or the Girl Dies

by Rachel Rust

  “Wrong.”

  “Why not?”

  Victor sighed, as though sick and tired of having to explain things to the clueless smart girl. “I promised I’d start selling again, but until I actually do, they’re not gonna let up on me. They don’t trust me.” Victor paused, stealing a glimpse at me. “That’s why they wanted to meet you. They wanted…”

  “Wanted what?” Bile crept up my esophagus as possible answers flood my mind.

  Victor closed his eyes momentarily before answering. “Payment.”

  “Payment? I’m payment? What does that mean? I’m going to become one of Little Bobby’s leopard-print sofa slave girls?”

  “I’m not gonna let that happen.”

  “But that’s what it means, right?”

  His jaw clenched. “Yes.”

  Every muscle in my body tensed. My skin burned red-hot. “So Little Bobby thinks he owns me now? This is unbelievable! Good luck explaining that one to my dad. Sorry, Dad, guess I can’t make it Columbia in the fall, I’m gonna be a drugged out hooker instead.”

  “I’m sorry, it was the only offer made and—”

  “Was that your plan all along?” I yelled. “Is that why you brought me to that house with you, so you could sell me to a big fat drug dealer?”

  “Christ, I didn’t sell you, I just—”

  “You used my tits as your own personal bargaining tool!”

  “It’s not like that, I—”

  My hand shot up. “Don’t talk to me. Ever.”

  “It’ll be okay, Natalie. You just need to trust me. Think about it…you’re here in the car with me and not back at the house with Little Bobby, right?”

  My anger subsided long enough to look over at him. “Why am I here with you and not at the house with Little Bobby, ya know, if he owns me and all? Why did he let me leave with you?”

  Victor looked away from me as he answered. “Because I told him I’d take you for a…test drive, as he calls it.”

  As his words and their meaning soaked in, a ripple of fear trembled through me and I nearly puked. I leaned away from Victor. “A what?” But I knew exactly what a “test drive” meant. I had been reduced to a product, something to sell, something to use. Something to sample. Something to screw and toss away.

  Victor shook his head and spoke softly. “I’m not going to do anything to you, I promise. But that was the only way I could get you out of that house and keep you with me, away from Little Bobby.”

  I believed Victor’s words, that he wasn’t going to do anything to me, but pure self-preservation kept me leaned away from him, shoulder against the car door. The entire situation was dangerous. “How could you have done that, though? Used me as payment?”

  “I couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Like hell you couldn’t.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice growing terse. “Little Bobby makes the deal and you either take it or you end up with a bullet in the back of your head. That’s all there is to it. I couldn’t have done anything else.”

  My head snapped around in his direction. “You could’ve let me stay at my house!”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want to be kidnapped? ‘Cause that’s exactly what would’ve happened if you had stayed home.”

  “You didn’t have to drag me into this!”

  His eyes narrowed. “You didn’t have to fucking show up at my house in the first place! If you had just left me the hell alone and risked getting a bad grade in school, you wouldn’t be in this situation, so don’t blame me!”

  “Oh yeah, you’re so blameless, Mister Drug Dealer.”

  “Don’t get all moral on me.”

  “You’re pathetic.”

  “Well you’re a spoiled brat who has no idea how the real world works. You sit up high on a hill in your fancy house, driving a car that your daddy bought, spending all his money on all kinds of shit at the mall, and you have the guts to tell me that I’m pathetic?”

  “You sell drugs.”

  “So does your dad.”

  “He prescribes medication to people who need them for post-op pain.”

  “And doctors get kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies and throw prescriptions around like they’re candy, and where does the surplus end up? On the streets. So, who’s really to blame? I’ll give ya a hint…it’s a billion dollar industry and it does not start with people like me.”

  The light ahead turned red. When Victor came to a complete stop, I hooked a finger into the door latch and flung it open. “Go to hell.”

  “Get back in the car!” Victor shouted as I slammed the door closed.

  We were on Jackson Boulevard, one of the busier streets in Rapid City. The cold air chilled me instantly, but I forced mind over matter and drummed my feet steadily down the sidewalk. The Trans Am slowly trailed me. But the speed limit was 35. There was no way he’d be able to trail me for long, not before an angry driver came up behind him.

  As if having read my mind, Victor sped up. I smiled triumphantly. He left. I won.

  Except he didn’t leave. He went up two driveways and parked in the empty lot of a strip mall. He killed the engine and the lights died out. As I passed by, he got out of his car and walked behind me on the sidewalk.

  “Where’re you going?” he asked.

  “Home.”

  He rushed forward, joining me at my side. “I’ll walk you.”

  “It’s three miles.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, and I’m not the one in heels. Sucks to be you.”

  I glared at him. “Fine, follow me if you want.” A moment later, a black and white police car drove by slowly. It stopped at the red stoplight a half a block down. “You know all I have to do is scream and that cop will come check on me. Then he’ll question you and search your car. And I bet there’s at least one thing in your car you wouldn’t want a cop to find, isn’t there?”

  “Go ahead and scream,” Victor said. “But I know you won’t because if I end up in jail tonight, what happens to Mason?”

  Mason. Dammit, he played the kidnapped kid card.

  I thought about Mason’s friends, the three little assholes in the apartment. But they were young. Together they were mighty pricks, but alone and captured they’d cry for their moms. Just kids. Like Mason, somewhere waiting for his mom to come. Scared and waiting for someone to save him.

  The cop drove off when the light turned green, my one immediate escape route gone with the push of an accelerator.

  “How are you going to find Mason if Little Bobby didn’t give you any leads?” I asked. “Even if he puts in a good word for you, it might be a while before The Barber lets Mason go. And he might hang on to him even longer—payment, like me.”

  “I know someone else who can help.”

  “The last someone wasn’t very helpful.”

  “No, but this woman, Krissy, she’s cool. Used to sell with Little Bobby and she’s met The Barber. She got out of the game a while back, but she knows The Barber, where he hangs out, where he does business. Krissy might know where to look.”

  I rolled my eyes. “If you think I’m going to your junkie girlfriend’s house, you’re stupider than I thought.”

  “She’s not a junkie and she’s not my girlfriend.”

  I scoffed and tried to rid myself of the weird relief I felt upon hearing that she wasn’t his girlfriend. As if I cared. He could have had a dozen girlfriends. Whatever. It wouldn’t have mattered to me.

  “Krissy’s a decent person,” he continued. “Not like Little Bobby.”

  “I’m not going to anyone else’s house.” My frozen arms wrapped around one another. I had already been sold like a head of cattle. There was no telling what would happen at the next house.

  “Come back to the car at least,” Victor said. “It’s too damn cold to be out here without a coat.”

  “Will you take me home?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not safe for you to be there, especially by yours
elf. I don’t trust Little Bobby any further than I could throw his fat ass.” He smiled at his own lame joke.

  “They think I’m Delilah, not Natalie,” I said. “And Delilah doesn’t even exist, so they’d never go looking for her at my house.”

  “You’re still underestimating who we’re dealing with. They know who you are. They’ve seen you and your car at my house. They’re not stupid. They do their homework.”

  “Unlike you.”

  He chuckled. “Okay, I deserved that one.”

  I stopped walking and turned to him. The light from the overhead streetlamp got lost in his dark brown hair, but it illuminated his face, highlighting his cheekbones and displaying the thick lashes that fringed his dark eyes. I forced my gaze to stay on his face, and ignored the broad shoulders and everything else below them. Despite my anger and fear, I understood that he had been put in a difficult position. Someone with more authority than him had forced him to bring me to Little Bobby’s house. And even though I didn’t want to admit it, if not for him, I’d have been in the trunk of a Mercedes long ago. And the fact that we were both standing there on the sidewalk, freezing our asses off meant that he really had saved me from Little Bobby’s sofa, and he had also kept us from having a bullet fired into the back of our heads.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll give you till midnight. Then after that we’re going to sit down and finish our assignment. We’ll write up a fake interview with a fake person from your life. Got it? And then we have to put everything together and practice how we’re going to present it for the class tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “And then, after that, you take me home.”

  He placed his hands on his hips, scanning the street around us, and remained silent for several seconds as though searching for another solution. When one apparently didn’t magically appear, he looked back down at me and said, “Fine. I’ll take you home after midnight, after we finish the assignment.”

  “Thank you,” I said, walking back toward the car. “And just so you know, I still hate you, and if we both survive tonight, I’m totally going to kill you after school tomorrow.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Chapter Eight

  As soon as we sat back down in Victor’s car, he lit a cigarette.

  “You smoke too much,” I said. He held out the open end of the cigarette pack toward me. I shook my head. “So, you sell drugs, but do you use them, too? Is that why you’re always asleep at school?”

  He started the car. “I’ve dabbled.”

  “With what?”

  “Different things.”

  I rolled my eyes. I hated elusive answers. “Pills?”

  He nodded. “Narcotics are The Barber’s specialty. Or at least they were when I was dealing it for him.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “Never sold it. But I used to smoke it a lot back in—” He cut himself off and took a drag off his cigarette.

  “Back where?” I asked. “Did you live somewhere else before you moved to Rapid City?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why are you living with your aunt? Why do you go to Kennedy and not Truman? Did you get expelled?”

  He looked directly at me, his dark eyes holding my gaze. “You ask too many questions.”

  “You avoid too many.”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “Buckle up.”

  I buckled my seatbelt and he did the same. His number 22 tattoo stared right at me as his hand rested on the top of the steering wheel. I bit my lip to keep from asking yet another question. His phone buzzed and he answered it. After a few grunted yeahs, and a couple of side-eyed glimpses my way, he ended the call.

  ****

  Victor’s friend Krissy—if she could be called a friend—lived on the west side of town in a blue two-story house with a screened-in front porch. The wood front steps were far easier to navigate than Little Bobby’s. I already liked Krissy better.

  On the front door hung a Happy Spring wreath. It was tacky with pastel flowers and bunnies, but its very presence made me relax. It looked like a normal house. One without guns and drugs and hookers.

  A woman in her twenties answered the door, with bleached blonde hair and a tight red t-shirt. “Victor!” she said with a big smile, then grabbed his arm, forcing him into a hug. She peered at me over his shoulder. “Who ya got with ya?”

  Victor motioned to me. “This is Natalie.”

  I was alarmed that he used my real name. These people might have been smart enough to figure out my true identity, but we still didn’t need to announce it. I might as well have had my blood type and social security number tattooed across my forehead.

  The blonde woman gave me a big smile. Far different from the cold, creepy welcoming at Little Bobby’s house. “Natalie, it’s so nice to meet you. I’m Emily.”

  “Hi,” I said with a smile and a little wave.

  Warmth hit my arms the second I stepped onto the wood floors of the house’s small foyer, and I was instantly glad I wasn’t outside trying to walk home in heels. Not that I was about to give Victor the pleasure of knowing that.

  Emily led us into the living room. “Krissy, look who’s come to see us.”

  Across the room, a thin Native American woman stood up, as beautiful as she was tall, with long hair and high cheekbones. She gave me a once-over, then gave Victor a wide grin. “Vic, kid, what’s up?”

  “Hey, Kris,” he said.

  A few other women were scattered on sofas and chairs throughout the living room. They all had pleasant-looking faces and no one was trying to grab at my purse, looking for their next high. My shoulders relaxed a bit.

  “Can we talk somewhere?” Victor asked Krissy. She stared at him for a moment before placing her bottle of beer on the end table. She nodded for him to follow. He turned to me and whispered, “I’ll be back in a little bit.” He placed a gentle hand on my arm. “You’ll be safe here. I promise.”

  I nodded and he left into another room with Krissy. And I was once again alone in the company of complete strangers. Except this house didn’t smell like pot or cigars. And instead of rifles in the corner, there was a carpeted cat condo.

  “Darling,” Emily said to me, “you look positively frozen! Come sit, I’ll get you something to drink.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I took a seat at the end of a black leather couch. The other three women were all brunettes with long hair and side swept bangs. They each gave me a kind smile. Emily returned with a glass of red wine. I took it from her without argument, but instead of drinking it right away, I stared at it. I had never had wine before. Did she not know I wasn’t twenty-one? Did she not care?

  “Hope you like Merlot,” Emily said. “Jules here drank the last of our Moscato.”

  “Sorry,” said one of the brunettes.

  I smiled. “No, this is fine. Thanks.”

  It wasn’t fine. It tasted like tree bark.

  Yet the entire glass somehow emptied in less than a minute. My head went warm. My cheeks flushed. Flat keg beer had never made me feel warm. Emily was in the middle of complaining about Krissy’s habit of leaving dirty clothes throughout the house when she refilled my glass. Common sense told me not to drink it.

  But what the hell did common sense know about my shitty night? Absolutely nothing, that’s what.

  I drank it.

  After the second glass came a third. Before long, I was complaining about stilettos and Josh’s inability to aim in the bathroom, which made the women laugh. Little Bobby and Ramon had long left my mind. The sofa under me was comfortable. My muscles relaxed. Life was good.

  Krissy and Victor walked back into the room as I swallowed the last of the wine in my glass.

  Glass number four. I think. As if it mattered at that point.

  Victor walked to me and glanced at the empty wine glass in my hand. “Ready to go?”

  “Sure.” I placed the glass on the end table and stood up too fast. The room spun, and my body was heavy and uncontrollable
. Victor grabbed my elbow and I fell into him. I giggled and Victor frowned, which made me giggle more.

  “Let’s go,” he said, hooking an arm into mine. In the presence of wine, my new high heeled walking skills waved bye-bye. I shuffled to the front door, barely lifting my feet at all.

  “She doesn’t have to drive, right?” someone asked. The voice was muffled, as though the living room was a hundred feet behind us, not ten.

  “No,” Victor said.

  I stuck my nose near his face. He jerked back, but not before I caught a familiar scent. “You smell like beer,” I said. Even my own intoxicated ears picked up on a slight slur in my words. So I spoke my next words slowly, in an attempt to enunciate clearly. “You had beer now you gonna drink ‘n drive.” I wagged a finger directly in front of his face. “Very, very bad, Victor Greer.”

  “I only had one,” he said.

  The front door opened on its own. Like magic. Or maybe Krissy opened it. The whole scene was fuzzy, and my eyes and brain had a hard time keeping up with all the movement around me.

  Krissy placed a hand on Victor’s shoulder. “You watch yourself. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Victor nodded.

  We walked outside and the cold air created a sharp pain in my head. I squinted, but it did no good. The throbbing in my head worsened with every step.

  “Wait.” I stopped and kicked my shoes off. The cold concrete radiated through the bottoms of my aching feet. Both red shoes now lay on their sides a few feet up. I unwrapped Victor’s arm from around mine and went forward. The moment I tried reaching down for a shoe, I ended up falling on the concrete next to it.

  Victor forced me to my feet. He grabbed both shoes, then shoved them into my chest for me to hold. “How much did you drink?” he asked.

  “Couple.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m a light”—I burped—“weight.”

  Victor chuckled. “That I believe.”

  I glared at him. “You’re rude.”

  “People have called me worse.”