by Rachel Rust
He shrugged. “Not much. It’s too far away.”
“So let’s go down there and look.”
“No way. Get in the car. I’m taking you back to your brother.”
I crossed my arms. “No you won’t.”
He stepped toward me. “You barely weigh a hundred pounds. You’ll go wherever the hell I want you to go.”
I took a step back, but he stepped right up in front of me again. “It took a while to get down here,” I said, feeling his breath on my forehead. “If you drive me back to Josh and then drive back down here, you’ll waste about an hour of time.” I glanced back at the dimly lit shop. “Mason doesn’t have that kind of time.”
Victor didn’t move for several seconds. I wasn’t entirely sure my reasoning was going to work. He was probably still two seconds away from throwing me over his shoulder and tossing me into the car. At this point, he’d probably do it out of spite—and probably into the trunk.
But he took a step back and said, “We’ll have to walk through the field.”
I kicked up my left leg. “I have decent shoes on.”
He stared down at the shop and puffed out a quick breath. Hands on hips, he dug his heel into the gravel for a while before finally answering. “Okay, we’ll go through the field, but we go slow and we don’t get too close.” He paused, staring at me to make sure I was paying attention. “Don’t make too much noise, and if I tell you to stop, you stop. If I tell you to go back to the car, you go back. Got it?”
I mock saluted him. “Yes, sir, Mr. McBossy.”
It was too dark to see all the details of his face, but I knew he rolled his eyes at me.
The field was fairly flat with an occasional dip here and there in the hardened dirt. The grass was as tall as my waist in some areas. Each of my steps were quick yet cautious. I wasn’t much of a country girl. I preferred my grass clipped short. Less chance of snakes. Victor’s steps through the grass were more casual than mine, the stride of a country boy.
“What kind of farm did you live on in Ohio?” I asked.
“Dairy farm.”
“For real? Did you have to milk cows?”
“Sometimes.”
I made a face, even though it was too dark to be effective. When I was about eight, I tried milking a cow at the state fair. The milk squirted on my new sneakers, and then the cow peed and it splashed onto my bare legs. That was the last time I was near any kind of farm animal. I didn’t even like drinking milk anymore.
“Will you finally just tell me how you ended up living in Rapid City?” I asked.
Victor’s hand snapped off the top of some grass blades right next to me. “It’s a long story that doesn’t really pertain to anything we’re doing right now, so I’d rather not talk about it.”
My mouth clamped shut with frustration. We walked another fifty feet or so in awkward silence. My mind scrambled for a change of subject, anything that wouldn’t make prickly Victor pissed off or drive him into more silence. But harmless topics seemed few and far between.
“How did The Barber get that nickname?” I asked.
“There are a couple different stories. The most common one is that his grandfather was a barber—an actual barber—and he’s the one who started running guns and drugs, and the title just stuck through the generations.”
“Is that the true story?”
“No. The true story is that he uses a straight razor to get what he wants, or to punish those who don’t give him what he wants. So people started calling him The Barber.”
“My God. You don’t think that’s actually true, do you?”
“It is.”
“How can you know which is the correct story?”
“Because Krissy saw him use the straight razor firsthand.”
“Eww. For real?”
“I told you, Krissy was in deep.”
The field grass came to an abrupt end and the ground disappeared in front of us. A small stream ran through the field with a steep dirt trench on each side. Victor hopped down into the lower lying plain, nearly jumping into the water itself. He turned around and grabbed my hips as I jumped down with my hands on his shoulders. The stream was only a few feet across. Victor jumped it easily. I hesitated for a while, imagining wet sneakers and socks making my already-cold feet turn into icicles. Finally, with a deep breath and a screw it attitude, I jumped. My feet both landed on dry land.
“What if Krissy is The Barber?” I said, pulling myself up the other side of the creek bluff.
Victor chuckled. “I thought that for a while too, but she’s not.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I just am.” He paused. “Trust me.”
With his resolute answer hanging in the air around us, we continued walking. As the shop grew closer, I could make out vertical green siding and two black SUVs parked in the back, out of sight from any cars passing by on the highway. The lamp post light was getting brighter, but there wasn’t any movement outside.
“What do you think the chances are that Mason is in there?” I asked.
“Don’t know, but I gotta look.”
“Look? You mean you’re actually going to go inside?”
“If need be.”
“Jesus,” I whispered. “Why not just call the cops finally? An anonymous phone call, tell them something weird is going on down here, let them come look around.”
“I told you, I don’t trust cops.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re human.”
“Um, we’re all human. I’m human, do you not trust me?”
He glanced my way. “Everyone has a price. Dangle the right thing in front of anyone and they’ll turn. The key is to figure out what people want.”
“That’s a pretty cynical view.”
“It’s the truth,” he said. “People are only as good as their greed allows them to be. And that includes cops.”
“Wow, that sounds like an awful belief to live with. Although you certainly let greed take over your life, didn’t you?”
“Preach much?”
“You said yourself you got into dealing for the money. But what I’m beginning to wonder is why you really want out. What got dangled in front of you to make you want to walk away from all the money? Did someone else offer even more money?”
Victor didn’t answer, snapping off a few more grass blades. The field was gray in the low moonlight. Every swath of grass created a shadow. There was no telling what could be lurking just feet from us—a mountain lion, a snake, a guy with a gun. I forced mind over matter, one step at a time.
“Are you working for someone else now?” I asked. “Is that why you quit working for The Barber? Is that why he was pissed enough to take Mason?”
Victor grabbed more blades of grass—a fistful this time—and snapped the tops clean off with one swift yank. It may have been dark outside, but the angry veins in his hands were clear as day and unmistakable. I was getting closer to the truth. His mouth may have lied, but his body language didn’t. He may have told me he wanted out of the drug scene, that he didn’t want to get caught, but that wouldn’t have been his first lie of the night. Victor Greer hadn’t exactly positioned himself as a Mr. Trustworthy.
“Who are you working for now?” I asked. “Someone bigger than The Barber? Did they offer you more money? Is that who you’ve been on the phone with tonight?”
Victor kept walking.
“You’re still selling, aren’t you?” I asked.
He peered over his shoulder. “Keep up.”
I stopped walking. “Tell me the truth for once. You stopped selling for The Barber not because you want out but because you’re on to bigger and better things, aren’t you?”
Victor spun around and charged the space between us until his face was inches from mine. “You’re in way over your head. Now shut up and follow me.”
“Screw you. I’m out here risking my own life trying to help you find Mason, so I think you owe me a few answers.”
>
“I owe you nothing. You snuck into the back of my fucking car.” He turned and walked away.
With clenched fists, I shuffled my feet to follow him. Drug dealers were moody douchebags.
Chapter Fourteen
McNally’s wasn’t green, it was blue. The sections of metal siding immersed in yellowed light from the parking lot lamps only made it appear green. It was also in awful shape with a rusted tin roof and dirty, broken windows.
Just before the gravel parking lot, the grassy field ended in a steep trench. It was here where Victor and I dropped down then crawled up the other side of the ditch to get a better look. Belly crawling up a ditch wasn’t as easy as I had thought it would be. It certainly wasn’t a skill they had ever taught us in gym class, though it seemed, at least in the moment, a more realistic skill to have than pull-ups.
We crawled up behind a flatbed trailer, to shield us from any weapons-toting crazy people who were most likely around. Straight ahead, across twenty feet of gravel, was a doorway leading into the building, propped open by a large rock.
We laid there, in the grass and dirt, on our stomachs for a solid ten minutes. There was no movement. No noise.
Victor hadn’t even twitched, eyes steady on the building. Meanwhile, I had an ever-growing combination of boredom and nerves, both of which tingled through my body. Even my toes were growing restless. My fingers picked at hardened clumps of dirt in front of me. Patience was not a strong suit of mine. Plus, I had to pee. Despite a life or death situation, the urge to go didn’t dissipate at all. That was something evolution needed to work on.
Victor glanced down at my fingers in the dirt, watching them draw figure eights.
“What now?” I whispered.
Victor put a finger up in a hold on a sec fashion. He shimmied away from me to peek around the trailer. Voices emerged from the open door, followed by two guys dressed in all black, each with a rifle in their hand. The guns didn’t look like the hunting rifles my dad had. They were bigger, more intricate. Not for deer.
The men’s voices were hushed. I couldn’t make out the conversation, just a few random yeahs and some head nods and shakes. They walked to one of the black SUVs in the back of the building.
Victor made a motion with his hand for me to duck down. I laid my body as flat as possible in the ditch, ear to the dirt, arms pressed down against my sides. The headlights of the SUV swept across the trailer as the car pulled away, skimming our silhouettes, making us visible for a split second to anyone who was paying attention.
The guys in black, however, must not have been paying attention because they drove off, down the gravel drive of the shop, then turned left onto the highway.
Victor dug into his pocket and grabbed his car keys.
I stared at him in disbelief. I couldn’t believe we were leaving already. It was too premature. We had barely checked the perimeter and hadn’t overheard any important conversations yet. There was still another SUV left. We could get a license plate number and alert the police. Leaving so early made my covert car ride and our long walk across the field seem futile.
Victor grabbed my hip and forced me to roll over.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he hovered over me.
He shoved his car keys into the front pocket of my jeans. “If I don’t return in ten minutes, go back to the car.”
My eyes widened. “You can’t go inside!”
He stared up at the building. “I have to. Now wait here and promise me you won’t follow me or do anything to draw attention to yourself.”
I grabbed one of his arms with both hands. “You don’t have to do this. We can call the police. You can take off. I’ll wait for them. That way you don’t end up involved in—”
Victor’s hand pressed down across my mouth again. “Don’t move,” he whispered, laying his body flat against mine.
Footsteps crunched on gravel not far from our heads.
“What does he want us to do with that damn kid?” a raspy voice asked.
“What do you think?” The second voice was lower pitched. “If the boy’s no use to us, we get rid of him.”
Victor’s body tensed up. His hand slipped away from my mouth. He stared at the ground near my ear, dark eyes narrowed under his scowling brow.
“Well, come on then,” raspy said. “Let’s go get this over with. If we wait it’ll only mean a longer night and I’m already tired as hell.”
The footsteps faded away. Victor propped himself up on his elbows.
“Please don’t go in there,” I said.
He ignored my plea, his eyes studying the surroundings in every direction. “Remember what I said. If I’m not back in ten minutes, go to the car and drive back to Josh.”
My chest squeezed at the thought of him going into the building where there were other guys—big guys—with guns. Out of desperation, and with frantic nervous quivers running the length of my body, I grabbed onto his arm with my arms and wrapped both my legs around one of his.
“Natalie, stop.” He pulled free once again. “I have to go find Mason.”
“No you don’t,” I said as my eyelids grew warm. Tears spilled freely down my cheeks with my next blink. “The cops can look for him. Please don’t do this. Don’t go in there, and don’t leave me.”
Victor didn’t say anything, allowing me to slowly melt into a pile of mushy human. My hands slapped up over my face to keep my quiet tears from turning into deep sobs. The night officially sucked. I longed for my house, and my dad. I longed for the chance to go back and do it all over again. I could flunk government and go to a state school instead of Columbia. Anything besides the predicament I was in now...lying in a ditch, one wrong move from being kidnapped, and being unable to stop Victor from walking into certain death.
Victor’s fingers curled around my wrists and removed my hands from my face. “It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “I promise.”
“You’re a liar.”
He paused. “Would you feel better if you slapped me?”
“Yes,” I said through a sniffle.
“Go ahead.”
I scanned him, from the erratic peaks of his boy band hair to his muscular neck. I did want to slap him. But instead, my hands cupped his face. The barely-there stubble of facial hair pricked my palms and fingers. I leaned forward. My lips pressed soft against his.
When I pulled back, his eyes held mine. “What was that for?” he asked.
In case I never saw him again. “For good luck.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up, revealing a hint of his straight white teeth. He smoothed back my hair, hooking a rogue piece behind my ear. The feel of his reassuring hand against my head and ear was soothing, despite the fear simmering inside me.
The sound of tires crunching over gravel turned both of our heads. The tires grew closer. I peered under the trailer as a dark pickup parked near the building, blocking our view of the open door.
Black boots hopped out of the pickup. It was the same vehicle that had stopped on the highway when Victor had tackled me out in the field.
“What took you guys so long?” the raspy voice asked.
“Had to stop for gas. And Mikey here thought he saw somethin’ in that field over there. But I told him it was nothin’ but a damn deer. Them things are all over around these fields.”
“I saw somethin’! I did!’
“Yeah, just a damn a deer.”
“Wait,” the raspy voice said. “Grab your flashlights and go look.”
“But—”
“Can’t be too sure,” raspy said. “Now go look again.”
The black boots turned and took steps toward the field—right toward us.
My level of fear soared from simmering to boiling in an instant. Victor and I exchanged oh shit looks.
He grabbed both my shoulders and shoved me until I moved down the ditch a full foot. “Run,” he whispered. I grabbed at his wrist to drag him along with me, but he outmaneuvered me, shoving me away once again. “Run
!”
On hands and knees, I scooted back down the ditch until I hit the tall grasses of the field. I made a motion with my hands for Victor to join me. He moved, but instead of going down the ditch, he positioned himself up closer to the trailer.
The men in black boots marched toward the ditch. I retreated into the grass, watching through the blades. They shined their flashlights far over my head, presumably to the far end of the field where Victor and I had hid from them previously.
One of the guys was tall and skinny with hair slicked back in a ponytail—the lip licker from Little Bobby’s house. The other guy was shorter, rounder. His black hair and black mustache were unmistakable. Ramon. The sight of him, the phantom feel of his hand squeezing my knee, made me shirk farther back into the grass.
Lip Licker and Ramon were close enough to Victor that they would surely see him if not for their focus out on the field. “Get down,” I whispered, mentally urging him to move, not understanding why he was sitting out in the open. The main part of the flatbed trailer sat off the ground at least a foot. He should’ve wedged himself underneath, out of sight. I motioned with my hands for him to get down.
One of the flashlights shined my way.
“I saw somethin’ move!” Lip Licker said. His flashlight scanned my area of the field, back and forth.
I froze, fearful that more movement would attract even more attention. Ramon and Lip Licker made their way down the ditch directly toward me. I needed to run, but they would definitely see me. I needed to stay perfectly still, but they would definitely find me.
My body shook. The grass blades shook along with it.
They headed right for me.
“Hey!” a voice shouted.
It was Victor. He stood up, his form out in the open for anyone to see, backlit by the lamppost light. Ramon and Lip Licker swung around to face him, shining their flashlights into his face. Victor raised a hand to block the light.
“Victor?” Ramon asked. “Kid, what the hell you doin’ here?”
My heart pounded in my ears. I clamored back, stumbling and falling on my ass into the dirt. I wanted to wait, to listen to their conversation and watch their interaction. I wanted to wait for Victor to join me in the field, so we could go back to his car side-by-side and resume our normal semi-messed up lives.
