by K. B. Nelson
His fingers tense around the trigger, as if he might just do it. He shakes his head, his teeth sinking into his lips. “I’m waiting for Blue.”
* * *
I haven’t heard from Blue since we danced in circles for hours. I have the permanent markings on my arm to remind me that I had a date, but I wonder if his have worn off. He’s fifteen minutes late, but I don’t know him well enough–yet–to know what that means. Does that mean he’s not coming? Does it mean he was caught in traffic? You can tell a lot about someone by the amount of time they make you wait.
I glance at my watch and think about all the things that I could have done today—shopping, showing up randomly at Summer’s dorm, drinking, or even pleasuring myself.
Blue pulls up to my house in the car of my dreams—a blue Jeep Wrangler. The top’s down, and while I’ve never been the type of girl to melt over a car, I’ve already lost an inch of my body to the depths of the ground.
He hops out of the Jeep and meets me at the edge of the driveway. He carries his hands behind his back and a smile passes my lips—this girl’s getting flowers. “What’s behind your back?”
His eyes shift to the side. “Just my hands,” he says as he pulls them out from behind.
“Oh,” I mumble. “I thought you had something for me.”
“I do.” He leans toward me and whispers in my ear, “But it’s a surprise.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
BLUE
I’ve only passed two cars since I peeled out of the motel parking lot. In that time, I’ve called Cookie twice more and my dad at least seven more times, but they’re both going straight to voicemail now. I’m worried about them, and my mind’s creating all these scenarios of what Rake could have done to them. It’s probably nothing. That’s what I’m forced to tell myself, anyway, while watching all these horror films in my head.
They’re right outside of Lakeview, though. Charlie’s out here on this highway somewhere. A part of me thinks she can protect herself, but the other part of me is hell-bent on reminding me that Rake isn’t just some ordinary guy. He’s the reason I fled the carnival, because I was afraid of what he might do. I can’t imagine what Charlie must be feeling. If it’s worse than the guilt that I feel from within my gut—well, it could bring me to tears.
But I can’t cry right now. I’m too overcome with rage. No longer will I hold back. Rake wanted a fight and he’s going to get one. There will be a funeral and I’ll attend, because ending his life isn’t something I can do with righteous glee, but it’s something I’ll do just the same.
Up ahead, taillights shine against the slick road. My fingers curl around the gun on my lap. I’m more than prepared to jump out of this Jeep and take matters into my own hands. The closer I get, the more the car looks like something Rake would drive. It’s old, beat-up, and the paint is chipped. In the driver’s seat, I can make out the hairline of a woman. It’s long and dark. Beside her, a tall man with his head relaxed against the seat.
My adrenaline races as I slam on my horn, desperate to gain their attention. The man turns to face me and I tap my brakes, pulling back and away from the harmless old man and the woman I presume is his daughter.
Hopelessness settles in, as if I could spend all night on this highway and never find her. Like I turned right out of the motel parking lot when I should have turned left. I find comfort where I least expect it—in the knowledge that Rake took Charlie for a reason, and that reason involves me. He won’t hurt her until I’m able to see it. I have to hold onto that and pray that I’m able to stop him before it’s too late.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHARLIE
After my attempted escape, Rake put me in the driver’s seat. Like any sane person, I thought that was a huge mistake. You don’t give your prisoner that kind of power, that kind of control. Then he pointed a gun at me and it all became clear. One miscalculated decision and we’re both dead. The scariest part is that he doesn’t even seem to care.
I’ve learned from my time at the movies that you can’t reason with a madman. It’s a lost cause. You get to a point of diminishing returns once you hit a certain threshold, and that threshold has been breached. This isn’t a man with a soul to save or a life to lose. He’s the deadliest type of antagonist, with only one thing on his mind. Revenge. Still, I will never go down without a fight. “You don’t have to do this. Any of it,” I plead through tense lips.
“It’s not about needing to do anything. I don’t need to kill Blue to find peace. I just wanna take everything away from him because that’s just the way I function.”
Desperation makes us say the stupidest shit. Like, “Blue didn’t kill your brother. It was Cookie.”
There’s a pause so quiet I can hear the sound of his tongue rolling against his teeth.
“It was an acciden—”
He turns to me, the gun pointed at my head shifting slightly. “Cookie told me everything.”
“Then what are you doing?” I cry out. “Just let me go.”
“I’m almost sorry you were dragged into this, but it just goes to show that you don’t have the best judgment. Falling in love with a murderer.”
I turn to him with moist eyes. “He’s not a killer.”
“He didn’t pull the trigger, but he’s just as guilty.”
“You need to come back down to reality.” I shake my head, disturbing a tear that sits on the edge of my eye.
“How about you focus on the road, sweetie?” He wags his gun at the road.
That brings a laugh out of me, but I find nothing funny. “Yeah, well, how about you take some fucking responsibility for your actions.” I turn back to him, every vein in my body pulsing.
“Don’t test me, girl.” He cocks the gun. “I don’t care if you’re driving this car.”
“And I don’t care that your brother is dead!” My hands curl tight around the steering wheel. I should say nothing more but the cord between my mouth and my mind has been permanently severed. “Have you ever considered it might be your fault? You got him selling drugs. He learned everything he knew from you, didn’t he?”
“Shut up,” he demands tersely.
“I bet you wish you could go back and change it all, huh.” I continue to taunt him. “Go back and save him by staying out of his life, because if it weren’t for you, he’d still be alive today.”
“Fuck you,” he scoffs.
“No, fuck you!” I scream, my voice breaking at the tip of my register.
Headlights beam against the rearview mirror, blinding me. I push a hand above my eyes, squinting so that I can see the vehicle behind me. It’s a blue Jeep. A sense of hope runs along the edges of my lips.
“Look what we have here,” Rake says, shifting in his seat. He smashes his gun against the window, sending shards of glass rolling onto the highway behind us.
“What are you—”
“Don’t worry,” he says wickedly. “I’m not aiming for his head.”
He pulls the trigger once.
Twice.
Three times. Each shot ricochets off the metal of Blue’s Jeep.
“Stop,” I cry out. “You’re going to kill him.”
“That’s not the plan,” he says and brings his head back into the car. “But anything’s possible.”
My options are limited, but I have to do something. I have to remember that it’s my hands on the wheel, and as much as Rake would hate to admit it, I’m in control. Rake pops his head back out the window, firing another shot. Blue swerves behind us, tapping on his brakes and gaining a little distance between us.
There are only two things I know for certain. The first is that Rake is crazy—rhyme and reason change based on circumstance with him. It seemed like he had a plan. To capture and kill me while Blue watches. But as the seconds pass and the bullets fly, I become certain that his plan doesn’t extend past a basic desire to incite chaos.
The second is that I can’t lose Blue. Saying goodbye to Dylan was the hardest thing I’v
e ever done. To lose them both in a matter of a week would devastate me. I wouldn’t survive the pain. I’m not even sure I’ve survived the first blow yet.
I pray that Blue has a plan, even if I’ve come to learn that plans are nothing more than intuitive guesses, and they almost always fall apart. I planned for my life to end different from this, for example.
* * *
Dylan holds my hand as we walk through some stranger’s yard. Behind us, the lights of the carnival light the sky. Cars pass by on the road ahead, but they make no noise. It’s as if we’re in a vacuum where the only thing that exists is the carnival. Everything outside that bubble is meaningless.
“You know it had to be this way,” I say to Dylan.
“Sometimes things don’t work out.” He shrugs.
“So you understand, then?” I ask. “Why I can’t be with you.”
We both come to a stop where the sidewalk melts against the road. “I get it. Your heart doesn’t lie.”
“You know I’ll always love you, Dylan.” I wait for a reply, but he just twists on one foot, his entire body swaying. “You know that, right?”
He brushes his fingers through my hair, smiling. “I know.”
“All right.” I push my hands into my jeans. “Blue’s waiting for me, so I should probably go.”
“Have a good time.” He kisses me on the cheek, then turns to walk to his truck, parked on the other side of the road.
A violent brush of wind stretches past me. The warmth of the air crackles as the temperature plummets. Something’s wrong.
“Dylan!” I scream.
He turns to me, his body halfway into his truck. He slides back out and steps into the road, walking back toward me. The temperature spikes back to normal, and the furious wind subsides. There’s a childish grin stretched across the width of Dylan’s face.
I let out a sigh of relief.
Then there’s an ear-bursting screech. In slow motion, I turn my head toward the explosion of noise. A semi slams on its brakes, the trailer curling sideways.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Dylan calls out, somehow defying the rules of slow motion. I can’t move my mouth fast enough to warn him.
The semi slams into him.
I cry out, screaming so loud the world should stop. My pain breaks through the vacuum as the city around me comes back into existence. The truck comes to a halt as I collapse onto the sidewalk.
* * *
I understand it now. It’s amazing how everything can become so clear in an instant. Just as I’m in control of my guilt for Dylan’s death, I’m in control of this wheel. I’m in control of what happens next for all three of us. Blue, Rake, and me.
My eyelids are heavy, my vision blurred from a welling of tears. There’s no way I could survive another loss.The yellow markings in the center of the road become nothing more than abstract paintings. They’ve lost their meaning, like so many other things lately.
Rake’s too occupied with savage glee as he fires the gun out the window to notice the rolling stream of tears overtaking my face.
My fingers fold around the wheel. If I’m going to pull this off, I won’t have time to pull my seat belt across my chest. It’ll alert him that I’m about to do the stupidest, most reckless thing imaginable. It’s just like love—it doesn’t make sense and it happens too fast to stop it.
The headlights of Blue’s Jeep flash against the rearview mirror, blinding my already blurred vision. Faintly, I can make out Blue’s silhouette through the darkness. Somehow, I can see every inch of his body, every inch of his face. I think I’ve memorized it.
The gun fires, sending blasts of thunder deep into my ears, deafening me. Rake cackles through his mania. This entire ordeal thrills him. It’ll take one pull of his finger with his gun aimed at the right place at the wrong time, and Blue could die.
The guilt if that should happen? I couldn’t deal. It’s so cliché, but my entire life flashes before my eyes. The faces of everyone I’ve ever loved speaking to me in a montage inside my mind. They smile, they cry, they’ll never get the chance to say goodbye.
It’s barely a whisper, but I say goodbye to Blue, irrationally hoping he’s able to hear me.
I love you.
One deep breath. My grip tightens against the worn leather wheel. My face is heavy, emotion pouring out of me. Rake slides back into his seat. I feel the burn of his gaze against me. “What—”
I cut him off but don’t face him, refusing to give him the satisfaction. My tear-stained face probably fills him with twisted glee, but it should fill him with irrevocable fear because his life is about to end. Maybe mine, too.
But I’ve made peace with myself.
I jerk the wheel to the right.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
BLUE
My foot taps on the brake, hoping to dodge another stray bullet. Rake’s gotten erratic, unsure of what exactly he plans to do. That much is obvious. I think he’d settle–at this point–for going out in a blaze of glory where he mistakenly believes he’s the hero.
He slides back into the car, into his seat, and I’m thankful for a moment of relief. I step on the gas, hoping to get closer to them while I form a plan. The best idea I’ve got is to pull up next to them on Rake’s side and try to talk some sense into him.
Like that would work.
The other plan is to follow them until they run out of gas. Then I’ll rip him out of that car and beat him to death. I’ll take a bullet if I have to, but I will never give up on trying to save her.
The trunk of the car pushes up slightly. When I squint, I can make out two things. It’s held shut with bungee cords and there’s an arm pushing against the trunk. Someone’s in there.
The car steers right, veering off the road before hitting the embankment and flipping over. My foot slams the brake through the floor. My Jeep spins out while their car continues to roll into a cornfield.
My Jeep comes to a halt as the back end slams into the base of a road sign with the banner of the Founders Carnival taped across it. I search frantically for my gun, notice it on the floor, and bend down to grab it. When I sit back up, I see smoke rising from the wreckage.
I punch the door open and jump out, immediately sprinting toward the scene of the crash. “Charlie!” I scream as I cock my gun. When I think I can’t run any faster, when I feel my heart would beat out of my chest if I did, I push myself harder. I’m running on empty and all that’s left is adrenaline.
A flame ignites on the underside of the flipped car. Out here on this deserted highway, there are only three things I hear. My heart racing, emptiness, and someone crying out for help. It’s not Charlie’s voice. It’s a man’s voice, but it’s muffled.
I reach the overturned car. Rake crawls weakly from the wreckage, his bloody body hovering close to the ground. I extend my arm and point the gun at him. This is it. This is that life-defining moment that nobody ever sees coming. The one choice I didn’t wanna want to have to make because I didn’t wanna be that person I used to be. He’s pushed me to the edge and I have no choice.
I look away as I pull the trigger.
I make my way quickly to the driver’s side and dive to the ground. I don’t think I’ve cried since the day my dad informed me that my mother had skipped town, but I can feel the surge rising. I reach through the broken window, my arm scraping across shards of glass.
With force, I drag her from the car and onto the muddy ground. I put an ear against her chest but can’t hear a single beat.
“No, no, no…” I mumble and close my eyes tight. When I open them again, everything’s a blur. I rub the back of my fist against my eyes, hoping to clear my vision. There’s a pounding against the trunk of the car.
I set Charlie’s head down gently against the ground and rush to the trunk. Whoever is inside continues to pound their fist against the metal. The flames begin to spread, the smoke filling the interior of the flipped car. Without taking proper aim, I fire a shot at the trunk. It pops open and Co
okie rolls out onto the ground. When I reach down to grab him, he screams in pain but I’ve got to get him away from the car and get back to Charlie.
I drag him away from the wreckage, beyond happy that he’s alive and barely noticing the bone that sticks out the bottom half of his leg. He screams again as I drop him onto the ground. I rush back to Charlie, pulling her head into my lap. I push hair out of her face, and I begin to rock her. “You need to wake up, baby.”
There are blood-red tear stains scribbled underneath her eyes. I lay her down flat against the ground, frantically searching my mind for an article I read a long time ago. I push my hands against her ribs and breathe into her mouth. I don’t remember the exact counts, so I just start pumping away at her chest, taking great care to use restraint so as to not break her ribs. “Come on.”
While pinching her nose tight, I press my lips to hers, breathing heavily into her mouth. A tear drips onto her cheek as I plead for her to wake up. “You can’t leave me.”
The heat of the fire burns against my face. Fearful that the car might explode, I spin to grab her shoulders, dragging her away from the blaze. My foot sinks into a mudhole and I trip, landing hard against the ground. I kick my feet out, digging them further into the mud. “I’m so sorry…”
* * *
I can’t bring myself to get any closer. My body leans against the thick trunk of the solitary oak tree. The sky is too blue, too perfect for a day like today. There should be thunder and rain. Lots of rain. There’s a gathering of about maybe fifteen people packed densely together at the edge of the freshly-dug grave.
There’s a preacher standing before the small crowd, the Good Book spread wide open, resting on the width of his arms as he reads a winding passage. I can’t make out a word of what he says, but I know that it doesn’t matter. Everything leads back to me.
