by Amanda Lance
“If I take that off, can you keep quiet?”
She looked like she was thinkin’ ’bout something but changed her mind and nodded real slow. Frankly, I was just glad she didn’t start screaming again the second I opened my mouth, but I hoped that by keeping my distance, maybe I could make her feel okay ’nough around me so that she wouldn’t freak out.
I walked to her real slowly, trying not to make any sudden movements so that she wouldn’t accidently hurt herself again. I guess it was unavoidable, though, that she would flinch when I reached out for the tape—especially after that move Captain Oblivious pulled. For just a second, I could feel how soft her cheek was, and I twisted up inside, picturing how soft the rest of her might be; the small of her back, the curve of her hip… but the thought went away when she shuddered with disgust. Just being near me made her sick.
I pulled the tape as quick as I could to avoid pain. Right away I could see how pouty her lips were ’cause of it and how the blood was flooding to ’em, and my imagination went haywire for just a second before I remembered how much she hated me.
“Just like a Band-Aid.” I had to remind myself to swallow.
“Thanks.”
What? Was I hearing things now, or was she just being a smartass? I guess it made some sense, with the way she looked and the education she probably got, that she thought she was some better-than-you brat. She musta been sarcastic, and I just didn’t hear it. I wanted to laugh but couldn’t. Here I was, thinking I wanted to be nice to her when she was nothing but a little snot. Maybe I was a real dunce, ’cause then she was looking at me like there was something wrong with me, like she expected me to serve her tea or something. Well, who in the hell did she think she was, anyway? She was lucky to be alive, let alone anything else.
“Thank you?” I went back over and sat on the countertop. “That s’posed to be funny?”
At first she just shrugged, but I could see that even that simple movement bothered her a lot. And though I wanted to be angry, it didn’t seem to matter no more.
“There’s no excuse for poor manners.”
I was expecting her to start laughing after she said that, but when she didn’t it only made it harder to figure if she was messin’ with me or not. She didn’t say anything else after that though, and I hated that I didn’t have nothing nice or funny to say back to her. That was weird though too, ’cause usually I was real good with people—at least if they didn’t piss me off.
I had always been good at making friends, decent at tellin’ jokes, and okay with pickin’ out the bad in new people I was meetin’, but this girl was different. I guess it was because I hadn’t been around ’em so much—Elise never really counted since she’s more like a sister than anything else. The more I tried to think of something to say, the more my tongue seemed to swell up in my mouth, and my brain didn’t wanna work right. What could I say that wasn’t incriminating? That might make her laugh? What was that one about the stewardess and the cello, again?
“What are you going to do with me?”
I stole a glance at her after she asked it but she still didn’t wanna look at me, and I guess I couldn’t blame her.
“I don’t know.” I threw what was left of my smoke against the wall. I shoulda said something more, but I was still torn up about whether or not I should try and make her feel safe or if I should keep having her be afraid of me and what was going on. The fact of the matter was that I was gonna do everything I could to keep her from gettin’ hurt, yet maybe havin’ me to rely on wasn’t the greatest thing a girl could want, either.
Before I had any more time to think about it, Ben walked in as calm and cool as freakin’ ever, and it only pissed me off more. I could never understand why he spent so much of his money on clothes—isn’t that what chicks are into? Why waste money on some suit you gotta stand still to have measured on you when you could be spending your money on somethin’ fun? For all the tailors I’ve seen him go through and all the suits he’s worn, I still don’t get it.
I wondered if she got it by the way she was looking at him, and I was half tempted to tell her about Ben’s theories of “dressing the part” and “giving people the wrong impression the right way.” I decide against it when he took out and put on those stupid, big glasses of his that he didn’t even really need ’cause all they did was make him look smarter—or maybe just older.
“Well,” he said to me. “At least when you find a mess, you find a lovely one, don’t you, Charlie Boy?”
Another one of Ben’s theories: subtle flattery.
I hated the way he walked towards her like it was the easiest thing in the world, like anybody could do it. How come I couldn’t do that?
“Hello there, my name is Ben Walden. What’s yours?”
I stared at her ’bout as hard as she was staring at Ben. I was dying to hear her speak again, to finally know her name, but the death glare she was givin’ Ben mighta just been passed right on to me by the strength of it. On the other hand, maybe I was gettin’ it wrong again. For as long as I’ve known Ben, he’s never been afraid of anyone—even Elise—but something told me that with enough reason, this girl could give him a run for his money.
“Addie Battes.”
Ben looked back at me, tryin’ to tell me something, but all I could hear was her name and the sound of her voice in my head.
“My family isn’t wealthy.” Her voice changed suddenly when she said that. Not so angry anymore but more protesting or something like that. It took me a second to realize that she wasn’t just pretending to be brave.
Ben just thought the whole thing was funny, and he stood on the other side from me with a big smirk on his face that he gets when he already knows everything. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know anyone, anything, and I don’t even know where I am. You could just blindfold me and drop me off somewhere so neither of us is inconvenienced. There are many options here, gentlemen. I could tell my family I spontaneously went hitchhiking, so there was no crime even committed, no laws broken whatsoever.”
Her voice sounded like a hostage negotiator from TV, and I had her pegged for somebody on one of those debate teams in a fancy school. As good as she was, though, I still couldn’t see her ever havin’ to talk herself out of any trouble like Ben and me had to so many times.
When Ben looked at me, smilin’, I could tell he already knew everything ’bout her: where she came from, how old she was, and the rest. The fellas and me had tried to do as much on the drive over, but there was almost nothing on the wire yet, and what was there wasn’t real helpful.
After he started laughing, I kinda wanted to laugh, too. Everybody’s got their price, right? All we had to do was figure out what this girl’s was, and she’d keep her mouth shut. There wasn’t no reason we had to hurt her. We might have to stay out of the States for a good long while, but Elise had been talking up Europe for months as it was and Ben probably couldn’t a gotten outta that for much longer, anyways. Besides, letting this girl go without hurtin’ her might be better for us in the long run. If something happened and one of us ever got caught and fingered for nabbing her, we could make up some lie—just like she said.
Ben sighed and smacked his hands together. “Okay, kids, here’s what we’ll do: we will attempt to remain with our preemptive plan. Then in a few hours, after we’re gone, we’ll have some friends call the authorities about this lovely little thing.”
He must not’ve been saying what he was really saying, ’cause I didn’t feel any better. I didn’t say anything and took out another smoke. If I had something in my mouth, then maybe I could keep it shut. Still though, I wanted to try something out, so I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to look mad.
“Okay by you?” I asked.
This girl, this… Addie, looked at me like she was insulted I would even speak to her. But it quickly turned to anger, and her slim eyebrows furrowed together as she said, “I’d prefer to go home right now.”
I laughed ’cause I liked
her temper, but Ben was laughing for reasons of his own. What they were though, I didn’t know.
“Um, excuse me? Just how long am I going to be here?”
“’Til tomorrow,” I told her.
Even her sigh was pretty. “Okay.”
It was a good thing that Ben spoke up again, ’cause I was starting to fill up with wanting to talk to her, and though I enjoyed it, I knew it wasn’t a good idea. “I’ll have a talking to with Wallace.”
Just the sound of that asshat’s name made the rage bubble up in me again. I tried to laugh it off like before, but between that and trying not to stare at Addie, I was having a hard time again. “If you don’t, then I’m gonna.” I was all sarcastic and saluted to Ben as he went to leave. What’s that called, again—passive-aggressive something?
My fingers started hurtin’ then, and I realized I had been balling my hands together like I do when I’m angry sometimes. Could she see how I was ’bout to boil over? I wasn’t too sure, so I thought maybe I should leave the room before I scared her again.
Chapter 4
I turned the corner real fast and tried to get myself to breathe normal. It was hard to concentrate, though, with that sunlight shining in my eye from the broken windows. I swore to myself and rubbed at my eyes. Hey, it was morning now, wasn’t it? I wondered when the last time she had eaten was or if she was thirsty. If she was, would she bother saying something? Or go hungry before risking getting one of us angry? The second I thought it, my own stomach growled at me, and I went scrounging for food. That particular safe house might not’ve been the Ritz, but I could at least make sure she had something to eat.
I managed to find a bag of chips that the fellas hadn’t gotten to and a couple of water bottles from the crate in the SUV. When I felt how warm they were, though, I felt bad—a girl like her deserved a lot better than stale water and lousy chips. Still though, it was the best I could do without being away from her for real long. And that was something I definitely was not gonna do.
I guess I did something good ’cause her eyes lit up like I had first seen in the coffee line. It made me feel okay enough to sit across from her. She musta been more hungry than I thought, though¸ ’cause she didn’t even move away when I went to untie her. But remembering how rough she had been makin’ it on me, I thought maybe I should throw in a warning:
“If you try somethin’, I’ll lock you in a closet.”
I’d used a buntline hitch knot to tie her to the radiator, not thinking a whole lot ’bout it and just kinda hoping that she didn’t know enough ’bout sailing to get out of it. I could see she had tried, but that was all she had done. She hadn’t gotten farther than making her wrists real red.
That only made it seem extra crazy to me that she would smile at me. “Taking a page out of the SLA Handbook?”
Was that supposed to be some kinda smart-girl talk? “Huh?”
I opened up the chips and slid a water bottle to her, not really thinkin’ she would say anything else about it but glad when she did.
“Um, the Symbionese Liberation Army?”
I kept my mouth shut, hoping that maybe if I did, she might talk to me some more.
“They kidnapped a girl named Patty Hearst in the 70s. Kept her locked in a closet.”
Keeping quiet didn’t work as well as I planned. After she said this, she zipped her lips up good and got kinda pale again, her eyes dartin’ around the water bottle in her hands. It took me a second to realize that she was looking at the cap more than anything else, and I laughed a little bit. The punks who go after girls and sell ’em, get them addicted like that—startin’ them out without them even knowing it.
“If I wanted to drug you, I woulda done it by now.”
She shrugged and looked away from me. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Pretty girl. Terrible liar. “Yeah.”
For a second, all I did was watch her eat. I wanted to go for some of the chips myself, but I was afraid that if our hands touched—inside the bag or out—then she would go back to being spooked. I woulda much rather been hungry than that. As ridiculous as it was, too, she looked real happy, just crunching away on those stupid chips like they were the greatest things she had ever eaten. I thought it was funny. And I guess she did, too, ’cause all a sudden, she started laughin’—a soft giggle that made me feel dizzy from my head to my toes.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
She took another sip of water and smiled at me. “Normally I don’t enjoy Ruffles this much.”
Crazy, oh yeah. This chick was definitely certifiable. “You’re a strange one, ain’t you?”
She nodded and ate another chip. Then she stirred the bag at me and gestured for me to have some. I waited for a second for her to change her mind, but she didn’t. What was with all the polite stuff?
“Why are you being nice to me?” she asked.
I hadn’t been expectin’ that. I kinda wanted her to think I was being nice, wanted to be nice—as nice as I could be, anyway. I knew it wasn’t a good idea. When she went home, she would have to tell a story to the cops, and one of the last things I needed was having the cops thinkin I had a hard-on for little girls.
“I ain’t.”
“Yes,” she said. “You are.” What—does she need medication or something? Why would she argue with me ’bout this? For all she knew, I coulda swiped her up to do something real bad, to sell her or something even worse! Just thinkin’ bout it got me so upset that I had to ditch the chips for a smoke. Except I thought ’bout changing my mind when she began staring at me with a weird look on her face. It took me longer than usual to figure out the reason her face was so red was ’cause she must not’ve like the smell.
Among all the other stupid things, I saw her reach out suddenly, her hand going out while she kinda sat up like maybe she was going to make a run for it. I didn’t think she was stupid enough to try for my piece, but my instinct kicked in, and I grabbed her wrist hard, moving my leg against her so that she couldn’t go nowhere.
Right away, I thought I musta hurt her ’cause she was making this little gasping noise, but like everything else between us, it was screwed up beyond screwed up that I didn’t wanna let her go, neither.
I had already realized that her fingers were aiming for that stupid backpack-purse thing, but she smelled so great, and her eyes looked so green in the sunlight, that it made my chest hurt in a good way I’d never felt before. I loosened my grip on her even more and stared at her harder, sure that her staring at me was just the tiredness getting to me, the guilt—there was no way she way she could be staring back at me.
Earlier on, the guys didn’t think it was a good idea to let her keep her backpack, but I looked through it in the SUV and found nothing but girl stuff, anyways. At the time, I hadn’t exactly expected to find a piece or nothin’ in there, but I figured it was better to be safe rather than sorry. One less mistake to worry about.
I picked up the smoke that had fallen on the floor and mumbled my apologies. So much for not spooking her no more.
It wasn’t helping me, either, to see her put that girl-lip-stuff on.
“That’s okay,” she said, all quiet.
At that point, I was half outta my mind from touching her and looking at her, so I started to laugh, even though nothing was really funny. I guess it was still pretty funny that she was being nice to me. I was being nice to her—ha!
I had a hard time re-lighting my smoke, I was laughing so hard. At the same time, she wasn’t looking at me like she was scared, and instead like maybe she wanted to laugh too—maybe going crazy wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“That’s what I mean, though,” she said, moving those perfect shoulders around. “A real villain never apologizes.”
In a way, I guess she had a point. I coulda probably counted the number of times I had ever said I was sorry and meant it on one hand—this was definitely one of ’em.
“So you can’t be entirely bad.”
Did she
think she was a shrink or something? One of those radio love doctors? “What do you know ’bout it?”
“Nothing. I just—”
Not meaning to, I got really angry again. She didn’t get to call the shots on me, on who I am just ’cause we knew each other for five freaking minutes. No. No way.
“That’s right. So just keep your damn mouth shut.”
I kept staring at her, even though I didn’t want to. It was sort of like she had a pull on me and I kinda wondered if maybe those psychics from TV were the real deal and if maybe she was one of ’em . That’s really stupid, though, even for me, so I tried to make that idea go away and focus on the way her fingers flipped the water cap over and over.
“Maybe you’re right. If you were decent, you would let me call my dad—just to tell him I’m all right.”
“Forget it.” I shut that down real quick and put out the last of my smoke. Somehow, it didn’t seem too appealing anymore.
“It was worth a try,” she mumbled.
“You’re lucky you’re even getting outta here.”
As I moved my way to lean up against one of the pantries, I could hear Polo working in the cellar, and I was hoping to hear that Yuri or at least Reid was with him. What was she thinking about all that noise or at all, for that matter? Did she regret ever bothering to talk to me? Was she worrying about her people? Hey, maybe that was why she was being so nice to me, so polite. Jesus, she didn’t think we’d hurt them if she misbehaved, did she? No, no. She had to have been smarter than that, had to have known that kidnappings for money were never real successful, and that’s all we really wanted… a smart girl like her knew that, right? Then again, if she was such a smart girl, how’d she get into any of this?
“What kinda girl goes running ’round a filling station after she hears gunshots?” I shook my head, but I couldn’t make the thoughts go away.
She asked me something in a sweet voice, but I hardly heard it.
