Take and Give

by Amanda G. Stevens

  “Right.” He opened the door.

  He was halfway into the hall when Marcus’s voice fell like a gavel. “Wait.”

  Austin slipped back inside and let the door close. “Yeah?”

  Marcus sighed, shook his head. “We can’t.”

  Austin crossed his arms and waited. For Lee to argue instead of him? She’d oblige.

  “Why not?” She let the words snap.

  “Because.”

  Of course his sense of morality had anchored itself to biblical principles once he embraced Christianity, but he was driven by other things as well, sometimes equally, sometimes more so. Things like the protection of those he cared about. Stealing a car was necessary for their safety. He couldn’t protest it.

  “We won’t be endangering anyone, merely inconveniencing them.”

  “That’s not the point,” he said.

  “You believe God will hold it against you as a sin.”

  “Lee—”

  “Enduring torture for Him earns you no leniency.”

  “God doesn’t …”

  He said more, but a roaring grew louder in her head. She knew well what God didn’t do. He didn’t esteem Marcus’s sacrifice. Didn’t allow him freedom, only one state’s border away. She pushed up from the chair and stalked to the window. Her fingers tried to wring themselves out until one of her nails caught the other hand and broke skin.

  “Lee.”

  The gentling of his voice wasn’t necessary. She was fine. Marcus, on the other hand—“You continue to cling to Him, of course.”

  The corner of Lee’s eye, the corner of her mind, acknowledged that Austin was standing against the door, the peanut can motionless in his hands. But his presence couldn’t matter in this moment. Marcus didn’t give him a glance, either. He drew up his good knee as though he’d try to get out of bed. His eyes burned into Lee. This was not the new Marcus of sharp silences, nor the old Marcus whose convictions and heart blazed behind his eyes. This Marcus was himself a fire, and Lee was seared.

  “I prayed,” he said.

  Of course you did.

  “For all of you, for protection. I couldn’t do it, so I said—God, all of them. Hold them—” He extended his left hand, cupped and shaking. “Safe. Like this. I—I held my hand out. I said, please. And if nobody else, then Lee. Please, God.”

  Lee’s entwined fingers spasmed against each other.

  Marcus swept the heel of his hand over both cheeks though his eyes were dry. “He held you all.”

  No. You do not hold me. I won’t allow You to. Her safety was her own doing.

  “So if …” Marcus strained for another breath. “If He could keep you safe then, He can now, too. Some other way … that honors Him.”

  She could ignore his wishes. Austin would back her, and Violet wouldn’t challenge her. If Austin carried Marcus to a stolen car and deposited him inside, Marcus couldn’t fight back. The image was an IV of ice water. Lee couldn’t make him helpless. She could steal a car without a prick of conscience, but she couldn’t steal his choice.

  “All right,” she said. “Some other way.”

  But there wasn’t one, and judging from the slam of the peanut can onto the desk in the corner, Austin knew it too.

  26

  If Austin heard his own voice say “There’s not another way” one more time, he’d put a fist through the TV. He sealed his lips and sat with his knees up in one corner, back to the wall. Probably looked like he was sulking, but there were no other chairs or beds, and besides, who cared what Lee and Brenner thought of him?

  If only leaving them behind wouldn’t defeat his purpose in coming here.

  Well, would it?

  Yes. Because no way would Violet leave them too.

  She’d been gone at least fifteen minutes. How long did she think she needed to pray? Austin pushed to his feet. “I’m going to find—”

  The lock clicked, and the door swung open. Violet slipped inside and let it close.

  “Are you …?” Austin didn’t have to finish the question. Her eyes shone.

  “You won’t believe it.” She clasped her hands in front of her. “I found it, guys, the answer to everything.”

  From the stuffed chair, ankles and arms crossed, Lee cocked an eyebrow at her. “Please elaborate.”

  “Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but …” She turned to Austin. “When we checked in, remember the hostess asking us about the room? Where we wanted to stay? Do you remember the words she used?”

  “Not really.” The question had been oddly phrased, but not oddly enough to stick in his memory.

  “You told her that this room was fine, and she asked, ‘Is that where your heart is?’”

  Oh, right. “And …?”

  Violet stepped further into the room and included all of them in her gaze. She set the key card on the table. “The question was half of a password, but we didn’t know, so we didn’t say the other half.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I went for a walk and got all the way to the check-in desk. I was going to turn around, but somebody came in, and when she asked that question, the guy said, ‘My heart is where my treasure is.’”

  Brenner shifted under the blanket, and Violet nodded.

  “It’s a Bible verse,” she said to Austin and Lee.

  “Violet,” Brenner said. “Did you—”

  “I knew it wasn’t an accident that I figured it out. Or that the person said it before I could come back here. So I talked to her.”

  “No.” Brenner pushed to the edge of the bed.

  “It’s okay, Marcus.” Violet’s thumb rubbed at her wrist. “She helps Christians.”

  She opened the door halfway and beckoned. Lee sprang to her feet. In walked the hostess, short and curvy with shoulder-length, red curls, clad in a white button-down shirt and black pants. A dimple appeared with her smile, warmer than the automatic one she’d bestowed on Austin and Violet at the check-in desk.

  “Guys,” Violet said, “this is Tatum.”

  Tatum’s eyes darted around the room to encompass everything—their duffels piled in a corner, the four of them crammed into this single-bed space. She swiped her bangs out of her eyes and continued to stare for another moment. Her eyes lingered on Brenner, who had lowered his feet to the floor but stopped there, hunched at the edge of the mattress.

  “Well,” Tatum said. “Let’s get y’all moved to a better room.”

  Lee blocked her without entering her space, soldier-stiff and steel-eyed. “This is sufficient.”

  “I don’t charge Christians, ma’am, so put that out of your mind, what you can afford and what you can’t.” When none of them relaxed or responded, she sighed. “It’s pretty clear y’all are in dire straits. If you let me help, maybe you can make it to Texas. If you don’t, the Stab will get you for sure. Vinita’s no safer than the city.”

  More silence.

  Screw this. Didn’t Lee and Brenner want another option? They weren’t allowed to reject one delivered to their door. Austin sidestepped around Violet, and now they all faced the woman. She tugged the hem of her shirt, more an absent gesture than a nervous one, and appraised Austin. Probably assumed he was as young as Violet.

  “The Stab,” Austin said. “Is that what you call the Constabulary down here?”

  “Down here? Thought that’s what everyone called them.”

  “We call them con-cops in Michigan,” Violet said.

  Tatum snorted. “You make them sound like superheroes or something.”

  “They are to most people.”

  “Not in Oklahoma.” Tatum tugged her shirt again, this time with something like pride. “The Stab’s not wanted, and they know it, and we pay for it. But so do they.”

  There was no decision to make here. Austin crossed to the corner an
d grabbed his bag and Lee’s, which both now bulged with additional items—Brenner’s clothes and medicine. Violet scurried to his side and picked up her own, and the brown paper grocery bag containing Lee’s medical kit and the rest of their food.

  Lee nodded to Tatum. “Where would you take us?”

  “To a safe room.”

  “Hidden?”

  “No, but it has a safe in the floor. For your contraband, if you have any.” She produced two room keys from her pocket. “Two-seventeen, suite with a connecting bathroom. All of you crowded in here—I don’t know how you snuck in, but this many people with one bed? The Stab would be suspicious right off.”

  Good point. They couldn’t consider only the cost of things, no matter how little money they had.

  The safe rooms were all located on the second floor, and the hotel didn’t have an elevator. The five of them rushed as much as possible. Violet mouthed prayers for concealment the whole way down the hall to the stairs. Halfway up, Brenner collapsed against Lee, and her balance wobbled on the narrow step. Austin hurried to support his other side, and Tatum picked up their bags.

  Austin’s mouth dried. What if she asked to search them? If she found his badge, she’d throw everyone out, with good reason. Well, maybe then they’d admit to the necessity of grand theft auto.

  Who are you becoming?

  When all this was over, he was going to … Australia or somewhere … to straighten out his head.

  At their second-floor room, Tatum let them in and handed the room keys to Violet. “The rooms on either side aren’t occupied right now, but if they are later, it’ll be with folks like you.”

  She also told them about a true safe room on this floor, concealed in the ceiling at the other end of the hallway, above the vending machine. If Constabulary showed up at her desk, Tatum would ring their room phone twice, a signal to hide. She didn’t mention what everyone had to be thinking: Brenner would never be able to climb into an attic.

  The room was double the size of the one they’d shared before, with two beds, a night stand, a table in one corner, and a low couch. The dark green curtains were drawn against the night, and green-and-navy-plaid comforters covered the beds. The connecting door stood open, and past the suite’s bathroom lay another room identical to this one. Four beds. Austin’s shoulders caved with the anticipation of sinking into a mattress.

  He eased Brenner down to the nearest one. The man tried to stay upright, but for him, the move down a hall and up a staircase might as well have been a hike up a mountain. He coughed, fought to catch his breath. Austin propped the pillows against the headboard and lowered him. The guy didn’t weigh anything.

  “Thanks,” he whispered, and Austin turned at the prickling sense of eyes on his back.

  Tatum propped her hands on her hips. “Any idea what’s wrong with him?”

  Lee deposited their bags together in the far corner. “Pneumonia.”

  “Dear Lord,” Tatum said with the reverence of a prayer. “But it’s more than that. If I could get a doctor here—”

  “No.” The snap of Lee’s voice stiffened Tatum’s shoulders. “I’m a nurse. We don’t need anyone else.”

  Get it, lady? Go back to your desk. So he could remind Violet not to trust. Anyone. Then again, Tatum might find a way to get them over the border. Austin sighed. He, of all people, couldn’t upbraid someone for trusting the wrong person.

  The frost encasing the room must be getting through to Tatum. She glanced at each of them in turn, measuring them, deciding they were all right alone, or simply hoping for an acknowledgment from someone.

  Violet’s smile rescued the rest of them. “Thank you so much. You’re amazing.”

  “Doing what I can, that’s all.” Tatum smiled back. “Sleep well. Continental breakfast is at seven.”

  The door whispered shut behind her. The lock mechanism clicked. Silence descended.

  Brenner propped himself up on his elbows. “Violet.”

  She turned. He gave her a glare to melt iron.

  “We—we needed help,” Violet said.

  “Not from people.”

  She rubbed her wrist. “God sends people sometimes. I think He brought us here. To her.”

  Both of them missed the point. Austin sat on the edge of the far bed, and his body became a weight. Lie down, relax, sleep. In a minute. “You shouldn’t have talked to her. Not without talking to us.”

  “Why? You’d already decided what to do. Anyway, this is how it works. Right? Christians trusting each other.”

  By the end, her words were directed to Brenner. He didn’t skirt her gaze, but the silence lasted too long.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  At one time in his life, he probably had. Some people were who they claimed to be—safe, helpful, innocent. Qualities Austin never expected to ascribe to a Christian, but nothing about Tatum (or Brenner, but he wasn’t himself right now) suggested danger.

  “Well, I’m not going to apologize,” Violet said.

  She trudged toward their other room, head ducked, but for all Austin knew, she’d done the one thing that would save them all.

  27

  A pushpin of light jabbed her eyes. Lee turned her face into the pillow. She must have fallen asleep, after all. But what was this piercing shaft? Not morning. She’d pulled the thick drapes before they went to bed, leaving a strip of the streetlight outside so she wouldn’t awake in the dark. Lee rolled onto her back and cracked her eyelids. The lamp had been turned on its lowest setting.

  “Violet?” She swallowed the wasteland from her voice. “What’s—?”

  Marcus.

  Lee sat up, but Violet wasn’t standing over her. Nor was anyone else. “Violet.”

  “Sorry.” The word quivered up from the floor.

  Lee looked over the side of her bed. Violet sat cross-legged beside the floor safe. The empty floor safe. Marcus’s Bible lay open across her knees.

  “What are you doing?”

  Violet glanced up, then ducked her head, but not in time. She’d been crying for a while, eyes bloodshot and tears blotting her sleeve where she’d wiped her face on her shoulder.

  “Violet.” Lee pushed aside the covers.

  “I’ll turn the light off.”

  “Why are you—?”

  “Don’t.” The word ruptured on a sob.

  Had the Bible caused this devastation? No, she must have gone there for comfort. And of course, she didn’t want to discuss it—the cold barrel pressing under her chin, the warm body pressing her too close. Lee shuddered.

  “I thought if I let myself sleep, I’d get stuck in a dream. You know how that happens sometimes? You know you’re dreaming but you can’t wake up?”

  No. Lee’s nightmares were reality as long as they held her. She drew her knees up and planted her heels on the mattress.

  “I started reading in Matthew, but I was getting sleepy, and I thought maybe it would keep me awake to read Romans, because I can’t understand all of Romans, and … and …” Violet hid her face in her arms.

  Should Lee talk to her? How? Words couldn’t erase this.

  The tears broke off, stifled by a long breath. Violet’s hands, palms scabbing now, wiped her face. She closed the Bible and placed it back into the safe and locked it.

  “My eyes are adjusted to the light,” Lee said. “I’ll be able to sleep if you—”

  “No.” Violet pushed to her feet and crawled into bed. “I can’t read anymore.”

  She shut off the light, and Lee kept her eyes on the crack between the drapes. “If I can help in any way, please say so.”

  Only quiet answered her. A few minutes later, someone stomped past their room, and clanking began from the ice machine. Hazard of sleeping toward the end of the hall. When the noise stopped and the person had tramped back the way he’d come, Violet r
olled over with a rustle of sheets.

  “What would it take?” New tears trembled in the whisper.

  What would it take … to sleep without nightmares? Surely that was the cause of her distress. If I knew that, I’d mend myself as well.

  No, she wouldn’t. Her own flashbacks had been earned with her choice.

  “I don’t know, Violet. Perhaps you only need time to process what happened.”

  “No, Lee. What would it take … for you to believe?”

  Frost slithered around her. She stiffened to prevent a shudder. What would it take? A meaningless question.

  “I don’t wish to discuss Christianity with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “It would be pointless.” And she must not wound Violet.

  “Why?”

  “Because you won’t be dissuaded from your trust, and I won’t be convinced to join you in it.”

  “I know you believe God exists. And I think you believe Jesus does too.”

  The stripe of parking lot light fell onto Lee’s bed, across her ankles, and sliced up the far wall, over the only piece of art in the room. The glass wasn’t anti-glare and reflected even the dim light, so that Lee couldn’t make out details of the still life she’d noticed earlier—a wooden table set with a vase holding a single rose, a plate of fresh bread, and a small glass pitcher of water with ice cubes.

  “You do,” Violet said, “don’t you?”

  “Yes.” Maybe one-word answers would deter her, if silence wouldn’t.

  “Do you think Jesus is alive? That He’s God?”

  “Probably.” Based on her historical research after Marcus’s conversion, it was the simplest, if most incredible, explanation for certain facts.

  A sigh poured from the bed beside her. “Oh, wow. Okay.”

  Could they sleep now? Lee closed her eyes.

  “You said trust, so why don’t you? Trust God, I mean?”

  Not a yes/no question. Lee draped an arm over her face. This could only be coming from Violet’s brush with mortality, for some reason a reminder that Lee was headed for eternal damnation.

  “Lee. Are you asleep?”