We approached the bend in the road.
“Slow down,” Seth said.
I eased my foot back on the gas. The sheriff’s car appeared ahead on my left. There was hardly enough room to squeeze past it. I heard branches making squeaky sounds while they scraped Seth’s door. Seth must have noticed my wincing. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I know how to buffer out.”
“Oh? Handy too, huh?”
“I try.”
I laughed. I felt like a girl on the best first date of her life. It’d had a bit of everything so far—thrills, excitement, tenderness, moments where we’d bonded. And, of course, the spark that set the blaze between us. A fire that burned deep in our hearts, a shared flame.
And awesome sex.
“Stop the car,” he said.
I did. “Why?”
“Going to take care of the rest. Wait here.”
Seth snatched the keys from the ignition, opened the door and climbed out. He carried the gun in one hand, the keys in the other. I turned in my seat so I could watch him run around the backside of the car, the keys making each step jingle.
The car blocked him below the waist. Reaching down his center, it looked as if he was about to pee. I heard a thump, then the trunk lid rose. A quick moment later, the truck lid flew down.
Seth came around to my side, reaching through the open window. The keys dangled in my face. “Here.” I took them, and put them back in the ignition as Seth ran over to the sheriff’s car. I noticed the handgun was back in his pants. He tossed my shorts inside, took the shirt from his pocket, threw it in, and did the same with the gun. Bending over, his hand felt around underneath the dashboard. The trunk popped open. Then Seth hurried around to the back, and raised the lid.
He pulled out a red jug.
Gasoline.
I turned away when he started splashing gas across the dead sheriff’s face.
“Holy shit,” I muttered. It was hard to breathe. Seemed no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t inhale. My throat made shrill wheezes with each inhale.
Seth was going to torch him!
It crossed my mind that I could drive away from this nightmare. Drive straight to the nearest town, go to the police, and tell them everything. And I was tempted. With Seth out of the car, I’d been given a quick moment to digest the situation I’d gotten into.
And I realized it wasn’t so much of a nightmare.
Sure, a man had died. I’d stabbed him. Then I’d let the guy who’d planned to kill me fuck me harder than I’d ever been fucked in my life. I was sitting in his car in nothing but a bikini. My back felt a little raw and itchy from rubbing across the ground. I had dried blood on my stomach, the mounds of my breasts, and the tops of my thighs. Bits were flaking off like an old scab.
So maybe getting far away from here was the best thing for me.
But I didn’t go anywhere.
Seth trusted me. He wouldn’t have left me in the car if he didn’t. Definitely wouldn’t have let me drive it, or left me with the keys. A guy like Seth probably didn’t trust anybody.
But he trusted…me.
I couldn’t leave him. I was with him now—a part of this from here on out. Whatever happened from this moment, we’d experience it together.
A whooshing sound came from behind me with a flash of orange. Wriggling shadows spread across the trees. Glancing in the side mirror, I saw flames traveling up the sheriff’s leg, climbing up his body, and engulfing it. Then the flames filled the inside of his car, fidgeting and flapping as they blocked the rear windshield.
Seth ran back to the car. He got in. “Let’s get out of here.”
I stomped the gas. The rear tires threw out dirt behind us as we fled. The rest of the way was bumpy, bouncing us all over. Once my head knocked against my window and Seth asked if I was all right. I nodded that I was, though the bonk had hurt a lot. That was the second time in one day my head had whacked something inside the car.
The last time was Glenn’s truck.
Glenn.
“Oh, shit,” I said.
“What’s wrong?” Seth asked in a winded voice.
“What’d you do with Glenn and Stacey?”
“The two at the lake?”
“Yeah, them.”
“Just left them there.”
“Shit.” I wanted a cigarette. “Do you have my bag?”
“Bag?”
Shit!
I pounded the steering wheel with my fist.
“Whoa,” said Seth. “Don’t take it out on Ellie. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“Ellie? That’s your car’s name?”
“That’s right.”
We reached the blacktop, and the ride became much smoother. The sun was already being covered by dark clouds. I could see rain in the distance, swirling like translucent gray curtains.
“Well, I’m sorry, Ellie,” I said. “Seth, if you didn’t get my bag, then it’s still in the woods or Glenn’s truck.”
Seth closed his eyes. “Shit.”
“Exactly. My bag—with my cigarettes, money, and…ID.”
“We’ve got to go back,” he said.
Something like icy snakes squirmed in my stomach. “I know.” The thought of seeing Glenn and Stacey again didn’t sound very entertaining. Not that I felt bad about their murders, because I didn’t. Deep down, I worried seeing them in their current condition might make me feel guilty or something.
“We need to cover our tracks better,” Seth said. “I just left them lying there, like I usually do. My original plan was to…well, you know.”
“Kill me?”
Seth’s nose wrinkled as if he smelled something foul. “Yeah.”
“What stopped you?”
Seth stretched an arm across the seat. His fingers rubbed my shoulder, triggering goose bumps to pimple up my skin. “You stopped me.”
“Did I?”
“And now you’re stuck with me.”
Smiling, I said, “I can think of worse people to be stuck with.”
“You’re sure about that? I mean—we don’t know each other. At all.”
“I know enough.”
“Not really. And I don’t know enough about you.”
“But don’t you feel like you do?” I reached up, grabbing his wrist with one hand, holding the steering wheel with the other. “Don’t you feel it right”—I pulled his arm across my chest, putting his hand over my heart—“here?”
Seth gulped, nodded. Then his hand slid lower, cupping my breast, gently kneading. “I do.”
My nipple was clamped between his knuckles. I let out a hiss. “And my bag’s going to fuck everything up.”
Pulling his hand away, Seth returned his arm to the top of the seat, but rested his hand on my bare shoulder. “Yes. If somebody finds it, they’ll know you were there for sure. Then the trail will lead to me, to us, and Sheriff Bernstein.”
And my fingerprints all over the knife.
There was no worry there, I told myself. The knife was…actually, I wasn’t sure where the knife was.
Was it still stuck in Bernstein’s back?
I looked down at Seth’s feet. He wore old work boots under the frayed ankles of his jeans. I saw the knife down there, between his feet.
“How far away are we from the lake?” I asked. “I wasn’t available to witness the drive out here.”
“Couple hours. We’ll need to get gas first.”
“You’ll have to pump. I mean, I’m wearing this.” I nodded down at my very exposed body.
Smiling, Seth said, “I’m sure nobody would mind.”
“I’d mind. If it’s somebody other than you, I’d really mind.”
“I’ll pump.”
“Thanks.” I looked at the darkening sky. Little dots of rain sprinkled on the windshield. “It’s going to be dark when we get there.”
“It’s fine. I’ve got flashlights.”
“The Jeffery Dahmer of Boy Scouts?”
Laughing, Seth said, “I don’t eat
people.”
“But you kill them.” It wasn’t a question.
“Right.”
“Can I ask why?”
He was quiet a moment, then, “Why’d you kill Bernstein?”
“I didn’t. You did.”
“I finished him off, quicker. He would’ve died regardless, though. Where you hit him with the knife? It most likely pierced his lung. He was dying too slowly. If I’d let him go on like that, he probably would’ve shot us both.”
“So we both killed him.”
Seth looked at me. I glanced from the road to him over and over. I began to think he wasn’t going to say anything. Finally, he said, “I guess we did.”
“Together,” I said.
“A team.”
“A couple?”
“That sounds a lot better to me. Are you fine with that?”
I thought about it.
Was I? Was I really?
What if I told him no? Would he kill me then? Maybe not. But thinking about starting my day tomorrow without Seth, and trying to pretend none of this had happened scared me. My old life no longer seemed to exist, and that was wonderful.
What scared me worse, was that I’d enjoyed killing Bernstein, enjoyed helping Seth. Even when I thought it was becoming too much when Seth doused Bernstein in gasoline and set him ablaze. Deep down, I knew it turned me on.
I hadn’t realized it at the time, but as we drove along the isolated mountain road, I grasped that I was already hooked, like somebody trying meth for the first time. That initial glorious hit, the tingling high that fills your body and makes it feel as if you’re in another realm. Not that I’d ever tried meth before. That was sort of how I imagined it would be.
Euphoric. Addicted from the first try.
Until your high crashed.
I was starting to feel that way, the miserable descent from an intense high. But knowing we weren’t finished for the night both excited and frightened me. I was eager for something to happen, and scared of what it might be.
“I think I am,” I finally answered. “Fine with it, I mean.”
“Good.”
“Would you have killed me if I said I wasn’t?”
“I doubt it.”
“You doubt it?”
Seth smiled. His teeth looked white in the shadowed car. “No. I wouldn’t have. I know you wouldn’t talk, so we’d go our separate ways after we got your bag back.”
I relaxed. My muscles loosened and I let out a relieved sigh. Seth wouldn’t kill me, no matter what I decided. But there was nothing left to think about. My mind was already made up.
I was Seth’s.
And he was mine.
Reaching down, I let my hand rest on the gearshift as I usually did whenever I drove my own car.
And Seth put his hand on top of mine, his fingers slipping between my fingers. His thumb rubbed the top of my hand. “I think I love you, Jody.”
My heart fluttered. “I think I love you, too, Seth.”
7
Seth
We reached the lake after ten. Though we’d driven through sporadic rain showers, it didn’t look like a drop had fallen here. The sky was devoid of clouds, stars scattered like sparkling freckles across the black. The moon, big and full, threw down a glittery path on the water below. It was a lovely sight. I hoped when we got Jody’s stuff back, we could take some time to enjoy the view. Maybe even skinny dip in the lake.
Jody, leaning forward, tilted her head to see through the windshield. “See the road?”
I looked in front of us. All I could see was what the headlights’ bright spread showed me: Faded yellow lines, some road reflectors here and there. Sometimes a bug flittered through the glare. Other times they splattered on the windshield with juicy cracks.
I saw no road to turn on, though.
“Nope.”
“Damn. I know it’s around here somewhere.”
I watched Jody more than road. She looked cute, concentrating to locate our turn. Her mouth was open, teeth bared as if she were silently growling. From how she sat behind the wheel, arms out and leg angled up, knee bent, it looked as if she were naked. Her skin looked dusky in the meek light from the instrument panel.
“Ah!” Jody cried out.
Her sudden outburst made me jump in my seat. Whipping my head toward the front, I expected to find a roadblock, or squad cars speeding at us. But I only saw an open road, and a thin layering of mist exploding as the Nova pushed through.
Then I noticed the green band of a road sign up on the right. The silver pole was dented in the middle and leaned to the right as if it might fall over any second.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Jody barely slowed the car as she steered onto the road. The tires sighed on the blacktop.
“Do you remember how to get there?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m from this area. I know where to go.”
“So you weren’t just visiting the lake from out of town.”
“Born and raised. Nothing to brag about, I promise you.”
“I’m from Fieldsville.”
“The sticks.”
“And this isn’t?”
“Not like Fieldsville,” I said. “I think we have a convenience store, and that’s about it.”
“That’s worth bragging about.”
We both laughed. It was more fun, having somebody to joke around with. Jody, for many reasons, was a revitalizing addition to everything about me. I already felt more alive than I had in the last several months, maybe even the last several years. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smiled as much. Though we’d only known each other a few hours, and the majority of that time she’d been trapped in my trunk, I felt as if we’d been together forever. But we hadn’t been, and that made it exciting, because there was so much more to learn.
We turned onto the narrow road in the woods. Even with Jody keeping the speed to a crawl, dust flew up in front of us, constructing a swirling wall.
“Feel like I’m driving into a sandstorm,” Jody said.
“Just keep your eyes open, you don’t want to hit—”
Something banged underneath us. The Nova bounced hard. Jody squealed. I banged against my door, then rocked to the side and knocked into Jody. My teeth clacked together.
Though for a moment, everything was a frenzy of reactions, Jody was quick to get the car under control and stopped.
“Too late,” she said, stopping the car. “We hit a pothole or something.”
“Didn’t feel like it,” I said, sitting up. “We didn’t dip down, just bounced over.”
“I ran over something?”
I rubbed my chin. “Think so.” Opening and closing my mouth, I noticed my jaw felt tender and sore. Knowing my bum luck, I probably cracked one of my crowns. “Felt like we ran over something.”
“Yeah. A hole.” She was quiet a moment. “Are you okay?”
“No problem here.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“It was hard to see, and…”
“Jody,” I said, turning to her. I reached over and put my hand on her thigh. It felt soft and smooth, as if coated in lotion. I felt her muscle tremble as my fingers stroked. “You don’t have to explain what happened. I’m not mad.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Come here.” I reached behind her head with my other hand, slipping my fingers into her hair. She leaned toward me. We kissed. Nothing fast or sloppy or erratic. Just soft affection that lasted awhile. I tasted salty wetness, and realized she was crying. So I kissed each of her eyes, softly. Her tears smeared over my lips.
Then I leaned my forehead against hers.
“I guess that’s because of my father,” she said. “I just feel like I have to explain and overexplain when I mess up.”
“You didn’t mess up. Everything’s fine.”
“Promise?”
Leaning back, I looked at her. Her face was pale in the dark,
her eyes and mouth dark smudges. “Cross my heart.” I felt her finger make an X where my heart was. Since I didn’t have on a shirt, it tickled and made me break out in gooseflesh.
“Guess I better check to make sure there’s no damage,” she said.
I shook my head. “I’ll do it. And even if there is, don’t worry.”
Jody gave me a scanty smile. “Sure. I’ll work on that.”
Sitting up, I looked out the windshield. The dust cloud had thinned to a light haze. A small swarm of insects fluttered in the lights’ glare. Opening the door, I climbed out. As I leaned over and pulled the switch to make the seat lean up, Jody got out of the car. I reached under the backseat and felt around until I found a flashlight.
Clicking on the flashlight, a skinny tunnel cut through the dark. While Jody waited at the rear of the car, I checked every tire. “Everything’s fine here,” I said.
“We have a little ways to go yet,” she said. “Glenn parked his truck farther up.”
“It’s fine. It’d be easier going on foot anyway. Who knows what we’ll hit on this cow path.”
Jody laughed. “Maybe a cow. What do you think we hit the first time?”
I swept the light around. Nothing but heavy darkness behind the trees.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let’s look and see.”
I walked over to Jody, slipping an arm around her, and pointed the flashlight toward the back of the car. The taillights spread a dim red pool in the rear. The exhaust coming from the tailpipe made the air look wavy.
Shining the flashlight on the road, we started walking.
I noticed a blocky object up ahead. It sort of looked like a small car battery, tipped on its side. The top had a handle.
“Oh no,” said Jody.
Jody hurried ahead. Reaching the mysterious object, she crouched with her back to me. I saw her muscles tighten above the curvy juts of her rump. The bathing suit bottoms were like a white tongue between each mound. Her legs were two tawny arcs in the night.
I felt myself getting aroused.
Not a good time for it, I told myself.
I started walking toward her.
And paused when she picked up the object and pointed it at me. The front was round. Light glinted off the glass inside.
A camera.
“Shit,” I said.
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