“Did you see that chick, though?” Duane asked. “I would wreck her, man.”
Squirt, squirt.
Wipe, wipe.
My eyes flicked toward Duane, a part of my brain waking up that I didn’t know existed.
“I usually like fit girls, you know? But I’d be willing to make an exception.”
You don’t know Molly, I thought. You don’t know shit.
“Hey, dude, let me call to follow up,” Duane said, and I started breathing faster. “I bet I could close that shit.”
Squirt, squirt.
Duane bumped me with his elbow, and my fists clenched into tight balls.
I closed my eyes. He had to stop talking about you, Molly. I didn’t know what I’d do if he didn’t—
“Oh, man. I think she’s still out there.” Duane grabbed something. I couldn’t see what because I still had my back to him. I couldn’t turn around or he’d know I was about to blow.
“I’m gonna go out there and clean the windows,” he said. “Then you bet your ass I’m gonna ask her out. Chad doesn’t like it when we hit on members, but hey, she ain’t a member yet.”
He came to stand beside me, leaned over the counter. “That’s her next to the car right there,” he said, his breath smelling like stale coffee. “Can you tell how big her titties are? I can’t really—”
I spun around, my shoulder slamming into Duane’s with enough force to take him off his feet. He flew backward and landed on his rear, the orange bottle rolling away from him.
“The fuck, dude?” he yelled.
“My bad.” I almost reached down to offer him a hand up, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. “I, uh…I thought Chad was calling me.”
As Duane was climbing to his feet, Chad appeared.
“I moved too quick,” I continued. “Sorry, man.”
Duane brushed himself off, still wearing a frown. “It’s cool.”
Chad roared with laughter. “This kid nearly sold a girl who doesn’t work out a gym membership, and he laid you out during his interview? Talk about a solid hire.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets. “Does that mean I have a job?”
“Yeah, yeah. You start Monday. Bring your social security card and driver’s license.”
I rushed out before Chad could change his mind, and found you leaning against the back of your car. My heart was pounding, and my blood was pumping, and I wanted you, right there, right then, pushed back on the rusted steel, the sun shining a spotlight on our bodies.
You curled your finger, beckoning me closer, that one motion my undoing.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered as I wrapped my arms around your waist and spun you in a circle.
“Stop,” I said.
“I shouldn’t have—”
I kissed you.
I kissed you, and you held me tighter than you ever had.
Almost as if you were afraid to lose me.
Imagine that—
Molly Bates, afraid.
MOLLY
When Molly awoke the second time, her head was clear.
He’d drugged her again, but she’d expected it. And so when her eyes fluttered open, she’d stared at the ceiling and allowed her mind time to sharpen. She knew he was outside the door, could feel the shadow of him pacing back and forth like an animal awaiting its meal.
“I hear you,” she said, emboldened.
The shuffling of his feet stopped.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said. “I didn’t see your face.”
She sat up, and though her body buzzed with terror, she plucked each word carefully. Reminded herself that fear was the enemy. People lowered their guard in the face of confidence.
If he was hiding his appearance, Molly reasoned, then he wasn’t certain if he would murder her. If he had planned to kill her, he wouldn’t care whether she could identify him.
Her eyes darted to where the vase once stood. The flowers hadn’t been replaced. He’d be upset about that because the flowers were a gift. That much was clear.
The guy behind the door moved. Closer or farther away, she wasn’t sure. She had to say something else before he left. Because the only thing more petrifying than being locked in this room was being left alone in it. With him here, she could strategize. With him here, she needn’t worry what he was doing, or planning, while alone.
Molly would not be a passive victim. If this was a game, and everything was, then she had to make her next move swiftly. Her first had been a mistake, but she didn’t fault herself for acting as anyone would in the same situation.
The guy moved again.
He was walking away!
“Wait,” she called out.
He stopped.
“Could I…? Could I have a glass of water? I’m so thirsty.” She bit her lip and then added, “I won’t break the glass. I promise.”
He left quickly, and Molly pulled her legs over the side of the bed and shook with anxiety. Her mind went to him. Not the person walking up a flight of stairs, but the person she left behind. She touched a hand to her lips and clenched her eyes shut. If he were here, he’d tear down that door with his bare hands. He’d dismember this person who thought he could touch his girl.
But she’d left her wolf behind, hadn’t she? And so she had to become a wolf herself. Or rather, a fox.
Cobain, she thought.
Her heart of stone cracked and bled when she pictured his face. His hands. The way he tilted his head and looked at her with narrowed eyes. Eyes that opened her rib cage and exposed what lay inside.
Cobain.
She dashed to the bathroom, relieved herself, and stood before the sink. The bonds on her wrists prevented her from reaching the window, but she wasn’t concerned about that. Not yet.
Molly turned on the water and splashed it on her face. It was shockingly cold, but good. It reminded her that some things never changed, regardless of where you were. Sometimes, when things got really bad at home, she’d play a game—take a situation and make it worse in her mind so her present situation paled in comparison.
She did that now. Asked herself, What if I didn’t even have a toilet? What if I didn’t have a bed? A window? Water?
Water.
She already had water.
Idiot! She’d been stupid. She should have asked for something to eat instead. Given him a reason to be kind to her. Her request had been a test, of course. If he obliged, she’d know not all was lost. It would connect the two of them, however subtly.
Another lesson from her father.
Ask for things. Small at first, and then larger. Return the favor. This, and face time, are what connect humans more than anything else.
She shook her head, harder and harder, tears stinging her eyes. Even here, even in this situation, her daddy could still make her cry.
She wet her hands in the sink and scrubbed her face. Cleaned around her eyes, her nose, her ears. She released her hair from its rubber band and ran her hands through it, working out the tangles until it fell uninterrupted down her shoulders like sheets of virgin sand.
A virgin.
Could that be the part she played?
Or perhaps the vixen.
Or the playful free spirit.
There was a solution here, and it came in the form of a character. Who would she become to save her own life?
Molly heard him coming and ran from the bathroom. She leaped onto the bed and hugged her legs to her chest. Then she reminded herself to not take the appearance of a victim and uncurled her legs and hung them off the side of the bed. No, too casual. She folded them beneath herself with only a moment to spare.
Her abductor lifted a heavy, squeaking flap over a slot near the top of the door and held out a glass of water.
It was in a plastic cup.
&nbs
p; She walked toward it slowly, nervous he might have put something in it. She reached out a shaking hand and took it. Tried to tell herself to not lurch backward but did anyway.
She looked down at the water, hesitated a beat, and then raised the glass.
It tasted of rusted metal, as if the water had sat too long in unused pipes.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Deep down, she felt as if she’d won a battle.
The guy moved closer to the door and leaned his head toward her. His face was cast in shadows, but she could see that he still wore the same mask—white plastic, with a pair of black eyes and a red, red mouth drawn across the front. A white band wrapped around the back of his head.
She inched closer, trying to gauge the size of him. Was he big, like Cobain? Or smaller, like her friend Nixon?
She leaned closer, narrowing her eyes, trying to get a better look.
He lifted a black device and held it to his mouth.
“You will call me Blue,” he said.
Molly’s heart jerked in her chest. His voice was deep and robotic and disguised by the contraption he held. It should make her feel better, should lend itself to the idea that he would eventually release her.
But instead, it sent chills over every inch of her body.
She lifted her chin, bit down to keep it from quivering. “Blue?”
He nodded, partially obscured by the door. More words through the device. “You will be quiet. You will obey.”
She licked her lips. Pulled in a deep breath. “And what will you do?”
He cocked his head, examined her. “Whatever I want.”
She scooted backward, needing distance. As the back of her knees hit the mattress and she sat, he took a step closer. Pressed his face to the door slot and leaned his head to the side until one black painted eye filled the space.
“You will wash yourself,” he said, and pushed through a piece of cloth. Something else followed the rag—a fluttering of paper and the pop of a ballpoint pen hitting the floor. “And then you will write.”
NOW
School is my own personal prison.
The eyes of wardens are everywhere, watching my every move. Judging me. Questioning me. Haunting me. But no one watches me as closely as Nixon.
I study him as he eats lunch, in the rare moments when he isn’t looking my way. I don’t like the way he devours his food, as if he’s unable to be satisfied. He waggles his fork between each bite. Waggles a foot that’s lying over his knee.
There hadn’t been a single shred of evidence in Nixon’s room that told me that he’d been seeing Molly. The whole thing had me twisted up inside. If I’d been able to find something, anything, I could fix all of this. Find Molly and bring her home. Run away with her the right way. But finding something would have also meant taking down the only guy who’d ever been nice to me.
I watch Nixon as he rises from his seat. He’s built like me, sort of. But I’m bigger.
I’m bigger.
Nixon dumps his tray in the trash and heads down the east hallway. He has a way of walking on the balls of his feet. He hops when he walks. Like a rabbit. Or a coyote.
I follow after him. I’m not certain what I’m doing, but I need to be 100 percent sure he had nothing to do with Molly’s disappearance before I cross his name off my list.
I jog down the hallway, keeping far enough back so that he doesn’t spot me, and push through the heavy door that leads to the locker room. It smells of sweat and mold and desperation. I walk past the rows of blue lockers, searching for him. Listening for the sound of him moving, though I don’t hear anything besides the dripping of the showers.
“I knew you’d follow me.”
I spin around and find Nixon sitting on a bench. He’s looking at me hard. The sympathy, the kindness, he radiated in the weight room has evaporated.
He stands up. “Wanna tell me why?”
“Why what?” I ask.
He walks toward me with the confidence of a guy who’s never been bullied. “Why the hell were you in my room?”
My face opens with surprise.
“That’s right,” he says, his lip curling upward. “I know you went in there. I saw you watching me in your truck. I almost called the cops, you know that? That was enough for me to report you. But I thought, ‘Hey, maybe he was lonely or some crap, and he lost his nerve to come in when he saw me.’ I didn’t want to embarrass you, so I didn’t say shit.”
My heart hammers, and my hands start to sweat. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. I was just supposed to follow him for a bit, make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
“But I forgot my phone and had to swing back by, and guess who I saw coming out my own front door?” Nixon steps closer. “Want to take a stab?”
“I had to know.” I hear how it sounds as those words leave my lips.
Nixon shoves me, and I let it go. I let it go once, but I may not a second time.
“Had to know what, man? If I knew where she went?”
I gnaw the inside of my cheek. “If you did something to her.”
“If I…what?”
“You liked her,” I say, as if that answers everything.
“Yeah, we all did. But she took off. She sent a fucking letter, in case you didn’t catch that. There’s no conspiracy here. And honestly, who cares?”
I rub the back of my neck. “No, I mean, you liked her. Maybe you even…”
Nixon’s face relaxes with understanding. “Did I love her? No.” He shakes his head but then looks at me like, Why hide it? “Yeah, all right, I liked her more than a friend. She was a weird girl, and I thought I’d add more balance to her life than you would. I needed a little weirdness, and she needed some normalcy. But she chose you instead.” He shrugs. “It’s whatever. I’m dating Sydney now.”
I know all about him seeing Sydney because I went through that phone he’d forgotten. Saw their nauseating messages. Seems they’ve been seeing each other for a while, and that he likes her a lot if the lovesick texts are any indication.
And Nixon—because he’s a good guy, even after someone creeps into his house—laughs and shakes his head. “Looks like you already knew that. We’re keeping it quiet right now because her ex is a psychopath. Kind of like someone I know.”
Now it’s my turn to smile.
He shoves me a second time, but with less force. “Look, you and I aren’t going to be friends anymore. We both know that. But I do feel bad for you. Molly was like… I don’t know, she was like your tether to other people at this school, and now that she’s gone, you’re alone again. I know that’s got to suck, but also…you’re fucking weird, dude. You do it to yourself. I mean, you broke into my house. Do you know how utterly messed up that is?”
“I know,” I say.
“Do you? Because normal people wouldn’t do that.”
Then normal people don’t love hard enough, is what I think.
But what I say is exactly nothing.
“Look, I’m not going to tell anyone, because as strange as you are, I don’t think you’d hurt anyone. And you’re going to leave me the hell alone, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, shoving my hands into my pockets.
Nixon leans his head back and inspects me as if he’s considering telling me something. “You should forget about her.”
“I can’t,” I admit in a rare moment of honesty.
Nixon fidgets, and my first thought is, He’s going to tell me they hooked up. He’s going to tell me that, I’m going to break his nose.
Instead, he says only, “Cobain, I think you deserve to know… The thing you had with Molly—”
Coach Miller bursts through his office door and takes three long steps into the locker room, a half-eaten sandwich in his left hand. “What the hell are you two doing in here?”
“About to rob you of a sandwich,” Nixon fires back.
Coach laughs. Says with his mouth full, “I’d like to see you two dipsticks try.”
Nixon follows Coach with his eyes as he powers across the locker room and pushes through the door that leads to the hallway. Nixon’s eyes glide back toward mine. “Maybe, uh…maybe you should talk to him about things.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
Nixon shrugs. “I don’t know. Forget it.”
“Forget nothing. What are you saying?” I grab his arm. “And what do I deserve to know?”
“Let go of me,” Nixon says, sounding more dangerous than I’d given him credit for.
“Just tell me!”
Nixon yanks away from me and moves toward the door. He stops just shy of it and says without turning around, “If you come near me, or my house, again, I’ll call the cops and tell them what happened at the party.”
Confusion pulls my brows together. “What?”
Nixon drops his head, shakes it. “The fight, dude. The way you were shaking her.”
I step back as if struck. “That’s not what happened.”
“I know what I saw.”
He pushes through the door as ice crawls through my veins, as it spirals from my fingertips, covering the entire room in sheets of permafrost. The party. That was the night Molly disappeared. We’d gotten into a fight, but I hadn’t hurt her.
My heart explodes in a blizzard of fear, and I remind myself, though I shouldn’t have to, that I did nothing to Molly.
I did nothing.
NOW
When I spot Holt’s truck outside the house, I almost turn around.
I really don’t want to see him right now. He’s supposed to be on my side, but I’m starting to feel more suspicion from him than support.
I walk through the front door without a sound, as if I’m an intruder here the same way I was at Nixon’s house.
When I don’t find Holt in the living room, I head down the hallway toward the bedrooms. I check his room first, but it looks exactly like it always has. A full-size bed neatly made, a poster of Nolan Ryan stuck to the wall, and rows of worn Western paperbacks on a secondhand bookshelf. His clothes are missing from his dresser, but a photo of us fishing as kids still sits on top. Even the plastic basketball hoop still hangs on the back of his door. How many games have we played with that stupid plastic ball?
We Told Six Lies Page 8
