26
It had gotten mighty dusty mighty quick. Stupidly, I turned on the windshield wipers, but they did nothing to dispel the blowing dust. Leaning forward, I squinted through the haze.
As the dust seemed to settle a bit, I noticed something glinting on the road before me; in the hazy heat waves baking off the tar, it was impossible to tell what it was, and to be frank it didn't really make me think twice. I wish it had. When I look back on everything, it's one of the things I can't seem to stop fixating on: if I'd slowed down, if I'd realized, if I'd been more aware …
Reign says not to beat myself up about it. No one in my position would have done anything different. They make those things specifically so that you can't tell what they are. They wouldn't be very good tools if anyone could just tell they were there.
But you can't help what your brain decides to latch on to when it comes to regrets.
At any rate, I didn't slow down. I didn't know what was coming. Even when I got closer and saw the truck pulled off to the side of the road; what did I know, then, about who was waiting in that truck? Why would I believe it was anything except a guy checking his voicemail, or a family of three consulting a map?
I just sped on, feeling low and like crying despite the image I was putting out into the world: I looked like Thelma, or Louise, driving off to freedom with the wind in her hair. I felt like hell.
Though, to be fair, I can't say I didn't also feel a little bit better by virtue of being back on the road; the directionless terror and anxiety that had taken up residence in my stomach seemed to be abating with each mile I put behind me. But Reign's smile kept flashing in my mind, and with it I'd feel something new (and awful) in my stomach.
A falling feeling, like a dream you know you can't wake up from, a dream where you're tumbling headfirst into nowhere with nothing to stop you or slow you down. All I knew was that I was leaving behind the first thing that had made me happy in years, and I was leaving it behind for a future that was uncertain at best.
But all those thoughts would be cut short soon. Does it sound crazy if I say that it was almost a relief when I heard the awful popping noises, and suddenly felt my new car skidding, veering wildly? At least it was a respite from my thoughts, of Jeremy and Reign and everything in between. I only felt fear, mortal fear, temporary fear.
In a panic, I clutched the steering wheel, reality still elusive, my mind fixated on nothing but keeping myself from turning the car over and being crushed into the dirt. What the fuck, I thought as I heard the terrible screeching of metal against pavement, my car slowing even as it slid across the dusty road, my heart falling as the panic was replaced by a sense of hopelessness. I still thought that it was just bad luck; a flat tire caused by some act of fate, a way for the universe to punish me, a sign that nothing would ever be easy, nothing would ever come cheap.
The Mustang finally came to a screeching, painful stop – in the middle of the highway. I was done. I hunched forward, my forehead meeting the front of the steering wheel. I bet you've found yourself doing the exact same thing at some point or another: groaning, two hands still on the wheel, rubbing your forehead against the leather, back and forth, hoping that when you come back up and open your eyes and look around everything is, somehow, better.
Of course, sticking your head in the sand has been proven to work zero times out of ten.
At least there's whoever's in that truck, I suddenly thought, happy to at least not be all alone. I heard the sound of slamming doors from behind me. I was so thankful. I was so stupidly, naively thankful that I wasn't going to have to try and push my car off the road by myself, that maybe someone would keep me company while I waited for a tow truck in the blaring heat. Maybe they could help me put on the donut that had come in the truck, and I wouldn't need a tow at all …
"Looks like you've got yourself a bit of trouble, miss," someone said. Not just someone. I knew that voice. I knew that voice when it yelled, when it whispered, when it cursed, when it said "I love you." I knew that voice better than I knew my own.
My heart went cold, my blood stopped flowing, and my stomach packed a bag and took a flight straight up my throat. My mouth felt dryer than the air around me. No, no, no, no, I thought, unable to lift my head from the wheel, trying frantically to tell myself it was just a trick of my addled mind. I knew it wasn't, but it was all I could do to keep myself from pissing my pants.
It was impossible. It couldn't be. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it wasn't fucking fair! He couldn't be here! He couldn't have found me, and he couldn't have fucked up my car, and he couldn't be standing beside my passenger-side door, and he couldn't be there! If he was, it just meant that I was destined for misery, that I would never have a good thing in my whole entire life, that I must have been some sort of awful in a past life and was paying for it now.
There was silence for a long moment. A silence that felt heavy, full of things that were going to be said, full of words waiting to be screamed. There was only one way to confirm what I knew to be true, or to prove that I was just experiencing some sort of desert psychosis. Slowly, with my breath still trapped in my lungs, as though if I didn't breathe it would stop happening, I began to raise my head.
I didn't make it very far.
My forehead hit the steering wheel again, this time with the help of a strong grip on my hair. I heard a crunch as my skull met the leathery surface, and my last thought before everything fell into a world of painful red flashes was that I'd been asking for this. Maybe since I'd left, maybe since I'd married him, maybe since the day I'd been born, I'd been asking for this. Pain unfolded inside me like a snake that had been waiting to strike. The world dissolved. After that, there was nothing but pain.
27
Silas grimaced. The sound of flesh hitting flesh seemed to ricochet off the endless sky. From a distance of about fifteen feet, he watched as his client unleashed his rage, in earnest, on the girl. He'd pulled her out of the car by her hair as she screamed and kicked, and now held her against the car door as he screamed obscenities and continued to assault her pretty face.
Silas wished, vaguely, for a cigarette. He felt unusually uncomfortable watching the violence before him; typically, nothing bothered Silas much. He'd killed enough men – and women – on his own, in brutal enough ways, to be immured to watching anyone suffer. He could sit through a snuff film with a large popcorn and a soda and not feel squeamish.
But he felt a little bad for this one. The metal on the side of the car must have been hot enough to scald, which was bad enough without having your husband give you a five-finger talking to. Her face was starting to look a bit like hamburger meat, blood smeared across her cheeks and bubbling around her lips, opened in a soundless screech. He looked at his watch; Jeremy had been going at it for two minutes now, and his wife was starting to slump against the side of the car, the strength to stand being siphoned away.
"Think that's enough, partner?" Silas asked, raising his voice to be heard above the sound of Jeremy's fists. The cop didn't seem to hear. Silas walked forward; the cop caught sight of him and raised his face, a snarl across his mouth, splatters of his wife's blood on his lips.
"You want her walking and talking enough to keep making you dinner, don't ya?" Silas said, his tone normal now as Jeremy's arms ceased their wild flailing. Jeremy turned to him, panting, and slowly wiped at his brow with his forearm. His eyes were inhuman, his face sweaty and red. He mumbled something unintelligible, but clearly malicious. But he kept his hands away from Gabriella, who had crumpled to the ground, still shielding her face, shaking and whimpering.
"Alright," Silas said, walking closer. Jeremy seemed to be deflating, his shoulders falling, his breathing becoming steadier. "Let's get her in the truck."
"In the truck? I'm driving her home," Jeremy said, his voice strangely soft after all his screaming.
"We still have a few details of our arrangement to work out, if you recall," Silas said, his eyebrows rising. His gaze settled on Jeremy's eyes, which were fading fast. Jeremy, in turn, looked down at the cowering Gabriella. He seemed like a different person than he'd been just moments before, a flicker that could have been regret coming over his eyes. Silas walked towards the two figures and bent down before the girl, who was emitting a series of puppy-like noises. He reached out for her, meaning to lift her, but Jeremy pushed him away.
"Don't touch her. I'll do it," Jeremy growled, looking protectively at Gabriella. Silas wasn't surprised, and backed away with his hands up.