“What?” He was half amused, half angry. Didn’t she realize who was in charge now?
“First of all, I’m sick. I can barely breathe as it is. Second, my stepmom will kill you if you stink up her car.”
Griffin snorted. But he took the cigarette out of his mouth and put it and the lighter back in his shirt pocket.
For a long time, the car was absolutely silent except for the ragged sound of the girl’s breathing. After about fifteen minutes, he saw a car approaching them. As it got closer, he tensed. Would she try to signal somehow, maybe press her feet against the window, or heave herself up so that her face appeared? He angled the rearview mirror so he could look at her. He watched her face tense and could tell she was weighing her options, the same as he would have in her place. But there weren’t many. The car passed without incident. The driver was an older man talking on a mobile. Griffin doubted that the Escalade had even registered on his consciousness.
Her voice, coming from under the blanket, made him jump. “What’s your name?”
“What? Are you serious? Do you really think I would tell you that?” He countered with, “What’s your name?” For a second, Griffin thought of what it must be like to be her. To be blind. Like being on an amusement park ride in the dark, one of those rides where skeletons jumped out at you or ghosts glided up behind you and you only knew they were there when they wailed in your ear.
“It’s Cheyenne,” she said softly. “Cheyenne Wilder.”
“Why did your parents name you Cheyenne?” Griffin asked as they drove past two horses – one brown and one black – running free. His eyes followed them for a moment. “Isn’t that an Indian tribe?”
“I’m one-thirty-second Indian. Not enough to really matter.”
High cheekbones, dark hair, dark eyes – he could see it. His panic had eased a little. “How old are you?” he asked. It was hard to tell. Fourteen? Eighteen? She was smaller than him, maybe five two, and not wearing any makeup, but she also seemed self-assured. Maybe you had to grow up fast if you were blind.
“Sixteen.”
“How come you’re blind?”
Instead of answering, Cheyenne shifted and changed the subject. “Where are you taking me?”
He shook his head, forgetting again that she couldn’t see him. Then he said, “I can’t tell you that.”
“Well, then, how long until we get there?”
“When we do.” An odd flash of memory, some vacation with his parents. His dad just drove, never taking his eyes off the road and never answering Griffin’s questions. His mom turned around in the seat and talked to him, snuck him little snacks. They had played games, like spotting as many different license plates as they could, or vying with each other to think of animals whose names started with each letter of the alphabet. “Ape, bear, cheetah…” Griffin hadn’t thought about that trip for a long time.
He looked back at Cheyenne again. Her eyes were open but unfocused, which was kind of freaky. It reminded him of parties he had been to, people so drugged or drunk they were lost in their own world. It was weird that he could look at her and she wouldn’t know.
As he watched, Cheyenne began to cough again, explosions that jerked her body around on the seat. Finally, she choked out, “Can you get me a cough drop from my purse?”
He pulled off on a gravel turnout but left the engine running. After rummaging in her purse, he found a pack of cough drops. “Here you go,” he said. She opened her mouth. Even though he hadn’t been to mass since his mom left when he was ten, Griffin suddenly felt like a priest with a communion wafer. As he gave Cheyenne the cough drop, his fingertips grazed her lips.
“Look,” he said, “I’m going to need to cover your face for a second. And when we stop, I’ll need you to stay quiet, okay?”
For a moment, the only sound was her sucking on the lozenge. Then finally she nodded.
Griffin pulled the blanket loosely over her face, then put the car in gear and drove on. As he did, he unconsciously rubbed his fingertips together, the ones that had touched her lips.
HERE BE DRAGONS
The kidnapper couldn’t see her. Nobody could see her. It was like she was invisible. As she lay on the backseat of the car, hidden under the blanket, Cheyenne allowed herself to cry without making any sound. In the last three years, she had gotten good at it.
After the accident, her dad had fallen apart. Every night in the hospital, he slept in her room. Her mom would have done the same, but her mom was gone. Her dad traveled so much on business that it was her mom who knew her best, who knew everything about her. Who else would remember that Cheyenne loved chocolate chip Teddy Grahams and was scared of moths? Who was going to take her shopping for bras and talk to her about the kids at school? In the hospital, Cheyenne’s dad sometimes woke her up because he was crying in his sleep. She had realized it was her job to be strong for him, so Cheyenne had hid her real feelings, her real self, so that he wouldn’t guess how bad it was.