Chapter 4 Chase
Chase
Images flicker behind my eyes. Dreams, memories, a tie-dye swirl.
Stella’s voice trickles through me.
“My brave little Toaster…”
My brave little sister.
Water fills my lungs, and I choke on chlorine. My vision muddles, my feet skid against a wet surface, my voice howls with an inhuman sound. Everything is garbled, muddy, wrong.
I can’t breathe.
Someone is singing. Not Stella.
A girl.
My hand extends, reaching. I see blood. It starts at my fingertips, seeps under my nails, travels up the length of my arm until it takes me over. A costume, a morbid disguise.
Pain shreds my leg.
A gunshot pierces the air, vibrating my skull. More blood, drenching my jeans, fusing fabric to skin. My knees buckle.
Ice-cold water pulls me under.
Then that voice returns.
Soft, urgent. The girl.
“Stay with me.”
The weight of her hand presses against my chest, grounding me. A different kind of drowning. A different kind of rescue.
My lungs strain, dragging in breath after breath. Chlorine. Gunpowder. Perfume. My sister’s laugh curls around the edges of it all.
The past bleeds into the present.
Stella is gone.
But someone else is here.
And as my eyes crack open, one at a time, I realize—
So am I.
***
There is nothing quite as sobering as leaving the hospital after major surgery with no one on speed dial and no friends or family waiting with smiles and bouquets.
No reunion hugs, no happy tears, no speakerphone group calls with relatives across the country squealing with profound relief at your recovery.
There is only silence.
I realize I’ve forgotten what real happiness is. Every day for years, I’ve woken up, and I’m just trying to survive.
Today is no different.
Snow blankets the ground in a patchwork of white, gray, and brown.
Exhaust fumes, oil spills, piss, and mud.
I stare at it for a long time as I wait on the hospital curb in my freshly washed clothes, courtesy of Nurse Janelle.
Bloodstains are a bitch. The snow will melt into plush green grass and colorful flower buds, but there is no washing away the evidence of the second-worst night of my life.
“Beep, beep, motherfucker!” Solomon leans out the open window, his voice pitching over a gust of wind that whips my hood back. “Get in before you freeze your nuts off.”
The only person I could call was my boss.
The same guy who helped get me into this mess.
I limp to the car on a pair of crutches, every step reminding me just how much my life has unraveled. Sol watches me approach, one hand on the wheel as he smacks a wad of gum between his teeth.
When I’m finally settled, he shifts the car into Drive and whistles under his breath. “Jesus, kid. You look like hell.”
“Thanks.” Better than looking dead, I suppose.
“Can’t believe they set you free already. Damn. It’s like a fuckin’ drive-through these days.” He shakes his head with dismay, pulling out onto the main road. “Hope they fed you, at least. Did you get a toy with your Happy Meal?”
My good leg bounces up and down, jarring my injured leg and making me wince. “Ate enough. No toy, but possibly a lifelong limp.”
“Brutal.”
The bullet missed my femoral artery, just barely.
That’s what the surgeon told me—some doctor with tired eyes and a voice that didn’t match the gravity of what he was saying.
Another inch, and I’d be gone. Instead, I got emergency surgery, a blood transfusion, multiple nights in the ICU, and a hospital bill I’m praying is all covered by state insurance.
A gunshot wound to the thigh isn’t the kind of thing you just walk away from, no matter how much I want to. My future will be filled with a boatload of follow-up visits and months of rehab.
Sol spits his gum out the window, then rolls it back up. “Listen, man, I feel like shit for what happened. Can’t help but feel responsible.”
My stomach sinks at the reminder that I have nothing but loose change and lint in my pockets and an empty fridge waiting for me at home. “It was a team effort.”
After all, I had options. I chose the path of most resistance, which involved theft and carjacking.
I press two fingers to my forehead, rubbing away the migraine as my mind flashes with visions of no heat, surviving on cans of beans and jellied cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving, and showering at the neighbor’s house while Rock shreds two sets of drums—his kit and my ears—and rambles off conspiracy theories.
It’s a horror movie reel I’m forced to watch, while Christmas lights glitter from pine trees and rooftops, whizzing by in a multicolored stream outside the window.
I haven’t gotten a paycheck since before Halloween, thanks to the man on my left. My rent is long past due, my savings account is in the negative, and my phone is moments away from being shut off.
Tugging the hood over my head, I lean back and stare at the snowfall carpeting the earth. Sparkling, weightless, free of burden. The opposite of this feeling that hollows out my chest.
“Yeah, well, you’re due for a lucky break, my friend.
” Plucking a cigarette from the dashboard, Sol reaches for his lighter and flicks the little wheel, smoke pluming from the embers.
“I made a call, pulled a few strings, and managed to get some cash together that covers your wages since your last paycheck. Plus that bonus I promised.”
My eyes flare, a shot of cautious elation zipping through my chest. “Shit, really?”
“Pop the glove box.”
I pull it open and spot a white envelope stuffed with bills. Sighing with the first breath of relief in months, I snatch it from the compartment and glance at what looks like a few thousand dollars. “You have no idea how much this helps.”
I realize it’s my own fault for agreeing to this under-the-table bullshit; I should have known better. But when I was laid off from my welding job last year due to the factory closing down, I was desperate. The woodworking ad on a local listing’s post caught my eye.
It was supposed to be temporary while I got my custom guitar business off the ground. And I guess that’s the thing about temporary plans. They have a way of stretching into permanence when you’re flat broke. A false sense of security.
One month turned into three, then six, until a full year of late nights in freezing warehouses slipped by as I sanded down someone else’s vision for cash that barely covered the rent.
“Get yourself a good lawyer and some new clothes.” Sol snickers, eyeing me up and down. “Can’t have you showing up to work looking like you moonlight as Dexter.”
I sift through the money before dropping the envelope on my lap. “It might be a bit before I’m back on the clock.”
“I get that. I’ve got you covered for a few weeks. You have someone to look after you?”
My jaw tics through the lie. “Yeah, my neighbor. Rock.”
“Good deal.”
The truth is, my neighbor is usually too stoned to know which day it is, let alone if I’m still breathing. But I’ll manage. I’ve lived through worse things. “My dog was doing okay when you checked on him?” I shift in my seat with a hiss, dropping my head against the headrest.
Given Sol’s track record with breaking promises, he wasn’t my first choice for keeping Toaster alive in my absence. Unfortunately, he was my only choice.
“Oh, yeah, the ragamuffin was happy as a clam at high tide. Your neighbor must’ve stopped by before I got there.”
I frown. “What?”
“Someone was already at the house. The dog was eating like a king. Had multiple bowls filled with kibble, enough water to hydrate the Sahara, and a few chew toys that looked like they were put to good use.”
My heart stutters.
There’s no way Rock took the time to spoil my dog. He told me once that he didn’t trust dogs, convinced they were plants by the government to condition us.
“Right.” I clear my throat. “Thanks for going over there to check on him.”
“Told you before, I got you. Better late than never, eh?”
I rub a hand over my chin, my mind reeling with possible good Samaritans.
Surely it wasn’t her…
I close my eyes, and a pretty girl flickers across my memories: big blue eyes clouded with confusion and dread, pink cheeks dampened with tears, and dark hair threaded with violet streaks while wisps of pale blond framed her porcelain face.
She sang to me.
Everything about that night is a blur, but the sound of her voice—a soulful, throaty melody—somehow trickled through the haze and buried deep.
Annie?
Stella loved the movie Annie. The music, the bright, hopeful energy of it.
She used to sing the songs around the house, her voice filling the empty spaces with a kind of innocence I can’t get back.
I’d catch her twirling in the living room, laughing at her own off-key rendition of “Tomorrow,” a little girl lost in her own joy.
I swallow hard, trying to smash the foggy pieces together until they take shape.
Panic, screaming, chaos.
Softness, warm touches, sweet songs.
At some point, the girl I inadvertently kidnapped found an ounce of sympathy for me and kept me alive. I can’t help but feel like she’s responsible for keeping my dog alive too.
It doesn’t make sense.
Anyone with an ounce of self-preservation would have jumped from the car at the first stoplight and left me to bleed out and rot on the side of the road.
But she didn’t.
I squeeze my eyes tighter, willing the memories to brighten, to glow. She was talking to me, trying to keep me coherent. Asking questions. I think her name was Annie, but I can’t be sure.
Annabelle, Annemarie, An—
“Saw that store clerk all over the news,” Sol says, flicking the radio dial until the Police serenade us from the speaker. “Looks like he’s in deep shit.”
I blink away the fading images of the woman and stare down at my dirty boots. “It’s my fault.”