9. Misely
nine
Misely
D espite refusing to immediately stop for food, Talon did pull into a rest stop roughly a half an hour later. We’d just crossed the Iowa-Nebraska border into Omaha, and the gas light on the car’s dash had lit up.
He forbade me from going inside by myself, saying he couldn’t trust me as far as he could throw me. When I mentioned that if his backhand was anything to go by, then he could probably throw me pretty far, his expression had darkened to murderous proportions. That look did not abate when I laughed. Well, I had thought it was funny at least.
My sense of humor could only go so far, not appeasing the dread within me in the slightest. I had hoped he’d overlook this one thing, and let me go inside without his intense supervision. With any luck, there’d be a pay phone I could use to call Birdie and warn her that this wasn’t a social visit. It wasn’t a fool proof plan by any means, but if we got to their place and they were nowhere to be found, maybe I could convince Talon that I wasn’t the right hostage to have.
And to leave my family alone while he was at it.
Alas, he was right by my side the entire time, going so far as to wait directly outside the bathroom door for me. He warned me that we wouldn’t be stopping again for a good long while and that I should prepare for that when I picked out snacks to eat. I rolled my eyes and flipped him the bird, but he didn’t react, ignoring me to grab a couple bottles of water from a cooler.
There would be no ducking around aisles and sneaking away because the shelves barely reached my shoulders, and the rest stop itself was tiny. Talon would be on me before I made it to the door. And the cashier, whose music blasted through their headphones loud enough to be heard from across the store, would be useless. I sighed, resigning myself to another stretch of highway with the brute, and loaded my arms up with goodies.
“What the hell is all that?” Talon’s voice was steeped in mild horror when he observed my hoard splayed out on the front counter.
I glanced down at my selections and then back at him. “What?”
Sure, it was ninety percent sweets, but I’d grabbed a bag of good chips, yogurt and a turkey sandwich too. A perfectly balanced meal.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Deadly.”
“Well, that’s accurate. This shit will kill you.”
I fixed him with a saccharine smile. “Probably not before you do. Besides, it’s better than the crap you tried to feed me earlier.”
At that precise moment the cashier, a young woman with bright magenta hair and a nose ring, pulled one side of her headphones away from her ear. Her greeting fell flat as she monotonously scanned my items, tossing them haphazardly into a thin plastic bag. She eyed the few things that Talon had brought up and asked in a tone that could only be described as bored, “Are these together or separate?”
Talon began to speak but I cut him off, my smile still firmly in place. “Oh, my boyfriend will get this one.” Then I stepped back, reaching out to grab his bicep and squeezed, resting my head on his shoulder to really sell the act. Talon went board stiff, the muscles in his jaw jumping.
The cashier, still completely unaware of the battle of wills happening right in front of her, hardly raised a brow before adding his items to the bag. “Okay, that’ll be $52.38.”
“Jesus Christ, Blondie,” Talon cursed, and I bit back a wicked laugh.
“Oh! Don’t forget about the gas. We’re on pump…” I made a show of craning my neck to look out the dingy windows. “Three.”
The cashier sighed like it was a great inconvenience to tap a few additional buttons on the screen in front of her. “$88.18.”
A line of expletives spewed out of Talon’s mouth as he aggressively pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, slapping the bills down on the counter. I briefly caught sight of what appeared to be a small photo of a young kid with curly auburn hair. The wallet snapped shut before I could get a good look, but my curiosity was already piqued. When the woman gave him his change, he snatched it and the bag up with enough heat to make me laugh.
Fifteen minutes later, Talon still wouldn’t speak to me. It wasn’t like he’d been Mr. Chatterbox before, but this was a very different, very deliberate silent treatment. I bit into a blueberry cream cheese danish, the moan that escaped completely involuntary. If I had any weaknesses, this was it. A good, sweet treat could bring me to my knees. And danishes? They were next level.
The fluffy, flaky pastry, the sweet tartness of the blueberry, the savory cream cheese, all topped with a delicious glaze of processed icing and coarse sugar. It was like heaven throwing a party on my tongue.
Without thinking, I held it out near Talon’s mouth, all my good senses long since lost behind a sugar high.
“Come on, you have got to try this. It’s so. Fucking. G ood .”
His brown eyes darted briefly from where he kept them glued onto the road to the pastry and back again. There was surprise there, not carefully enough hidden behind his distaste.
“Do you have any idea what’s in those things?” His tone was derisive and judgmental.
“The correct response is ‘no thank you.’ But suit yourself.” I shrugged, taking another large bite. “More for me.”
He shot me a look, his eyebrows raised like he was having a hard time believing what he was seeing. “Is this how you always eat?”
I swallowed, annoyance resurfacing. “You sound like Birdie.”
“So that’s a yes.” I sensed mild mirth in the undertones of his voice, intriguing me enough to look at him again.
“I have a sweet tooth. There’s nothing wrong with that. My kids love it.”
His expression became serious again, his eyebrows pulling down. “You don’t have children.”
I glared. “Well maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do. Maybe your spy skills suck.”
“You don’t have children,” He repeated, hardening his tone.
“Not of my own. Not yet. I’m a social worker. You obviously know that, considering the lengths you went to find me. You are an amateur stalker after all.”
“It wasn’t all that difficult to find you. No great lengths were endured.”
“Oh really? That’s why it took a year?” I crossed my arms. “How did you find me?”
This made his lips twitch into an almost smile. “You posted on Instagram. It was easy enough to find out where you worked from that. Then I called your employer and told them I was with your bank gathering direct deposit information. In the name of security, I needed them to confirm your address and the last four digits of your phone number.”
My stomach dropped and any humor I’d felt vanished. This was all my fault. I hadn’t used social media since I’d left Wisconsin. Birdie had warned me to avoid it after she'd been first entered into witness protection, know that unlike her, I wouldn't have any special agents looking out for me. She had done what she could to protect me, and in return I'd ruined everything. When I made the choice to post my selfie with Patti, I’d really thought that enough time had passed that Milo’s family would have just forgotten about me. I mean, really , how much digging would some lowly Midwestern drug dealers go through to find a runaway dealer? I had just wanted a little of my old normal life back; I’d been stupid and naive. And now everyone I cared about was in danger.
My throat became tight and the urge to cry suddenly overpowered the rush I’d gotten from the sugar. Talon’s eyes hit the side of my face again, but I didn’t turn to meet them. When I didn’t respond right away, his mouth opened as if he was going to say something, but I forced words out before him.
“See? Like I said, amateur stalker. Actually, speaking of kids, the next hotel we stop at, can you make sure there’s Wi-Fi? I need to check in with work.”
This earned me a derisive snort. “You want me to let you go online so you can get the police on our trail? I think the fuck not.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” I snapped, shooting him a look that could kill. “Do you think I’m going to risk my family like that? I’m not. But I do have a job that you ripped me away from. Kids that are counting on me. You might be too fucking selfish to know what it’s like to look out for anybody but yourself, but some of us actually have responsibilities. And consciences.”
His response was a grunt, his fingers tight around the steering wheel.
“If you’re so worried about it, then you can watch over my shoulder as I check my emails like the creep you are. But if I lose my job because of you, or even one of my kids suffers as a direct result of this bullshit, I’ll be making you suffer.”