Chapter 10 #2
Time is up before I realize it, I have to get her back to the truck and home before asshat figures out she’s been gone all night. I think I may even follow her home–we’ll chalk it up to being safe.
Instead of saying we need to leave, knowing the words will feel like barbed wire and razors coming up my throat, I dress her instead.
This is the least she deserves–to be doted on and worshiped, cared for in a way that’s foreign to both of us but feels more right than wrong.
On a selfish level? It gives me more opportunity to touch her since I have so much time to make up for.
Once she’s put back together, I rush into my jeans and shirt, not bothering with zipping up or with my belt.
“Ready to go back? Your friends are probably wondering where you’re at and mine are likely face down in the dirt, drunk.”
“Not really.”
It breaks my heart hearing the sadness in her voice.
There’s nothing that will make it better and I hate it, she deserves so much more.
It’s eating me alive knowing she will have to exist in her feelings for the next few days, but then everything will change–I promise.
There won’t be any more days where she shuts herself away in her room, and now that she’s done with school and willing to leave with me, she never has to hide again.
People can’t live like that, shut off from those who care the most about them or the world for that matter.
Humans are social creatures, we need community and companionship to survive.
What she has in that house is anything but survival at the hands of the man she calls father.
Imagine having friends but still being lonely, how isolated that feels, solitary without the bars and caged windows that come along with it.
It will kill her—diminish what light she has left inside, when all I ever want is to turn up the heat and set the world on fire for her.
Maybe that’s the reason behind the firebug living in her heart; it’s her way of letting her light shine and be as destructive as she needs to just keep herself from being swallowed by self-pity and depression.
Hitting the ignition, the car starts with ease, Cinderella coming through to sideswipe us with a slow and sad tempo.
I want to change it, to move it away from the heartache pouring out of the speakers but I don’t because it encompasses all that’s left of our time together.
I know exactly what I have and I’m going to hold on to it for dear life if it’s the last thing I do.
Shifting into drive, we creep up the gravel road back to the main route in relative silence–heavy, suffocating, silence.
The blacktop pulls the rubber tires onto the dark, dew-covered surface like a magnet, then we’re off weaving through the backroads once more.
Dread settles deep into the pit of both our stomachs with every mile we eat up and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.
Finally on the main highway, Nadia fills my right peripheral, being there just isn’t enough.
When we hit a straightaway, I shift and look at her profile.
She seems too tired for a woman her age, as if life has already sucked all of the youth out of her and she’s waiting for the inevitable end for her, and her pain both.
I promise to never add to it, to only ever lift her up even if I have to drag her with me.
Parting my lips, so I may tell her I love her again, red and blue lights explode behind us. High beams and a spotlight pierce the near-black interior of the cab–borderline blinding me for several blinks.
Nadia tries to look over her shoulder, her fair complexion catching the purple blend of flashing reds and blues.
I don’t slow down but don’t speed up either, waiting for her command.
If she wants me to stop then I will and we can go sit in lockup together until arraignment, but I have a feeling she won’t.
Sirens join in with the robotic order to pull over that sends goosebumps down my arms and my heart into overdrive. The officer shouts another grating warning through the megaphone attached to the cruiser’s front bumper.
Come on, Diabolica. Tell me if we’re running or not.
“Nadia…”
There’s a pause, a split second between the wailing siren and our breaths that has me on the edge of my damn seat. One that’s entirely too long but finally, finally, her decision comes.
“Lose ‘em.” For the second time tonight, she said something similar. Dare I hope this will become routine? If so, I love it.
“With pleasure.”
Slamming my foot to the clutch, it’s down for a split moment before my hand shifts the Civic into a lower gear.
Transitioning from clutching to the gas pedal, the torque of the car slows us then everything changes when we rocket off.
RPM’s reach the red zone again and again, through every shift, before the gears slide into sixth and the officer loses ground.
The straight shot we’re on bends into the curve of the mountains closer we get to Hazelwood, yet the officer hasn’t given up which makes me think he’s not city or even county, he’s a state fucking trooper–more trouble than any of us can afford.
My NOS is spent too, fuck we don’t have a means to get away unless something else happens.
If we keep doing this— running—there will be a helicopter in the air and warrants for the both of us before mornings end.
“Kaleb…what do we do?” Nadia asks, fear saturating her worry.
Retrieving my phone from my pocket, I go through the contacts quickly and press it to my ear—knowing just the asshole to call. One ring, two rings, silence, then relief hits when his voice comes through.
“Reeeeyyyy, my man. Where’d you go? This party is boring as fuuuuck.”
“Fuentes, I need a favor.”
“That so? You have the means to pay me?”
“Not really but it will be a good time either way.”
“I’m listening.”
The officer flashes his lights, giving me my final warning before he pulls out his next trick, I mean I think that’s what it is but I’m not going to second guess myself.
“I’m on the highway with company and out of NOS. Think you can give him something better to chase?”
He won’t say no, not when there's an opportunity to show the law how he is untouchable nor the chance to smoke me in a race. While this won’t be one, so to speak, he’ll be our saving grace and pull the officer's attention in a different direction.
I wait, and wait, and wait, hearing noise on his side of the phone fade then the thud of his car door—relief washing through me.
“How far out are you?”
“Ten miles east.”
“See you in five.”
As quickly as he answered the phone, he hung up, the line dying, my phone lighting up the side of my face. Dropping the damn thing into the cup holder, I look over at Nadia and see she’s caught on.
“You called in a distraction?”
Smart girl.
“Yes ma’am. You ready for this?”
“Fuck…I hope so.”
The pedal is on the floor, the officer no longer flashing his lights, and barely keeps up for miles, then I see it. Those stupid fucking running lights Fuentes has on Bitch Maker and…
“Kaleb…” Nadia’s voice tightens when she sees what I do.
“Fuck!”
The asshole is running up the wrong side of the damn highway! Heading straight for us at breakneck speeds, whipping by what few cars there are on the road.
“KALEB!”