Chapter 17 #2
The man wiped the smile off his face. He licked his lips as he looked me over, and I could tell that he was fighting to keep that smirk away.
“What’ll you trade for it?”
I frowned.
“Trade?” I glanced at Oliver. “You mean, like you want some money?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want money.”
“Then what do you want?” Oliver asked.
“I want a kiss from Princess Peach over here,” Creep-O said, running his tongue over the fronts of his crooked teeth
I immediately gagged, and Oliver stepped in front of me to block Creep-O’s view of me. “Not going to happen, buddy.”
“Why not? I’m not a bad guy or anything,” he said, defending himself.
“I’m not pimping out my girlfriend, bro,” Oliver threw back, all defensively.
I was instantly taken aback by the word girlfriend, but I pushed it out of my head a second later because what else was he going to call me? It’s not like he could call me the-girl-in-the-stolen-car-who-ran-me-and-my-stolen-car-off-the-road, now could he?
“A nice guy wouldn’t even ask something like that,” I said, standing on my tiptoes so he could only see my eyes from over Oliver’s shoulder.
“Fine,” Creep-O said. “I just want to touch her hair.”
“Touch her hair?” Oliver questioned.
“Touch my hair?” I said at the exact same instant.
“Maybe sniff it too,” Creep-O added on.
Oliver spun around to face me.
“No!” I told him before he even said anything.
“Come on. It’s just hair.”
“No! That’s fucking creepy.”
Movement caught our attention, and the three of us looked at the entrance of the parking lot where a police car pulled in, lighting a fire under all of us.
“Come on, Crash. Suck it up and take one for the team here,” Oliver pleaded, eyes wide with urgency.
“Ugh. Fine! But make it quick!” I turned my back on them.
“Alright, bro. Hurry up. You have ten seconds,” Oliver told him.
I crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes to prepare myself.
After a moment, I felt his hand in my hair.
He threaded his fingers into the locks at the scalp, dragging them through to the ends.
He did it again, but the second time, I felt him lean in, and I heard his long, deep inhale as he smelled my hair.
I shivered in disgust.
“Alright, ten seconds are up,” Oliver said. “Can we get that ride now?”
I turned, expecting to find Creep-O grinning from ear to ear from getting his way, but that’s not what I saw when I looked at his face.
I saw a look of desire, need, and arousal.
His eyes had become hooded, and they darkened.
His jaw was flexed, and his lips weren’t turned up. They were held in a straight line.
“Alright. Get it,” he said, turning for the driver’s side door.
I shivered again as Oliver led the way to the passenger side door.
“You owe me,” I mumbled.
He nodded. “Yeah, I do,” he agreed, opening the door.
I pushed the seat forward and bent down to climb inside, but Creep-O turned to look at me from over his shoulder. “Aw, you don’t want to sit by me?”
“No thanks,” I mumbled, plopping into the backseat.
Oliver pushed the seat back, and he climbed into the passenger seat, closing the door behind him.
Creep-O fired up the car and put it in drive, slowly steering around the lot until he was exiting. I found myself holding my breath until we made it safely down the road.
“My name is Marvin, by the way, but people call me Marv.”
“Nice to meet you, Marv,” Oliver said, not offering our names.
Marv didn’t seem to take it personally. He just shrugged and said, “So, where ya’ll going anyway?”
“To the nearest town or however far you want to take us,” Oliver answered.
“What are you doing all the way out here without a car?”
“We stayed at the campground with a couple of friends. We were ready to go, and they weren’t.” Oliver shrugged. “What about you? Were you out fishing or something?”
“No,” Marv blurted out. “Why?” he asked, all defensively.
Oliver looked over at him with a look of confusion. “You put a tackle box in the trunk of the car.”
“Oh, that.” He moved one hand to rub at his jaw. “Yeah, that wasn’t for fishing.” He shook his head.
“What’s it for then?” Oliver asked, sounding a little worried.
Marv slowly turned to look at Oliver and, with a hushed voice, said, “It’s probably better if you don’t ask those questions.”
I felt every hair on my body stand straight up.
Oliver looked over at him. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
The guy didn’t reply or even look at Oliver. He just kept driving like he wasn’t spoken to at all.
Oliver glanced back at me and then turned to stare at our driver. “What the fuck is in the tackle box, Marv? There isn’t anything illegal in here, is there?”
He moved his head from side to side. “I guess it depends on what state you’re in.”
“This state! This is the state we’re in. What the fuck do I care if what you have is illegal in New York? We’re not in New York!” Oliver’s voice was booming through the cab of the car.
“This state?” Marv asked. “Yeah, it’s illegal in this state.” He laughed. “Illegal in most states. All states, actually,” he said, changing his mind on his answer.
“What the fuck?” Oliver muttered, holding his head in his hands. “Pull the fuck over and let us out of here.”
Marv kept driving. “Nope, sorry, can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I need to get as far away from that cop as possible,” he said, still driving.
I felt like I was watching a tennis match, the way my head kept going back and forth.
My imagination may have run away with me as I tried to guess what was in the tacklebox.
Were there weapons in there that he had just used to kill someone?
A smoking gun or a bloody knife? Or what if it wasn’t a weapon at all?
It could’ve been body parts. He seemed like the kind of guy who would work for a crime boss.
Maybe Marv was sent as a warning. It could’ve been a severed finger in the box.
Or a whole hand. He could’ve been killing people and stealing their organs to sell on the black market.
Obviously, it wasn’t anything big like a lung, but a kidney could easily fit in a tacklebox. A liver, too.
I bent forward and whispered in Oliver’s ear. “Do you think he’s a murderer? What if there’s a weapon in the tackle box?”
His eyes narrowed as he glared at Marv.
“Look, Marv. If you get pulled over, we’re just as guilty as you are. I think it’s only fair we know what we could be getting charged with, don’t you?”
Marv worried his bottom lip, seemingly thinking it over.
“I mean, how would you feel if you got into a stranger’s car and then got arrested for whatever that stranger was involved in? You’d feel a little betrayed, wouldn’t you?” I asked him.
He glanced into the rearview mirror, his eyes meeting mine.
“And Carl is too pretty to make it in prison,” I said, putting my hand on Oliver’s shoulder.
Marv looked at Oliver. “Your name’s Carl?”
Oliver pressed his lips into a tight line.
“I guess it is.” He nodded once.
“I had an older brother named Carl,” he confessed.
“Had?” I confirmed.
Marv’s eyes locked with mine in the mirror as a chill rushed up my spine. “He’s dead.”
He is a murderer. I knew it!