Round 29
ROUND TWENTY-NINE
ROSE
Liam acts as my lookout, hovering by the chip stand in a small-town convenience store while I stuff food into my coat and jerky sticks into my pockets.
He selects a bag of chips, noisily crinkling the packet to cover the sound of me opening a package of mixed nuts and pouring the contents into my mouth.
My stomach aches with the distinct pang of hunger, which only grows worse for the thirty seconds it takes to chew the nuts and swallow them down.
“Ma’am?”
I startle and spin and come face-to-face with a kid. He can’t be more than fifteen or sixteen, and carries a mop in one hand and a bucket in the other.
“You can’t eat the stuff till you pay for it.” His voice squeaks. “That’s stealing.”
“Run, Rose!” Liam knocks the whole chip display over and explodes toward me, grabbing my hand and jerking me out of my stillness.
He catches me when I stumble. Saves me when a peanut stops in my throat.
Then we’re running through the automatic doors and into the night.
I cry out when a second packet of nuts tumbles from my jacket and skids across the blacktop, my hunger desperate to be satiated.
But when the store clerk—the adult, not the teen—comes out and racks a shotgun, I say goodbye to my dinner and bolt to the left, into a small parking lot lined with smelly dumpsters and the screech of feral cats fighting for whatever they found inside.
My heart pounds in my throat, making it difficult to get a full breath, and my hunger brings tears to my eyes. I’m so friggin’ hungry. So ridiculously desperate for the first proper meal I’ve had in days. But I still have the jerky sticks. God, please let me still have the jerky sticks.
“Around here!” Liam ducks through a gap in a chain-link fence, tugging me down to follow.
Then he straightens again and drags me into a messy yard overflowing with broken-down cars and random engine parts on the lawn.
Cigarette butts litter every square inch of walking space, and the loud, furious bark of a dog tied up nearby makes me jump and scream.
Lights flicker on in the house, but Liam tows me into the next yard, then the next one after that, until finally, the yards stop coming, and instead, trees, more than I could hope to count, provide us shelter.
We run for an eternity, around tree trunks and under low-hanging branches. Frost already turns the ground white, but the snow hasn’t come yet. Thank God, the snow is still a week or so away.
“Here.” He pants, slowing our run to a walk and glancing around at a world too terrifying to wander alone. To run blindly through trees… alone? I just couldn’t. I wouldn’t. But I trust him to show me the way. To stay with me until we find civilization again.
Shivering, he coughs and sends white fog rushing into the air in front of his face.
Stopping under a massive spruce, he spins back until light reflects off the cracked lens of his wire-frame glasses.
“This is a good spot, don’t you think? We can rest here for a bit. Eat something before you pass out.”
“What are we gonna do when winter really hits?” I tremble under my coat, my fingers aching as I grab the zipper and peel it down. Opening the thick fabric wide, I look down and hope for a bounty of things to fall to the ground.
But the only thing left is a Little Debbie donut, a salted caramel protein bar, and a packet of peanut M&Ms.
“Hey, that ain’t bad.” Eternally happy, Liam scoops up our dinner. “You’re going for the higher protein now. That’s good.”
I groan. “Liam…”
He presses the protein bar to my belly, forcing me to take it, then he slides the others into my pockets to join the jerky.
“You have some money left over, which means you can grab a hotel or something. Hole up for the worst of winter. You just have to get through.” He stops in front of me, the toes of his boots touching my sneakers.
And because my fingers ache too damn much to peel the packaging open on my dinner, he takes it and opens it for me.
“Come, sit with me.” He lowers against a thick tree trunk and tugs me down beside him, tucking me under his arm and pulling me around until I curl against his side.
He pushes the opened protein bar back into my hand and rubs my arm for warmth, and because I’m too cold to think, he nudges the salted caramel bar up to my lips.
“You’re mixing all this up, ya know that? ”
My breath hitches, bouncing through my chest and out on white puffs of air. “Mixing what up?”
“Your dreams. Your memories.” He slides his hand up the side of my neck and over my forehead. Sweetly, he tilts my head back and searches my eyes. “Me.”
“Why do you keep hurting Ollie?” I tug my legs up, squeezing them into the gap between us. “He’s a good person, and you keep hurting him.”
“Well… why do you want to hurt me?” His eyes flicker down to the gun fisted in my hand, right where my protein bar was a moment ago. “Why, Rosaline? After all these years?”
“Rosaline?” Stop pointing the gun at him. Stop it! “M-my name is Rosaline?”
He smiles and wraps his hand around mine, his finger winding over the trigger.
Then he squeezes.
BANG!
I shoot up in bed with a gasp and pat my chest. My belly. My face. I search for a bullet wound, though I remember my dream clearly. The crack in Liam’s glasses. The stubble on his jaw. The kind gleam in his eyes.
I shot him. We shot him.
A thunderclap booms right outside my window, and the crack of lightning follows right after.
Rain hammers noisily against the roof, so loud it hides the sound of my racing breath.
Loud enough to swallow my whimper. Tears sit heavily in my eyes, not falling, but not drying either.
They make my vision blurry and my face hot as I glance across at my closed door.
Then I peek at the small clock on the set of drawers and groan when I read the time.
One-fifteen.
It’s only one fifteen!
I want to scream.
I don’t feel the pangs of hunger from my dream anymore.
If anything, I’m still full from the dessert Ollie and I made after we got back from the police station.
I don’t feel the cold from my dream, but I shiver all over.
I sniffle and watch as lightning illuminates the sky outside, the shadows of dancing trees playing across my wall.
But it’s not a dancing tree in my mind. It’s a monster in the woods.
It’s a convenience store clerk chasing me with a gun.
It’s a friend dying… because I shot him.
Loneliness creeps into my veins, crippling me until minutes pass. Maybe two or three. Could be twenty or thirty. Nerves make me sick, and with every clap of thunder, I jump and catch the shadows of Liam’s dying face on the wall. His glasses, sitting askew. His eyes open… but not seeing.
I’m a bad person. I steal from stores and run away instead of paying, even when dream-Liam said I had money. I sneak through yards and hide in the forest in a jacket that doesn’t belong to me. Nibbling on food I never earned. Hugging a man I would eventually betray.
Groaning, I startle at the next thunderclap and growl as my fear turns to anger. As my anxiety turns to impatience.
It’s one in the freakin morning! And I went to bed at eleven.
I furiously toss my blankets aside and tear my legs out from beneath the covers, twisting on the mattress and setting my feet on the floor.
And then I… what? I could go to the kitchen and draw, I suppose.
Or to the living room, where I could watch TV.
I could go outside holding metal coat hangers—being struck by lightning would be a fun alternative to the bullshit I’m already dealing with.
Who knows, maybe it’ll jumpstart my memories.
But I do none of those things. Instead, I swipe my nose with the long sleeve of my sleep shirt, and, pushing to my feet, I rip the top blanket off my bed and bundle it in my arms. I can’t disturb Ollie.
I refuse. But I don’t want to be alone either, not while I still feel Liam against my side, so I tiptoe across my room and open my door to reveal the dark hallway.
I grit my teeth and pray the storm outside hides the squeak of the hinges, then I cross the threshold, shivering and jittery. Aching and alone.
My throat burns, adrenaline zinging through my veins like this is a trek up a steep mountain and not a simple walk into the hall.
I inch along in perfect silence and slow to study Ollie’s open door.
The darkness within his room. I hold my breath and lean closer until the soft, constant breathing of a man who needs his sleep becomes a soothing, centering sound I hold onto.
I time my inhale to match his. I time my exhale to do the same. I press my back to the wall and slide down until my butt touches the floor, then, dragging the excess fabric of my shirt over my knees, I open the blanket and drape it over me as well.
To stave off the shivers. To calm my nerves and soften the harshness of the hardwood floor.
Finally, I tilt my head back and carefully rest it against the wall, closing my eyes and opening my airway so the tears drain along my throat instead.
Why did I shoot Liam?
Why was I stealing food?
Why am I such a freak, crashing into a good man’s life, into his home and gym, and taking over until my presence becomes nothing more than a hassle?
Doctors need more than six hours of sleep in a night.
They need to focus on their work, not on the transient back home.
And God knows, maybe somewhere buried deep in his subconscious, where he’ll never admit, exists a fear I’ll rob him in broad daylight and make away with my spoils…
all while he’s busy saving Plainview lives.
Or maybe he’s never thought that at all. But I’m thinking it, because I’m a thief.
A killer.
Oh God. I’m a killer.
“Rose?”