Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAKOTA
“No.”
“Fine.” He turned the wheel, pulling slowly onto the shoulder, then turned the car off and got out.
My pulse was wild now, fear trickling through my blood.
He ripped my door open and reached into the car to unclip my seatbelt, then yanked me out, overpowering my resistance with an ease that scared me. “I’ll make you get it.”
“Why are you doing this?” I asked, dragging my feet when Mason tried to lead me, my heart still hammering from when he’d slammed on the brakes. “I thought you didn’t care about your phone.”
“I don’t.” He pulled me off balance and I stumbled forward a few steps before righting myself, resigning to walk next to him, gravel crunching under my boots.
The nighttime air was cold on my face, wind seeping through my clothes and making me shiver.
I moved closer to the edge of the road, the soles of my boots scuffing the white line.
“Then what?”
“Why are you walking so close to the road?” Mason grabbed me, putting me on the other side of him, safely away from any cars.
“Why are you making me search for your phone?”
“Micah is going to be pissed if he can’t get a hold of me when I have you.”
“He’s already pissed,” I said under my breath.
“I’m aware.”
“He told you he’s mad at me?” My eyes found Mason’s as we walked along the crumbling road, weeds springing up in cracks in the asphalt.
“Yeah. I’m mad at you, too.”
“Oh, because you’re so perfect,” I scoffed, trying to portray some version of indifference, even though his words hurt me.
“I’m not perfect. I’ve done plenty of shit you should hate me for, and I think you do.
” Mason grabbed my shoulder, making me stop walking.
He brought a hand to my throat, tipping my chin up with his thumb.
“But I also think hatred isn’t enough to keep you away from me.
This—” he motioned between us with his free hand “—is stronger than fucking hate. Stronger than anger. You are going to be in my head for the rest of my life, no matter what happens. We’re inevitable. ”
“You say that with so much confidence. Maybe my hatred is stronger than my need.”
“Your hatred strengthens your need.” He leaned down, brushing his lips over my forehead, then along my cheek. “You like things that are bad for you. So do I. And I’m that bad thing for you. Let’s quit pretending like there’s a force on Earth strong enough to keep us from each other.”
Mason released his hold on my throat and resumed walking down the shoulder of the road.
I walked next to him quietly.
There wasn’t much left for me to say to that. He was right. He knew that.
I did like things that were bad for me—that’d been obvious since the first day I met him. When he suffocated me with his palm and I still came crawling right back.
And as much as I wanted to believe there was a force on Earth that might be able to keep me safe from Mason, I was starting to believe there wasn’t.
The closest thing I had was Micah, but he wasn’t safe either.
Mason’s danger was visible, his obsession palpable, and maybe if I didn’t think much about it, he was the scariest thing in the dark.
But I did think about it. I thought about it a lot.
And I’d began to think that there was something a lot scarier than overt violence.
We were far from the car now, but Mason hadn’t slowed his pace.
I had a feeling he knew exactly where the phone was, which did alleviate some of my irritation and worry.
Spending an hour searching through bushes for a phone he didn’t care much about wasn’t how I wanted to spend the rest of my evening.
After another minute or so, I saw something large laying ahead of us on the side of the road. I strained my eyes through the darkness, my feet shuffling to a stop.
Roadkill.
A dead doe on the side of the road.
“I don’t want to go farther,” I whispered. Mason seemed to notice quickly what had made me slow my pace. His eyes flicked between me and the deer.
“That’s okay. Stay here.”
He moved me a few paces further from the road, leaving me in a safer place, then took off jogging. I stared at his back, trying to ignore the dark shape on the pavement on the same side of the solid white line as me.
My gaze slid over to her every so often, though. I was far enough, and it was dark enough, that I couldn’t see many details, couldn’t see all the gore. But I could still barely make out the shape of her head, her ears, outlined by moonlight.
I tipped my head back to look at the stars as tightness spread across my chest and tears gathered in my eyes, lower lip wobbling.
Why did the deer run away?
Because she’s prey, and so am I.
Memories swarmed my skull, picking me apart, burrowing holes in my brain. A different trailer, years in the past, my small hands pressed to the windowsill, an argument behind me, my green eyes fixated on a white-flecked doe as she ran into the dark forest.
A shiver moved through me.
This time, she never made it to the forest.
Did you run away, too?
I heard footsteps, so I looked away from the scattered stars, blinking my tears away.
Mason was almost back, his phone in his hand.
I was grateful for his speed; I didn’t want to stand here much longer.
I’d seen roadkill before, obviously. Squirrels, deer, raccoons, opossums, coyotes.
But I was sad tonight, already overwhelmed by too many things.
For a final time, I glanced past him at the doe lying dead on the side of the road and thought about the car that must’ve hit her.
A truck, maybe. Something big. She’d been living one second, and dead the next, dragged to the side of the road and waiting for whatever happened to all other roadkill to happen to her.
I wondered if she’d been running when it happened, or if she’d been frozen, staring down the thousands of pounds of steel barreling at her.
Standing paralyzed while headlights swallowed the rest of the world, while plastic bulbs stole her away from nature’s darkness.
Her last breath stalling in her lungs, her brain unable to function through the fear.
Had she suffered when she died? Had she suffered before then?
Mason took my hand and pulled me away.
I didn’t look back over my shoulder again.
But I didn’t stop thinking about her, didn’t stop wondering if she’d been running or motionless, didn’t stop imagining the impact of the truck with her body.
She’s prey, and prey dies.