Chapter 11
We Hope You Enjoyed Your Visit to Ridgemore, Where Strangers Become Prisoners—Oops, I Mean Friends
Bobo was ecstatic at the unexpected ride with all his favorite people.
I managed to sneak him out without encountering my lie-rents, and I now occupied the passenger seat of Clyde so he could stick his head out the window, which he did, as far as I’d allow him.
His cute boxy face was split into a wide grin, his eyes narrowed to slits against the wind, his jowls quivering comically as they caught air.
A slim stream of his drool trailed behind us like a banner.
If only the rest of us could be that excited to be nearing Ridgemore’s town boundary …
We’d set the scene for our “joyride,” explaining aloud for our listeners that we needed a break from the stressors of school and general life demands.
And what better way to ease some of that tension than to feel out how Clyde was running after his latest tune-up?
To really let him loose on the open road?
After that, Griffin turned the radio to the classic rock station to cover up how we’d settled into a burdened silence.
I kept tasting what I had eaten of my chicken salad sandwich as a nervous nausea swirled through my gut.
Were we foolish to risk escaping? If Magnum or any of his lackeys discovered that we were on to them, that we knew way more than we should given we were rebooted just the night before, they’d kill us for sure.
And chances were they’d succeed in wiping out what limited understanding we did have of the situation and our adversaries.
But continuing to play dumb in their lethal game wasn’t reasonable either. How could we continue to allow them to do what they’d done to us? To murder us, to erase entire years of our lives? To toy with us and our futures as if we truly were Magnum’s chattel?
Whatever choice we made, one certainty remained: The stakes were too damn high, the people at risk far too fucking important to be risking.
Clutching Bobo around the hips so he wouldn’t fall out the window, I leaned my head against the headrest and closed my eyes.
The opening notes of “Bad to the Bone” burst forth from Clyde’s speakers, and Layla yelled loudly enough to be heard over the music and the rush of air from the open windows, “Fuck to the yeah! Perfect song for a joyride!”
Griffin’s hand landed on my knee. When he squeezed, I opened my eyes to find him glancing from me to the road and back again. His eyes were troubled. They seemed to ask, Are you okay?
I offered him what smile I could. It was flimsy, betraying too much of the fear I was working hard to hold at bay, the visceral memories of death and the terror of losing my loved ones forever that I was trying hard to forget.
His responding smile was part grimace. It appeared to say, Yeah, I know. We’re not okay at all.
We really weren’t. I didn’t know if we’d ever be all right again. This was the kind of recurring trauma that was featured in psychiatry journals.
When the song drew to a close, Griffin turned down the volume and leaned forward over the steering wheel.
“We’re almost at the edge of town,” he announced.
Living in a town as small as Ridgemore, we were never more than twenty or so minutes away from its limits, no matter where we were.
There was no more drawing out our escape plan.
The moment of truth was upon us. Would Magnum’s forces swarm us the moment he realized we were trying to leave?
Would they wait until we put enough miles between us and town that it became evident we didn’t intend to return?
When we bailed on our scheduled training session with our ninja instructors later that afternoon?
“I’m so glad we decided to do this today,” Layla said for our audience. “It’s a perfect day for a joyride. Warm enough but not hot. Fall crisp but not yet cold. Clear skies. No traffic since it’s the middle of the day.”
My girl was doing her best to sound normal, but she’d never been one to list out the mundane. Still, her performance was so much better than anything I could manage.
“It was about time for a nice, long drive,” Brady added. “We were majorly overdue for one.”
We were overdue for a lot of stuff. A reprieve from being hunted like beasts would have been nice, for starters.
Griffin dipped his head lower, studying the quaint, eagerly happy sign announcing the departure from town. The words were painted in a bright, scrawling flourish.
We hope you enjoyed your visit to Ridgemore, where strangers become friends. Come back to see us soon!
I scoffed under my breath. More like, where strangers become prisoners—oops, I mean friends.
Griffin turned off the radio entirely. he said into our minds.
I gripped Bobo tighter and held my breath.
Clyde zoomed by the sign, blurring its absurdly fake message … without incident.
Layla laughed loudly. I exhaled shakily into Bobo’s fur.
Griffin told us with a happy slap to the wheel, his relief stark.
Brady asked.
“Fuck me,” I muttered. I hadn’t even considered those possibilities! So much for my relief. Any of those things could still happen!
Hunt said.
Griffin said as he continued to drive the empty stretch of road, his shoulders relaxing against his seat back, his hand loose atop my knee since he didn’t have to shift gears.
Brady said.
Layla said, for once serious despite her suggestion involving nudity.
Hunt said.
Griffin said with a wink to me and one of his true, natural smiles.
I waggled my brows at him.
His smile widened while Layla groaned and then whined,
My stare was eating up how fucking hot Griffin was, and how amazing it was that I could openly ogle him. I didn’t immediately register that Layla had trailed off for good reason, until Griffin’s stare hardened on the road up ahead.
His throat bobbed as he asked aloud, “Uh, guys … what the hell is that?”
Layla was already perched on the edge of the back seat, peering between the front seats. Hunt and Brady also scooted forward to better see while I bobbed my head around Bobo’s rump and tail.
Griffin pointed at a sign that was fast coming into view.
None of us uttered a word until we read it.
Welcome to Ridgemore, where strangers become friends. Make yourselves at home and stay a while!
Griffin slowed Clyde to crawl past it. There was no mistaking the upbeat scrawl—an identical stylistic match to the farewell signage—or what it said. As to what it meant … fuck if I knew.
When the sign was far enough behind us that it was the size of a postage stamp, Layla broke our stunned silence.
“How the fuck can we be entering Ridgemore when we just freaking left it?”
I didn’t answer. Neither did the others.
“Huh?” she insisted, a hysterical edge creeping into that
single-worded demand. “The fuck, guys? Whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuuuuuck!”
Though surely we were all thinking something along those lines—I certainly was—an entire additional minute passed, during which Layla’s breathing grew heavy, like she was maybe about to hyperventilate, something she’d never done before.
“Guys, I think I’m … I think I’m losing my ever-loving shit,” she panted. “Right now. Right the hell now.”
After the Magnum times four sexcapades we’d witnessed the night before, I didn’t think my mind could be blown open any wider. But damn, if the universe didn’t love to tell me to hold its beer and watch me top that shit, motherfucker.
All I kept thinking was, We just left town and now we’re being welcomed back into it. That was it. No deductions or conclusions. No brilliant hypotheses as to what that implied. No if A leads to B, then C must be true. Nothing but a numb repetition of that one glaring fact.
We just left. And now we’re … back? That, and chicken salad. I might actually puke it back up if I didn’t calm down real fast.
“Guys, I mean it,” Layla said. “I need …”
“What do you need, babe?” I asked, surprised to hear my voice sounding level, in control.
Layla threw her hands up, then brought them down with a smack against my seat and Griffin’s.
“I don’t know what I need,” she yelled, too loudly in the confined space, even with the windows open.
“I just know I don’t need this, whatever the holy motherfucking fuck this is. ”
Layla had been dropping F-bombs since we were, like, nine. Even then, how many she fit into a sentence was a pretty accurate gauge of either how upset or how excited she was. The needle was tipping toward red now, the zone where she lost control entirely.
I suggested.
Hunt said.
I turned in my seat to face all of them, keeping a firm grip on Bobo, who’d pulled his head inside the cabin at the panic in Layla’s voice.
He was looking everywhere, attempting to locate the source of her distress so he could attack it.
I ran a soothing hand down his back, and I wished someone would do that for me.