#ecristout

1. Lucky You

“Thank the nice man, Ed.”

Eddie ducks her head. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir,” Annie instructs through gritted teeth. “We’re not up north anymore.”

“Then where the hell are we?” Eddie whispers back, glancing down at Annie before resuming her most polite smile.

“Don’t speak to me like that in front of company,” Annie says, maintaining her own ‘nothing’s wrong here’ smile the entire time.

The cashier, a teenager  with crooked teeth and a thousand yard stare, doesn’t bat an eye. Weak fans buzz away all around the little convenience store, pushing his bangs into his eyes. He doesn’t move to right them.

“Thank you, sir,” Eddie says.

The kid nods back, not making eye contact. “Yerwelcome.” Is he on something?

Annie pulls Eddie away from the counter before she can ask any questions. Through the little aisles, retracing their steps. Eddie makes sure to avoid all of the cracks in the tiled floor. She only steps on the red squares. It’s a good rhythm, left and right. Not thinking, she forgets to watch out for the substandard doorframe and hits her head on the way out. “Fuck.”

Annie, who is just about five feet flat and has never once experienced a beam shaped welt on her forehead, rolls her eyes. “Just get in the fuckin’ car.”

Eddie’s been trying to figure out what’s making Annie so impatient this morning. They’ve been on the road for about three days by now and today’s seen the worst of her disgruntled attitude. She won’t tell Eddie what state they’re in or where they’re going; she won’t let her listen to the radio; she didn’t even get the door for her when they entered the store, which never happens.

Annie does open the passenger door for Eddie, but she doesn’t close it. She marches around the front of her shitty sedan and throws herself into the driver’s side hard enough to shake the frame of the car. Annie may be a small woman, but she’s all muscle, and she’s not one to pull her punches. “I got you something,” she says, digging around in the pocket of her leather jacket. It’s way hotter here than back in Philly, and Eddie’s not surprised when Annie strips down to her undershirt. She doesn’t mind the view, either.

Annie hands her an ice cream bar. It’s melting.

“I’m good. Thanks, though. You can have it.”

“C’mon, don’t be afraid of ice cream.” She sets it on the dashboard. If Eddie doesn’t grab it quick, it’s going to leave a sticky puddle in its wake. “You could stand to lose some weight anyways. This ain’t gonna hurt anything.”

Eddie crosses her arms. Now she really doesn’t want to eat it. (Well, she does, but she isn’t going to. To make a point.) “I didn’t see it at the checkout.”

“They wanted a dollar for it. I’m not made of money.”

When Eddie first met Annie, she could’ve sworn the stealing was not an apparent issue. If it was, she would have ended everything right then and there. Probably.

Annie mostly sticks to the small stuff, pomade or mints; but Eddie did start noticing things around their little apartment that weren’t there before. The nicer shampoo. A new coffee machine. Leather conditioner. Certainly out of the budget for two unemployed students.

And that’s the other thing—Annie can’t seem to get a job. She’s not the handiest dyke on the scene, but she sure knows how to get things done. Nothing gets in her way once a plan is formed, even if the rejections are endless. Most places don’t bother to call back. 

Annie’s motivated in a way Eddie’s never been. Annie clawed her way up from nothing. She buzzed her hair and fled. She worked for what she has. Except for the stealing. Once she gets away with it, she just can’t help but do it again.

“Do you want it or not, Ed?”

Eddie picks up the ice cream bar and begins to peel the wrapper. “Thanks for thinking of me.” Annie reaches across the console to put a hand on Eddie’s inner thigh as she backs out of the parking lot. So that was the right answer.

“We’re almost there, baby.” This is a lie, but Eddie doesn’t need to know that.

Annie gets them off the highway, taking them down a busy road. Safety in numbers, at least. It looks like it’s going towards the city. Which city, however, Eddie can’t be sure. She hasn’t traveled much outside of her familiar train routes and the places she could walk to around campus. She certainly was not prepared for another of Annie’s…adventures.

Bright lights and colors from businesses, people, apartments flash past. It’s a combination of historic, run-down, and shiny brand new that makes her feel like everyone is decorated for a holiday she’s never heard of.

Annie looks pretty close to cursing out the drivers around them. Horns are blaring and the traffic is slow, but she’s a tactical driver when she needs to be. They’re past the worst of the holdup before Eddie even realizes it. The land has more breathing room; yards get bigger and houses get farther apart, the school buildings look newer, and just like that the urban landscape is behind them. That’s not good.

Annie parks in front of a tiny church building. According to the bulletin sign, IT COULD HAPPEN AT ANY TIME. 

She fiddles with the key impatiently before getting out of the car and starting off down the sidewalk. “Let’s go, Ed.”

Eddie follows like she always does. The houses here are old, but in the pretty way. Classic paint jobs and decorated yards. It reminds her of some of the counties back home, places she dreamed of living in if she could ever escape the city. People bustle in and out of cafes and novelty book stores, a tucked away place with vintage gowns in the window, restaurants with outdoor seating; even a town history museum. Eddie smiles at a young woman and her beribboned daughter. She stares at the dresses when she gets close enough. Guys nod at her as they pass. Annie keeps walking.

The aggressive rumble of engines douses the happy crowd in a low panic. People walking on the cobblestone step behind parked cars to clear the road; the mother pulls her daughter to the side. Eddie relaxes when she sees the bikers speeding towards them. They aren’t here to stick around, and soon the moment will pass.

The bikers don’t pass Main Street. They leave their bikes anywhere they can find room. They take off their helmets. And then they begin to disperse.

Not all of them seem unkind, they just take up so much space. Some of them have more tattoos than bare skin. Eddie’s a little afraid to stare, but she can’t help it. She’s never seen a real tattoo before. “Why do their jackets say ‘Doubleheads’?” she whispers.

Annie gives her a look. “It’s their name.” Obviously, dumbass. Eddie will keep her mouth closed next time.

One of the guys pulls up right next to where they’re standing on the curb. Nervous, Eddie grabs for Annie’s hand. Annie shrugs her away forcefully. “You tryin’ to get us in trouble?”

She shakes her head. Of course not. Annie busies herself by keeping Eddie out of earshot while she talks to the young man with the greasy hair. Annie doesn’t have a bike to Eddie’s knowledge, but she sure dresses just like the guys that ride them. She could blend right in. She could hop right on and leave Eddie behind.

“Ann?”

Annie averts an evil eye in Eddie’s direction. “I’m busy, Ed.”

“Yeah, but—“ her words fall away. Annie and the man ignore her completely, continuing to speak in their hushed tones and abstract gestures.

Eventually the conversation ends and Eddie’s trying not to lose Annie in the crowd, trying desperately to keep the pace without tripping over the trolley tracks that line the crumbling streets. The biker guy leads them up the hill, quick and dark haired. He’s gone in a flash and then he reappears. Annie hasn’t checked behind her even once to make sure Eddie’s still there. 

They might as well be living a crime drama. The biker guy leads them to a narrow, dark alley in between two buildings. Eddie has to turn sideways just to walk through. He unlocks an unmarked door that looks more like an unsanded board than anything functional. It doesn’t even open all the way before it hits the building on the other side.

“Ask for Lisa,” he says, before holding his wrist up to Annie. As far as Eddie can tell, it looks like they’re comparing watches maybe? And then he walks off.

The door opens directly into a stairwell. Annie, in all her gracious chivalry, pushes Eddie inside first. The nearest landing has two doors and another flight; Annie directs her up the next set of stairs with a firm shove.

“Where are we going?”

Annie shifts her weight, hands on her hips. “Last door down the hall. Tell her you’re Lisa.”

“But the guy said—”

“No arguing. Do you want a bed tonight or not?”

Having lost, Eddie sighs and begins her descent. She stops halfway and turns around when she realizes Annie isn’t coming with her.

Annie’s arms are crossed firmly; she’s going to stand her ground. “Be polite,” is all she says. Eddie looks back one more time and Annie is gone.

Approaching the door, she relaxes her shoulders. Be polite. She can do that. She raps the door knocker three times.

The response is immediate. The lady who answers the door kinda looks like a girl Eddie went to high school with. This makes her laugh nervously. Then she remembers the script. “Hi, I’m—”

“Yeah, real funny, Kim. Where were you an hour ago?”

“I didn’t—”

“Look, here are the keys, I’ll be back on Monday, feed the cat twice a day.”

Eddie takes the keys, drops them, picks them back up, and salutes her goodbye. How did that happen? Who salutes people casually?

“You’re so cute when you’re stupid,” the lady says, grabbing Eddie’s shirt and kissing her full on the mouth. Ew ew ew. “Tell Jim I said hi.”

“Uh huh,” Eddie agrees, fighting the instinct to wipe her mouth.

Of course, Annie reappears as soon as the stranger chick is out of sight. Apparently while Eddie was holding the door open dumbstruck, the cat got out. Annie picks it up on her way in.

“She said to feed it twice a day until Monday.”

Annie sets the unfortunate creature down and laughs. “We’re out of here tomorrow. It’ll have to live.”

Oh, thank God. This isn’t the kind of place Eddie would want to stay in for a week. The bed reaches wall to wall, and when Annie shuts the door behind them there’s barely enough room to stand comfortably. There’s no windows, just a single lightbulb. It’s safe to assume the sheets haven’t been washed. She does not see a litterbox.

The cat keeps gently butting its head on Eddie’s shin and winding its tail around her calves. Cats tend to dissolve her worries embarrassingly fast; this one is no different. It’s so soft and fluffy, maybe the cleanest thing in this place. She has to pick it up.

Annie looks at her funny, but Eddie doesn’t care. She spends a long time standing in silence and just holding it close to her chest. It purrs, batting at her hair and climbing onto her shoulder. She can feel its muscles stretching beneath its fur, delicate bones and the slight prick of claws. It’s so warm, it breathes so steady.

“Didn’t know you were an animal lover,” Annie says, leaning against the wall and watching Eddie rocking the cat in her arms and talking to it like a small, furry child.

“I mean. Look at him.” Eddie brings him closer, and Annie starts scratching him between the ears with just the pads of her fingers. He rubs his cheek against the heel of her palm. It almost looks like he’s smiling. “Did you wanna hold him?”

“Sure.” Annie shrugs, but Eddie can see the Christmas morning excitement on her face when he climbs into the crook of her elbow and starts playing with the fabric of her shirt.

Eddie may have to consider getting a cat for their apartment. With Annie and a cat at arms length, she’ll be unstoppable. She can already picture it; this is something they can do together. Annie won’t get bored and let her hands wander while they’re watching TV if the cat is sitting on Eddie’s lap; she’ll have to wake up at a reasonable time in the morning because the cat needs to be fed before classes start; she’s can’t argue with Eddie if a cat is conveniently placed in her arms. Adoration overload. It’s the perfect plan.

“Should I be nervous or something?” Annie asks.

“Huh?”

She shifts the cat to the other shoulder. “Your eyes went all dark for a second.”

“Oh. Sorry. I think we should adopt a cat.”

Annie holds the cat up under its armpits, legs dangling. “Y’know, I had one growing up. Always bringin’ us dead birds and shit.”

Eddie grins. “That’s not a no.”

“It’s an ‘I’ll think about it’.”

Sometimes an ‘I’ll think about it’ is as good as it gets. It’s hopeful, even in the dim lighting of a stranger’s bed-closet. Eddie and Annie could stand to work on a few things when it comes to their relationship, and signs could come in any form. A cat just might be the next step forward.

“Let me take you out,” Annie says, sitting on the bed with the dirty sheets and cradling the cat in her lap.

“You know a place?”

Annie knows a lot of places. Even years later, she hasn’t forgotten them at all. They’re not exactly to Eddie’s taste; the kind of bars you don’t wanna take a girl to, what with all the drinking and betting and frankly, groping. Ed’s not really one for the races. 

Still, this is Annie’s second chance. “I’ll find somewhere.”

She settles on a little family joint. The owners are friends of Annie’s parents, but they probably wouldn’t recognize Annie now. To their credit, Annie barely recognizes their son when he greets them at the front. She knew him from middle school maybe, before they pulled him out and sent him to public. Bless their hearts, or whatever her mom always said. These people are dirt poor and it shows.

To be fair, Annie doesn’t have a real job yet, either, but at least she’s not stuck in a family-made hellhole. She’s going to turn things around when they get to the farm. This is a new chapter for her, and she’s gonna start by getting Eddie in a well enough mood. Shit’s gonna start to change. They should be celebrating.

After dinner, when the sun is down and the streets are bare, Annie does take her hand. Eddie glances down at her, unsure. Annie nods. No one’s gonna bother them at this hour. There’s a place Annie’s always wanted to take someone, and a foolish part of herself wants to see if it’s still there. She figures she owes it to teenage Annie, anyways.

A few blocks and a lone streetlight confirms it: everything is exactly as she left it. The creaking of the steps is louder than she remembers, and the railing has rusted, but that doesn’t stop her. She grips Eddie’s hand tight as they climb the dilapidated fire escape, the metal skeleton that’s still standing despite the cycle of tenants and businesses and anything else that ran past the other side of the brick wall over the years. Annie gives Eddie a leg up and they’re both on the roof.

“So…you’ve been here before?” Eddie asks, when the silence and the stars are too great between them.

Annie smiles; she’s been found out. “Yeah. Last time I was up here, I was schemin’ about how to kiss Donna Peterson under the stars.”

Eddie puts a hand on Annie’s knee. She’s heard a lot about Donna Peterson, as far as gradeschool crushes go. “You could, uh. Kiss me under the stars.”

“You might be onto something,” Annie murmurs, closing the distance. Eddie’s so nice when she behaves. They haven’t kissed this gentle since forever. Annie brought Eddie along for a reason; she’s a special one. Eddie deserves gentle, she deserves to have the door held and her dinner paid for and the stars above her, at her whim. Annie just loses sight of that sometimes. Everyone’s got a breaking point.

Annie’s hands migrate to Eddie’s hips. There’s too much fabric between them. Annie just wants to see Eddie laid out in her bed again. Ed’s been so tense since they left, there’s been no time to get comfortable around each other.

“Ain’t it cool how you can see the stars?”

Eddie rests her hand over Annie’s. “That’s cheesy.”

Annie kisses her again, inhaling through her nose and letting Eddie catch her breath. “You like it.”

“I do.”

“Y’know, light pollution’s a serious issue,” Annie says, smiling like the crescent moon.

“Oh, of course,” Eddie laughs, feeling like her heart is full. She drifts even closer, the zipper of her jacket dragging up against Annie’s tee shirt. It’s quiet up here in the good kind of way. She’s never been on a roof before. Life can be so beautiful, and if someone above decided Annie would be the one to show it to her, Eddie’s not complaining.

“Today was good, huh?”

Eddie nods. Annie loves her and everything else is just noise.

The walk back is the easiest thing Eddie’s done all day. The streetlights glow gently and Annie’s in no rush. Eddie almost trips over a pile of broken glass on the sidewalk. She looks up briefly and sees her own reflection in a darkened shop window, stupid doe eyes caught in the headlights of her own making.

The tag on her collar prickles the back of neck and she reaches up to adjust it. This can’t be happening. She is walking in a quaint town and she is holding hands with the only love she’s known so far and she…

And she’s bored. She doesn’t want this. It’s not right. She doesn’t see herself doing this in ten years. She can’t love someone blindly, can’t give gooey promises when they make her skin crawl. She needs love to be proven to her, over and over.

Her hand falls from Annie’s grasp and it’s happening again, the counting. She can’t step on the sidewalk cracks. Her thumb strikes her fingertips left and right, one two three four one two three one two one. Other side. Four three two one three two one two—

“You alright, Ed?”

Damn it. She lost count. Better start over. She pulls the waist band of her shorts lower. Hands in her pockets, but that’s too awkward. Annie grabs her hand again and squeezes. They’re leaving tomorrow. It’ll be fine.

It takes thirteen steps to get through the alleyway, which is not good. She’s off balance going up the stairs, which she doesn’t bother counting because thirteen is an unlucky number and nothing on either side is going to reverse it.

She doesn’t feel any better in the morning, not even when Annie digs through the owner lady’s cabinets and starts slicing fruit to bring with them. Then something occurs to Eddie. 

If Annie is at the foot of the bed preparing for their departure, then the sleeping warm thing Eddie is hugging is not Annie. She opens her eyes and actually looks. It’s that cat. She reaches to turn the lightbulb on and starts to lace her shoes. The cat follows her every move, demanding attention.

“Ready to go?” Annie says, sliding everything into a glass container that definitely was not hers to begin with.

The cat jumps into Eddie’s lap, spreading its limbs and rolling so she can’t get up. “We can’t just let it starve for a week.”

Annie grabs a bag of cat food from the pantry and starts measuring it into bowls. “You can leave out a week’s worth of food and cats know when to eat it.”

“No way.”

Annie nods, laughing. “Yes way. He’ll do just fine on his own.”

The cat doesn’t actually have a collar or anything. They don’t know if it’s a boy or girl, what its name is. Eddie looks at it and then she looks at Annie, standing in the doorway. “You’re sure we can’t just…?”

“Can’t what?”

Eddie holds the cat closer. “You know.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Annie says, using the wall to write something hurriedly on a piece of paper.

“That’s not a no.”

Annie starts folding the paper carefully, not sparing a sideways glance. Eddie’s starting to feel like the cat in this situation.

“Just take the damn thing,” Annie says. “Can’t promise it’ll want to stay, though.”

Victory. Eddie scoops up the cat and puts it on her shoulder like a baby. Annie closes the door behind them and pushes the folded paper halfway under the door.

“What’s that?”

“It’s her keys, I wrapped ‘em up. Not like she has anything worth taking,” Annie smirks.

It’s only the morning, but the streets are buzzing already. All of the motorcycles from yesterday are gone, and awkward gaps stretch between parked cars along the main road. Annie’s car is waiting for them in front of the little church, whose sign has changed—DON’T BE THE ONLY ONE.

Annie and Eddie and the cat climb into the front seat and leave the town in the dust. Eddie can breathe again. Change is happening. It might not be good for her, but time is moving no matter what.

“What should we name it?”

“I dunno, it’s your cat.”

“It’s our cat.”

Annie makes an exaggerated thinking face. “Sugarmaple. Eddie II. Mittens. Kitty—“

“It needs to be something good,” Eddie insists.

“You stole him. That’s like coming up with a name for your bastard child.”

Eddie scoffs affectionately. It’s nothing like that. Her and this cat were meant to be together. She’ll find the right name eventually.

From the looks of everything, they’re set for another long day of driving. Eddie forgets how many days it’s been, but they must be pretty far from Pennsylvania by now; she lost track of the route after they left I-70 and Annie hasn’t used a single map the entire time.

Annie doesn’t suggest stopping anywhere and Eddie doesn’t ask for it, but at some point in the afternoon she offers up the fruit that she found. Sliced apples, oranges, a few different types of berries. Annie claims she cut everything so that it would fit in the container, but Eddie knows how much she likes to prepare food. They eat the strawberries first, glimmering in the sunlight and dripping red on Eddie’s clothing. 

Unrefrigerated fruit is a weird thing to leave behind when you’re going on vacation, but maybe that lady from the apartment meant it as a thank you gift. Eddie hopes she won’t be too worried when she realizes the cat is gone as well.

Feeling embarrassed, she hugs the cat tighter and looks through her bag for something to do. Annie tends to get frustrated when she has to drive all day, so Eddie’s getting ready to stay quiet and suppress her questions. She hones in on the Sudoku book Annie packed for her which, compared to every other aspect of this unplanned nightmare trip, was a nice touch.

Eddie always writes in pen even though she ends up scratching over her mistakes. The puzzle she opens to shouldn’t be that hard, but her mind is curiously blank. The numbers blur a little.

They’ve reached the point of no civilization. Everything is grass, haybales, windmills, water towers. But no humans. She stares out the driver’s side window, watching the vast fields of cows and sheep and horses. The closest she’s seen to a real farm animal is maybe a big dog.

“You want somethin’?”

“I’m just looking around,” Eddie defends.

“Yeah, I thought so. Don’t worry, their house is comin’ up.”

“‘Their’?”

“Curiosity killed the cat, girl. Try to get some rest.”

Eddie tries her best. Her head still aches and she could really use a shower. She wonders vaguely about the time but decides not to think too hard, not if she doesn’t have to.

The sky has just begun to melt as Annie reaches for her gun. Eddie doesn’t notice at first; she’s busy staring at candy clouds, fluffy and backlit by the fading sky. She’s observing her own reflection in the car window turned glassy pink and orange with the sunset.

She’s feeling a little loopy and she’s not sure why. She slept as well as she could; the car is ventilated enough, kind of; she even ate one whole meal today. She wants to go to sleep again, for real, in a real bed, at home. She had built the little bed back at the flat into a sort of nest, and she prided herself on the fact that she and Annie could just fall into it at the end of the day. She misses it dearly.

Right now she’s chosen to delay her anxiety, mind reduced to ‘sky pretty’ and ‘wow, more cow fields’. The mesh fences have turned to barbed wire. She can worry about shit later. If it’s going to happen to her anyways, she might as well not even think about it. She might as well just sit and take it. That’s what Annie wants, and Eddie wants what Annie wants. Eddie is what Annie wants.

The gun barely fazes her. She waits so long to ask about it that Annie decides to jump in with an explanation unprompted. “It’s not too safe in these parts.”

Whatever you say, cowboy. Eddie nods listlessly. “Okay.”

“Don’t ever leave the car if I can’t see you.”

“Uh huh.”

“Ed. Are you listening to me.”

Sometimes Annie can be so impatient. She’s a child stamping her foot. Eddie’s too out of it to really argue, though. Her eyes are on the sky. This conversation isn’t about her. “Yeah! Obviously.”

The car brakes with a jolt as they pull up to a small house. It looks pretty new, the style maybe less than a decade old, and yet there’s something about it that says it’s seen some things. This land wants to reclaim its stolen footprint. It’s cupped by the edge of a dense wood, and the large metal gate looks like it’s barely holding onto its hinges. Another, smaller building sits in the distance, but it’s getting too dark to see.

Annie grabs her bag from the back, clips her keys to her belt, and gets out of the car. The gun is still in hand. Eddie unbuckles her seatbelt too, cat in her arms, but she’s hesitant to make a wrong move.

“C’mon. They’re waiting.”

The porch is rickety and Eddie’s pretty sure she’s gotten a splinter just from touching the railing by accident. It’ll all be fine, though. She’s not going to judge it just from the outside; there’s still hope. Things are looking pretty bad, but she’s learned that lesson before. Like Annie—she seemed so angry all the time when they first met, but it turns out she just wanted to take Eddie on a date. And look where they are now.

Annie tries the door. It doesn’t budge. “That fucker,” she mutters, pushing at it with her shoulder. No luck. She knocks loudly. Eddie tries to look inside. Warm light peeks through, but the curtains are drawn tight. A dog starts barking maniacally, and Eddie hears it scratching up the door, the walls. She holds the cat closer to her chest and it nuzzles into her shoulder, indifferent to the noise.

Annie switches to rapping on the windows, but she gives up pretty soon. “Wait here, baby,” she says, before slinking around the side of the house.

Annie’s a little pissed already. She called this morning to let them know her and Eddie were coming. Her friends aren’t good for much in life, but she knows they were taught how to be good hosts.

And if not—well, she has some idea as to how they can be prompted. Annie wasn’t lying when she said this area is dangerous; all sorts of shit live in these woods. But she also suspected she might have to use the gun for unconventional purposes. Everything just falls into place when it’s by her side.

Never let it be said that Neil Kowalski is a stupid man. He’s just…well, he’s pretty stupid. And he pastures his horses without a double fence.

She surveys her options. The horses, seeing her, have come right up to the gate. They really are such naive creatures. Neil’s been wanting one since he was a little girl. Any noise they make is sure to get his attention. Taking a steady look straight into the horses’ huge black eyes, Annie aims and shoots.

Eddie’s really been trying to suppress her nerves so far, just waiting in the dim porch light and hoping Annie knows what she’s doing. The sound of the shot, like ice cracking, really takes her off guard. It’s just fireworks, it’s only been a month since the 4th of July, people here are more patriotic. But the screams say otherwise. Inhuman screeching. Pigs, maybe? Do animals even make that noise?

More barking. A man’s voice. “I’ll fuckin’ shoot you dead!”

So, definitely not fireworks.

Then Annie. “And I’ll meet you in hell!”

Eddie’s shaking so bad now that she can’t stop. She keeps holding her breath, just by accident. Why is she reacting this way? Annie’s got everything figured out. It’ll be fine. Her body just won’t listen. Maybe she should go over there and see if Annie’s okay. But it’s so dark out. It’s not too safe in these parts.

“Well, aren’t you handsome.”

That voice isn’t far away at all. Sure and smooth, delivered with a smile. Eddie turns around slowly. Warm light spills onto the porch. It’s hot outside, night still cooling from the heat of the day, but Eddie’s skin breaks into goosebumps.

The woman in the doorway takes a step out. “You’re the girl Annie tells me about?”

Eddie swallows, nods. Annie was talking about her?

“Name’s Jane. Come in.”

Jane. Eddie can’t believe what she’s seeing. Jane can’t be too much taller than Annie, and just as well-built. A cow crawls down her bicep, fleeing from something. It has two heads. Jane’s hair is damp and it falls around her ears, overgrown in the back. Golden blond. Mouth slightly parted. Gunshots forgotten, Eddie’s heart rate kicks into high gear. Jane.

“Come inside, Eddie. We ain’t too scary.”

“You know my name?”

“I know a lot of things about you, Ed.” She steps out of the way to let Eddie through, and Eddie walks right in without a second thought. She’s a good listener; the walls are already going up. This whole day she’s been worrying about where she was gonna sleep and how long it would be until she got to go home, but those seem terribly unimportant right now. She hadn’t expected Annie’s friends to be hot.

The back door of the house is pushed open and Annie comes in, leading someone by the shirtsleeve. The panic sets in. The screaming from outside. She seems to be struggling, pulling this guy behind her and into the living room with her pistol in the other hand. But when she turns to face them, her grin’s wide as a hyena. “Jane!”

“Annie!”

Annie lets go of the man she was holding and crosses the living room to wrap Jane in a bear hug. Their resemblance is truly uncanny, from the way they walk to the cut of their jeans. Annie gets Jane in a headlock, rubbing at her hair until it sticks up in all different directions.

“You finally get rid of those ugly beasts?” Jane laughs, composing herself.

“Nah,” says the man, grinning and nodding at Annie. He keeps stumbling, trying to stand straight and catching himself just before he trips. “She was just puttin’ a few holes in my barn.”

“Only way to get his attention,” Annie agrees. She sets the gun on the coffee table. “Why’d y’all lock the door on us?”

Jane shrugs. “Wasn’t me.”

The man, still swaying, glances over his shoulder. It sets Eddie on edge—there’s no one else coming to join the party, right?—but he doesn’t see anything. “I mighta locked it. Sorry, Ann,” he slurs, resting his arm on her shoulder.

Annie bats him away gently. “He’s a happy drunk, ain’t he?”

“How about we join him?” Jane offers, headed for the kitchen.

“I like the sound of that.” Annie takes Eddie’s hand and walks her over to the couch. “You want anything, baby?”

Eddie shakes her head, watching the three of them with a morbid curiosity. Alcohol usually makes everything worse. She’d rather just curl up on this couch right now and sleep for a bit while Annie and her friends clap each other on the back and talk about their latest conquests.

At some point warm hands find her face and she’s being woken up again. Jane’s there, crouching by Eddie’s side like she’s a child and looking at her with those deep brown eyes. “It’s late, hon,” she says. “And we put together a real bed for y’all.”

“Okay,” Eddie says, but she has to clear her throat first and there’s drool on her cheek. Gross. The illusion is wavering. She can’t afford to be unattractive in front of someone like Jane. On the other hand, a real bed sounds heavenly.

Jane picks up Eddie’s glasses from where they fell to the floor and slides them over her ears for her; not at all unlike the way Annie does it, but perhaps with less aggression. The cat is close by, and he puts a friendly paw on Jane’s shoulder.

Eddie stands up with only a little bit of help from Jane and her strong arms. Annie’s waiting for her in the hallway that leads to the rest of the house. It’s dim, but Eddie notes four closed doors and one bathroom at the end of the hall. She zones out while Annie digs for the toothbrushes she brought from home. She touches her cheek in the mirror. Any evidence of Annie’s temper from earlier on their road trip has gone now. Nobody has to know.

The room they have has a door with a lock and a bed in the corner and a dresser beneath the window. Annie strips off her shirt and hands Eddie the bag she packed for her. There are…a lot of clothes in here. It’s pretty worrying, actually. How long are they staying? Eddie changes into something comfortable while she considers the best way to bring that up without Annie getting mad. Annie tells her that she should make sure to thank their hosts because they went to the trouble of converting their storage into a guest room just for us.

“What’s the guy’s name?” Eddie asks.

“That would be Neil. He’ll take to you soon enough, just needs time to adjust to new folks.”

Eddie’s not sure what to make of Neil. His hair’s all droopy and overgrown like one of those British guys in bands Eddie doesn’t listen to; he was clearly drunk even before her and Annie pulled up. It’s just weird, and she doesn’t trust him.

She lays back on the bed, and the cat crawls up there too, burrowing behind her pillow. Annie turns off the light before joining them.

Annie is strong and solid, and she holds Eddie every night as they fall asleep. Eddie looks forward to this every day. She leans close into Annie’s neck. Annie plucks her glasses off for her and reaches to put them away on a bookshelf near the bed. There’s one thing Eddie’s still worried about, though.

“Ann,” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“You didn’t kill any animals, right?”

Annie laughs. “No, baby. I wasn’t aiming for his horses.”

“Okay. Good.”

Annie presses a kiss to her lips. Eddie grimaces for a second, expecting to taste wine or beer or whatever it was they were drinking, but she’s met with only mint. She doesn’t know how Annie does it. She hugs Annie closer to her, kisses her gently in search of that lasting sweet candy cane, like maybe it’s tucked in the hollow of her cheek.

Annie indulges her for a minute before calling it quits. “Goodnight, Ed.”

“‘Night. Love you.”

Annie breathes deep and closes her eyes, a girl in her arms and a mattress beneath them and a roof over their heads. She couldn’t ask for much more, even if the morning comes too soon.

For the first time in ever, it’s Annie waking Eddie up and not the other way around. She’s all damp with sweat and the room is dark and Annie is tapping her cheek repeatedly. Now she gets why Annie’s always so grumbly in the morning. They should really invest in an alarm clock.

“Wake up. C’mon now.”

Finally Eddie stops trying to pull the blanket over her ears and swings her legs over the side of the bed. “I’m up, leave me alone. What time is it?”

Annie helps her up, laughing. “Four o’clock in the AM.”

“Nope, I’m going back to sleep.”

“Ah”—Annie grabs her wrists. Eddie freezes—“no you ain’t. You gotta get used to waking up early. Vámonos, babe.”

Eddie’s dizzy again. At least this time she knows it’s because she stood up too fast, not because of some mystery drug. She takes a few steps towards the hallway and then decides she’d rather just sit on the floor. Now’s as good a time as any to look through her bag. Annie stands over her and nudges her with her foot but gives up pretty soon afterwards. That’s what she gets for waking Eddie up at such an unholy hour. Eddie scrubs her hand over her eyes and unzips the bag.

It’s all clothes, nothing interesting. Eddie was hoping for like, a manifesto, or blueprints or something. But no. She’s just stuck here.

By the time she makes it to the bathroom sink, she’s feeling pretty accomplished. She brushes her teeth, messes up her hair a little, tries to wash her face. The tiny mirror over the sink has a huge crack down the middle of it. The water tastes weird. “Ann?”

“What?”

“Why’s the water here taste weird?”

“Hell if I know. Farm magic.”

If there’s one thing Annie should know already, it’s that Eddie hates vacations. Why go somewhere new when everything you need is right within reach? Home is where the heart is. It’s comfortable for a reason. When Eddie told Annie she thought being from the South was cool, she meant ‘your accent is kinda hot’ and ‘I feel special when you pull my chair out for me’.

Eddie’s not built for a farm. The people here talk weird and they raise animals that couldn’t fit through the front door. They do shit Eddie can’t learn in school. She’s way out of her depth, and that’s never good.

When she enters the kitchen, this truth is immediately confirmed.

“Annie, you brought us a woman and she don’t even bother makin’ breakfast?” Neil is tilting back on the legs of his chair, putting a cigarette out on the kitchen table.

Annie doesn’t give him a sideways glance, heading straight for the door. “Give her a day or two, she’ll pick it up.” She pulls a leather bag off the coat hooks by the front and undoes all three locks (a detail Eddie hadn’t noticed last night, but is not surprised to learn. There’s also a shotgun hanging over the door which she finds to be…telling). Annie gives a little wave. “I’ll see y’all later.”

And then it’s just the three of them. Eddie, Neil, and Jane. All alone in this strange little house. No neighbors for miles around.

“Eddie?” Jane says. She’s been quiet this whole time, but now she sits up like there’s a magnet in her spine.

“Yeah?”

“We just wanna get to know you, Eddie. We’ve had some ideas.”

Neil shares a knowing look with her and sets his chair down on all four legs. “Hell yeah we do.”

All Eddie wants to do is go to sleep, but she wouldn’t want her back turned around these people. “Ideas?”

“Come sit on the couch, Eddie.”

“Yeah, talk to us,” Neil says.

Eddie decides to sit in the middle of the couch. That’s her first mistake. Jane sits right up next to her and Neil takes the other side. She’s an idiot piece of almost roadkill and they are two eager turkey vultures.

“Um. Where’s Annie going?”

Jane is trying hard to suppress her grin. “Just business,” she assures. Maybe Eddie’s making things up, but she thinks she sees Neil roll his eyes. She tries to smile back but gives up halfway through. These two clearly don’t have her best interests in mind.

“You sure we can’t get you a drink, Eddie?”

“Oh, no thanks.”

“Why?” Neil says, narrowing his eyes. “You a lightweight or somethin’?”

Eddie doesn’t actually know if she’s a lightweight because she’s not a light drinker—she’s either erasing her memory or she’s not drinking at all. That’s besides the point, though: she hadn’t factored alcohol into her ‘no thanks’ because it’s four in the goddamn morning. She shrugs. “I mostly just drink coffee.”

Jane shakes her head. “We don’t buy into that city folk shit. Caffeine's addictive, y’know.”

Eddie presses her lips together. No coffee? That’s great, that’s fine, she can do that. She resists the urge to lean back into the soft cushions and just close her eyes, just for a little bit.

“Hey,” Jane murmurs. “You can relax a little. We’re nice to pretty girls like you.”

Eddie’s nice to pretty girls who don’t wake her up before dawn, but maybe that’s just her. She lets her shoulders fall nervously, unsure of where Jane intends to go. With Neil at her back like this, she feels like she’s about to get eaten alive. Cold fingers find the pulse point on her neck.

“You’re just a delicate thing, huh?” Jane says, reaching up to angle Eddie’s face to the light. Her hands are anxious, excited, but her words feel like a hug. Eddie is a little delicate. She just needs to be treated gently.

And, woah. Looking into Jane’s eyes feels like falling in love again, brand new. Making eye contact is crystal clear when Eddie’s so used to avoiding it. Jane is more than attractive, she’s the kind of person Eddie needs to be seen by; she needs to impress her no matter the cost. Even if, at the end of the day, Eddie is Annie’s, and the sky will fall before anything gets between them. And, well—Jane probably doesn’t even like her like that. Eddie’s just getting excited. Crushes are normal and fun and this will not be a problem.

“Damn, don’t scare her off,” Neil says. Right. He’s still here.

Jane sits up again, putting some space between them. Their knees are still touching. Eddie blinks a few times. “That’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Good. So next we gotta talk about the cat.”

“What?” Eddie’s wide awake now. What did they do to her cat?

Neil and Jane look at each other and start laughing. “Someone’s got a friend,” Neil says, and they both laugh like it’s the funniest thing ever. Eddie’s heart beats faster, wanting to be in on the joke and yet also wishing she was far, far away from here, just her and Annie and their bed and the cat.

“We didn’t kill your cat,” Jane says.

Neil breaks into snickering again. “Not yet.”

Jane smirks. “It was brave of you for bringin’ it here. But he’s right, it’s not exactly a place for the little guys.”

“I’m not—” Eddie takes a breath and tries again. “I’m not getting rid of him.”

“We know that, Eddie. It’s just a warning. There’s things out there that your house tabby is no match for.”

Neil grins wider. “Including the dog.”

Jane cracks up at that, laughing like Eddie isn’t having her cat-shaped heart held out in front of her and poked with sticks. “Yeah, he’d eat a cat for sure.”

Eddie doesn’t understand how people whose whole life is animals can be so cruel. She wants to know what Annie sees in them. She’s wondering where her cat is right now.

“Speak of the devil,” Jane mutters, leaning forward to scratch the dog as he bounds happily into the living room and rolls onto his back. He’s an ugly thing, bony and sleek and tall—not the kind of dog you’d wanna pet on the sidewalk. Knowing what little she does about his owners, Eddie figures they probably pulled him right off the race tracks.

After giving the dog way too much love, Jane checks the clock on the wall. It’s one of those creepy old ones with the ticking so loud you can hear it all around the house. “We oughta start the milking. Neil will show you.”

Neil’s back to staring at Eddie with suspicion in his eye. She can’t tell if he’s trying to ward her away or take her all for himself. “No I won’t.”

Him and Jane start pulling on her boots and flannels at the doorway. Jane snorts. “Yes you will.”

“It’ll take too much time,” he says, crouching down to do his laces.

“She needs to learn,” Jane shrugs, hands on her hips.

“Why can’t you teach her?”

“I’m fastest. I’ll pick up the slack.”

Neil stands up fully, pulls his collar out in one sharp motion. “I’ll fuckin’ race you, then.”

“What?”

“Ready set go.”

Eddie can’t do much but stand awkwardly in the middle of the living room as Jane and Neil (and the dog) chase each other out the door. She really did just watch them have an argument over her head and then leave her behind. They’re idiots.

The cat, still clean and fluffy, still without a name, sits on her foot and licks its front paw. They must be the only sane ones left.

Annie comes back to the house sometime between daybreak and sunset. Eddie doesn’t care to watch the time; she spends most of the day inside, hiding from the heat and resting in the spare room. Eyes wide open, she pets the cat and looks at nothing. She makes herself scarce when Jane and Neil come back from ‘the milking’ hours later, sweaty and just as loud as before.

It’s Annie who drags Eddie from the dark of the bedroom. “They got somethin’ to show us,” she says, as if that’ll make Eddie more excited for what’s in store.

Jane and Neil are already outside, trekking through the dying grass behind the house. The barn looked intimidating in the dark last night, but the closer they get, the more Eddie can tell how badly it’s rotting. Red paint peeling, bullet holes in the wall, and the smell of mold is everywhere.

Neil turns back to speak with Annie, looking the happiest he’s been since he was drunk. “I want you to meet my animals,” he says gruffly, smile behind his eyes.

There’s three horses in the paddock outside, noses buried in the overgrown grass. Their ears perk up when they hear the sound of Annie’s group approaching. Jane puts a key in the padlock around the fence. She lets the chain swing as Annie opens the gate for everybody.

“Yo, Betsy!” Neil yells. A tea colored horse, black in the shade and swirling mahogany in the sunlight, lifts her head and comes running over to the gate, tail swishing at her hindquarters. “This one’s Betsy. That’s Gamble,” he says, pointing to the white one. The third horse saunters up to him. “And this is St. Martin.”

“St. Martin?” Eddie asks. She’s just trying to be polite, but she regrets it as soon as she opens her mouth. She doesn’t want to know any more about these people than she already does.

“St. Martin-in-the-Fields, because he thinks he don’t belong in a barn,” Jane cackles. “Fuckin’ bitch.” She slaps the animal on the shoulder and he gnashes his yellow teeth at the air. Something tells Eddie there’s no saints left in this place.

Neil scratches him behind his ears. “We just call you Marty though, don’t we? You’re our bitch.”

Catfight Cowgirl

Eddie wakes up early to collect the eggs. Her watch says 3:09, which is just fucking inhuman. Getting up at seven for school was bad enough.

Annie is already gone. Eddie creeps out of their room on socked feet. She kinda needs to use the bathroom, but she doesn’t wanna risk making too much noise. To her great relief, she does not run into Jane or Neil in the hallway.

The screened back door makes an awful screeching noise when she opens it, and it lets in an uncomfortably moist chill. Darting across the living room, she grabs her pullover from the hook by the entrance.

Eddie’s hesitant to shut the screen door again but she’ll probably get yelled at for not doing it. Right as she’s sliding it closed, that stupid dog launches himself at it, barking and scratching at the mesh. Eddie wrenches it open, lets him out, and slams it closed. She makes a mental note to ask Annie about some WD-40.

The dog is still barking at her and she crouches down, shushing it, bargaining with it, finding a stick on the ground and throwing it into the mist. The dog scampers away.

The horses in the field cast strange silhouettes. One of them is separate from the others, head up and looking out, some dark phantom creature standing on the hill and keeping watch. It’s cold out here.

The dog keeps at her heels as she approaches the chicken coop. Dogs like to eat chickens, right? She walks the perimeter of the roundpen until she finds a rope with a clip on the end. Calling the dog over, she attaches it to his collar and double knots him to the fence. He plants his feet, pulling at the rotted slats and threatening to slip the collar over his head. Eddie’ll just have to work quickly.

There is a hatch on the outside of the coop, and she opens it without thinking. Immediately she’s blinded by a flapping of wings and squawking. She shuts the door and latches it.

The hens are loud and she bets anything they can smell her fear. With those beady eyes and sharp beaks, she’s gotta be careful not to lose a finger. She waits till they quiet down before trying again.

Most of the birds only have one egg at their feet. She extricates each egg with care, forming a sort of straw nest with her free hand and setting them down in the center of the pile. There’s one hen who won’t move at all, and Eddie doesn’t mess with her. She wouldn’t want someone taking her unborn babies.

Eddie doesn’t have a basket, so she uses a bucket she found overturned by the circuit box. Eggs secured and hatch door locked, she heads back for the house. Only once she’s back inside does she remember the dog. She sets down her bucket and turns around to go free him from the fence.

He is sitting on the back steps, panting and freshly collarless. Maybe Jane and Neil won’t notice. She glances behind her, checking her surroundings; the living room is just as deserted as it was when she left it. That clock ticks away. She lets the dog back in.

Cooking eggs is something Eddie knows how to do. It’s a straightforward task. Maybe she can even go back to bed afterwards. Scrambled is probably fine, so she mixes the eggs with a fork and sets them on plates and gets out cloth napkins from a drawer, though they look like they haven’t been washed in a while.

A hand presses against the base of her spine and she flinches, dropping the spatula she was holding. It’s Jane.

“Hiya,” Jane grins. She reaches around for a plate, keeping Eddie uncomfortably close to the hot pan. “Finally decided to be useful?”

Eddie grinds her teeth together. Nods. Neil is not far behind, taking a plate without a word. Eddie’s skin itches. She didn’t do all of this just to be underappreciated.

She tries to refocus on her cooking, even if she’s tempted to just lay her palm flat on the nearest hot surface. She forgets to grease the pan and the temperature’s too high, but by the time she’s scraping off her half-burnt breakfast she’s feeling more stable.

Neil and Jane are already at the table, cackling and elbowing each other. Eddie sets her plate down and pulls out a chair just as Neil stands up and pushes his in. “She’s gonna help me catch the horses,” he informs Jane.

Of fucking course. “Can I eat first?” Eddie asks.

“What, you’ll let them starve while you get to eat? Them equines get hungry, too,” he says.

How dare she forget. Eddie can hear Jane’s laughter, but she ignores it. She is going to be the better man. “What about the cows?”

“Jane’ll be out trainin’ the new guys,” he chuckles, mostly to himself. “Bitch lost the fucking bet.”

Jane points her fork at him. “Only ‘cause you fight dirty.”

Smiling, Neil adjusts his glasses with his middle finger. Eddie, unamused by his and Jane’s displays of pettiness, gets her shoes on. She also grabs the bucket—it seems like a good idea to clean up after herself. Everything runs a whole lot smoother when she goes through life as if she’s never been there at all.

“Hurry up, pretty lady,” he drawls, pushing the screen door wide open. Eddie can’t decide if she likes him better or worse when he’s in a good mood.

She’s been a little afraid to go anywhere near the barn since they introduced her to the horses. Horses are large farm creatures with huge eyes and she always thinks they look more like humans who’ve been cursed into being animals. They’re pretty from afar, sure, but something could go wrong. What if she leaves the gate open? What if it bites her? Neil and Jane’s horses didn’t seem very friendly, kicking out and baring their teeth.

Neil doesn’t take her to the barn; instead, they walk right up to the metal gate. Neil unlocks it and swings it closed behind them, twisting the chain until it stays shut. “Normally I’d have you watch the gate, but this is an important lesson,” Neil says, unknotting three ropes from the bars of the fence.

The horses pause their grazing as he and Eddie approach. He whistles and the pretty one comes up real close. “You’re gonna take Betsy and Gamble.” 

Eddie looks to him, and she looks back to the horse. “Do I just…grab their head-things?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Neil laughs. “You always use a lead rope. You wanna keep some distance between you and the horse in case he decides to be a bitch.”

He hands her two ropes. One is blue, and the other is green. Does she need to remember these colors?

“Clip it to the ring underneath her chin,” he continues. “This is a halter. If you see a horse without one, tell me.”

Eddie nods like she’s understanding everything he’s saying. Like if she saw something concerning, she would actually want to go talk to him about it. She clips the lead to Betsy and grips the rope in her hands as if it might suddenly be pulled away from her. She tries not to put any pressure on the horse’s end, holding it away from her body and leaving as much slack as possible. As much distance as possible.

“Betsy’s basically a big dog,” Neil says. “And lookie, here’s Gamble. You can just tug at him, doesn’t hurt him much.” He makes Eddie attach the lead rope to Gamble as well, and suddenly she’s got two strange, enormous animals at the end of both her arms. Actually, Gamble looks pretty small compared to the other horses. Maybe he’s a baby or something. Eddie breathes in slow. They’re just like dogs. Hooved dogs. Grass eating and completely harmless dogs with creepy alien eyes on the sides of their heads.

A frantic shuffling noise startles her. The third horse, St. Martin or Marty or whatever, takes off headlong down the field. Neil walks after him, spinning the lead rope lazily. “Don’t piss me off today, Martin,” he calls.

The horse prances to the side, tail in the air, whinnying back at him from all the way at the top of the hill. Eddie’s no expert, but he looks like he’s enjoying this game.

Neil reaches into his pockets and digs out a sliver of carrot. Immediately Gamble rushes over to him and Eddie drops the rope in her hand. Neil, scowling at her, holds the carrot away from the little gray pony’s eager teeth. “Keep a better hold on him.”

“I was trying to. He pulls hard,” she mutters weakly.

“Uh, I dunno what to tell you, get fucking used to it?” Neil scoffs. He turns back to Marty, who’s dared to come closer to him. “Marty, get your ass down here!”

Marty kicks up his hind legs, tossing his head and loping down the hill. When he’s finally at a standstill, Neil gets his carrot out again and walks towards the indignant animal. Marty begins walking to meet him, too. Neil holds the lead out to attach it to his halter—Marty snatches the carrot and runs away.

“No you fuckin’ don’t,” Neil says, sprinting after him. He chases Marty around the fence, whipping the ground at his feet with the end of the lead rope. Eddie observes the scene in awe. It’s mesmerizing, the way Neil waves his arms like a madman and Marty reacts so expressively to every motion. She’s never seen someone act like that before, so unafraid to step in the path of a wild animal. In a way though, both Neil and his horse look a bit frightened of each other. Gamble and Betsy have begun to graze again.

Once Neil manages to corner Marty, he grabs at his halter and doesn’t let go. Marty throws his head up violently, thrashing and backstepping. Neil gets his arm behind Marty’s ears (Eddie didn’t know it was possible to headlock a horse until now), finally securing the lead rope and immediately putting space between him and Marty. Neil reaches into his pocket and holds out another carrot. Marty relaxes visibly, accepting the offering and walking comfortably by Neil’s side like nothing happened. Horse people are weird.

“Got a handle on those two?” Neil asks, swinging the lead rope back and forth again like he wasn’t just using it to threaten the newly docile animal on the other end.

“Um. Yeah,” Eddie says. She’s still processing what she just witnessed. She tries to step forward and finds Gamble to be an immovable force. He ignores her completely, chewing away at the dead-ish grass.

“Oh,” Neil adds, making an odd clicking sound with his tongue. “Don’t let Gamble pull you around like that. I don’t like to reinforce bad behavior with ‘em.” Right, that makes sense, because feeding carrots to an escape artist doesn’t count as reinforcement. “C’mon now. Kiss at him, he’ll listen if you use your voice.”

“Kiss at him?”

“Like this.” Neil repeats the sound he was making, a series of clicks with an almost aggressive undertone. It makes Gamble’s ears perk up, and he leaves the grass alone.

Neil leads the way back to the barn. Marty throws a fit about going into his stall, so Eddie has to wait outside with the other horses until Neil comes to get them.

When Eddie’s walking the horses, she feels sort of dumb and out of place. But when Neil has them, he’s powerful. Everything here submits to him—Eddie’s just taking up space on his turf.

The inside of the big red barn is small and damp and dim. It’s hotter out here than it is outside. Open stalls hold bales of hay stacked higher than Eddie’s head. Bugs scuttle over dirt and dead leaves on the floor.

At the other end of the walkway, Neil drags a hose. She feels like a voyeur watching him work around her. He moves with a purpose, having some kind of a plan in his head that only he is aware of.

The wheelbarrow runs up and down the aisle. He rolls his sleeves up and lifts hay bales from the top of the pile. Eddie sees everything: the hay in his hair; his shirt creeping up; the overhead light glancing off his belt buckle. He doesn’t see her at all.

She’s tired of being useless. “Is there a job I can do?” 

Neil shrugs, beginning to feed the hose through a slat in the stall dividers. Eddie stands there for at least another minute or two just fidgeting. Getting ignored is making her crazy. She thought she wanted to be left alone, but not like this.

“Can I leave then?”

He looks at her like she’s stupid. “No.”

“Then what can I—?”

“Here, catch.”

Eddie does not catch. It hits her on the side of the head and clatters to the floor at her feet. A broom. She reaches for her aching temple while Neil shakes with laughter. These people are sick.

“Barn always needs sweeping,” he says seriously, gesturing to the floor.

Eddie sighs heavily, happy enough to be given a task. She was a little worried she would fall asleep on her feet. Sweeping is not as easy as it seems. She can go over the same area ten times and still not get all of the dust away. Moving the bigger stuff like leaves and pebbles is an improvement, but no matter how hard she tries, the floor never looks clean.

Straw is the most difficult. It sticks to the bristles of the broom, and every pass scatters it more. She’s made it five feet down the walkway and she already wants to quit. Eddie’s good at a lot of things: she can do all the dishes by hand; she can change the sheets on her own bed; she’s got above average test scores, and she always does her homework even when she’s skipping. She never even considered that there would be a right or wrong way to sweep.

Neil doesn’t comment, but she can tell he’s judging her incompetence. She doesn’t notice that he’s stopped working until she reaches a stall up near the front, where he’s just standing. She is trapped in her own skin. He’s been watching her this whole time.

He nods to the empty stall, and she enters it. It’s the first time she’s seen him look a little directionless. His gaze darts to the side, then back to her. He steps closer, caging her in. It’s comforting, him being a barrier to the rest of the world. She doesn’t know the stable very well. She’s just here to do what she’s told. Neil looks right at her with those clear blue eyes, sharper than Jane’s but never quite focused. “Can you keep quiet?”

“Yeah.” Eddie keeps quiet about a lot of things. She’s never told anyone about the hitting, or the drugging, or the flickering shadow in the corners of her vision. Neil’s asking about volume, yes, but he means more than that. What they’re about to do is wrong. He doesn’t want anyone to know.

He kisses her like he’s hungry, mouth open and searching for something he’s not supposed to have.

Every summer, around this time, Eddie house sits. Her parents’ friends hand over the keys and instructions to feed the fish—though she knows them by heart—and the house is hers for a week. The pay is meager, and she always ends up doing a lot of house chores out of guilt for eating their food or having to sleep in their bed because there’s no guest room. But there’s a reason she keeps coming back: the Kirks have, like, the nicest bathroom she’s ever been in.

Though there’s no explicit rule against it, Eddie knows she’s not supposed to go in there. It’s not attached to the bedroom, and the door is always closed. But since she first discovered it, she can’t help herself. It’s as big as her room back at home; the tile, mauve and green, still sparkles from when they got it renovated a few years ago. They have a whole separate tub just for the shower, which is Eddie’s favorite part. The water runs hotter there than it does at her own house, and she’s prone to spending half an hour just lounging in the steam until condensation drips from the walls. The showerhead is detachable, too, and she can hold it right up to the roots of her hair when she’s washing out Mrs. Kirk’s fancy product. It probably doesn’t have any real benefit, but it feels like it does.

Sometimes the feeling is the best part. It’s the thrill of getting away with luxury on borrowed time, living like she’s a better person than she really is. Ignoring the pullout couch or how Mr. Kirk ‘forgot’ his wedding band at home, because at the end of the day, Eddie’s just the house sitter, sinking deeper into a warm bathtub of salts and lavender.

What would her neighbors think if they saw her now, letting a strange man take her for all she’s worth? He keeps her hands pinned to her chest, mouth insistent on her own. She wants him to slow down. She doesn’t want him to stop. He’s not close enough. He’s pressing down on her.

When he moves to her neck, she can finally breathe again. He’s sucking at her skin like he wants her, like she’s more than just a chore that needs to be taken care of. He doesn’t really care about what she wants at all, overwhelmed with his desire to feel good. The desire that she caused. She makes him feel good. Fuck.

“You promise you won’t tell?” he asks, a whisper.

She feels like she’s in summer camp again. I’ll kiss you for a dollar. There’s lots of places to hide. Promise you won’t tell. Neil may be insecure, but Eddie doesn’t mind it. He was never very charming to begin with. “Yeah,” she repeats.

Neil hasn’t really done this before, but he knows what the guys used to say. It can’t be held against you if she doesn’t say no. And Eddie—well, Eddie’s said yes twice.

He looks at her for a while, biting the inside of his cheek. His frown cuts into his face like glass, never dissipating. It takes Eddie a second to realize that he’s waiting for something. “Take your shirt off,” he says, gesturing.

As tempting as it is to give in to his demands, Eddie shakes her head. She’s not stripping in a barn; that’s how you get a splinter where splinters shouldn’t be.

“Take it off,” he says, “or I tell Annie what a fucking whore you are.”

Shit. She hadn’t considered Annie a part of this. Annie wouldn’t understand. She wouldn’t even want to listen. Eddie takes her shirt off.

“Damn,” Neil says, grabbing her hips and pressing closer to her like he can’t bear the space between them. His thumbs dig in and it starts to feel more clinical than passionate.

He starts unzipping her jeans. “Just stay still, okay?” he mutters, trailing off. He’s blushing.

A bizarre thrill bullies its way through the heat of Eddie’s chest. She’s not supposed to be enjoying this—he clearly doesn’t care about anyone’s pleasure except his own—but then he pushes her underwear down and his mouth falls open, breathing harder. “Goddamn,” he whispers.

Eddie wants this to be over with as much as she wants him: more than anything. She’s riding a high that'll crash as soon as she lets it, so she might as well have fun while it lasts. That’s what this life is for, isn’t it? She’d do anything for a good time.

Neil’s body is foreign and yet so enticing. Eddie needs to know how he moves, how he inhales, where his mind is at. She’s sweating with the one-eighty of her attraction to him, teeth chattering. She bites her lip as he—

Something in the stable is moving. It’s a repetitive banging, a fighting cry amidst a wooden cage. It wants out. Neil’s brow pinches and his hands fall from Eddie’s waist in a jagged motion. He shakes his head and steps away downturned; he won’t look her in the eye.

Peeking out from behind the stall door, she sees Neil dragging Marty through the back doors, pausing every few steps to swat at him with a rope. She sighs, leaning against the solid pillar of wood behind her back. Everything is spinning when she blinks her eyes.

Neil comes back with half-baked excuses on his lips. That bitch horse needs to be exercised. He’s gotta feed the animals. He’ll show her another day. For a moment he reaches out as if to touch her, but he freezes midway and puts his hand in his pocket instead. Her skin is clammy enough with his lingering death grip.

“If you see Jane, uh, don’t speak to her,” he adds shakily. He watches Eddie go. The ceiling is low, and she ducks to avoid a wooden beam before disappearing from his field of view completely.

Neil and Annie are smoking in the living room. They didn’t even offer Eddie one; she just gets to watch. It’s hazy in here, the room clouding before her eyes. She leans into Annie’s arms and lets the smoke surround her.

Eddie’s line of sight keeps drifting towards Neil. She can’t stop herself, not with the thought of his mouth and hands taking up so much space in her recent memory. He sits all hunched in on himself, like he’s uncomfortable in his own home. The way he picks at his lips is almost endearing. Yesterday she didn’t think much of him, but that’s changed now.

“Do anything fun this morning?” Annie asks, bringing the cigarette to her lips. She only makes small talk when she’s vying for information.

“Taught her how to sweep,” he says.

Annie laughs good naturedly. She’s setting the pawn up to take his queen. “I promise she’ll be good for something around here. Ed’s got lots of talents.”

Neil nods. “She sure does—”

Footsteps. The porch stairs creaking fast and then slowly, very slowly, the door  opens. “Neil,” Jane says. “Can I speak to you outside?”

Not unlike the dog slipping his collar, Neil jumps to his feet and goes with her. Annie sits back like nothing’s wrong, but Eddie knows how much she hates being excluded. Group projects with her are a nightmare.

Outside, the yelling starts. It fits right in with the sounds of the chickens, the dog barking outside. I don’t know. 

Annie’s not a talker, not really. She’ll stay so quiet, trying to ignore what’s upsetting her. Eddie won’t even know about the anger until it hits a fever pitch and crashes down on her.

Why not?

Eddie came home late one night to find Annie baking. It was the strangest thing, Annie with her sleeves rolled up, lifting trays of golden cupcakes out of the oven. Annie, with her men’s haircut and permanent scowl, piping pink icing at the kitchen counter. Perfect circles.

“How was your day?” she’d asked, too busy placing sugar pearls with tweezers to look up.

It was good, actually. It was a good day up until then. Eddie finished her stupid U.S. lit project, the one that should’ve been easy but her partners wouldn’t pick up when she called. She hates group projects. She doesn’t know why she decided to be an English major, but her new prof seems promising. They had pizza in the dining hall today, did you get some? And she doesn’t even have that much homework tonight because she moved her schedule around for tomorrow. When Eddie’s stream of consciousness petered out, silence settled like cellophane, preserving the scene before them. 

Eddie remembers what happened clear as day: Annie dropped the glass mixing bowl and it shattered. It was not an accident. There was no way. She turned around sharply, walked halfway to the oven, and something broke. Then she dropped the bowl.

She would not let Eddie help clean up. In fact, when she finally did look away from the mess, she ordered Eddie out of the kitchen. Or, she tried to.

“Get out,” were the words she’d used. And then she’d gasped, softly, as if she couldn’t believe herself for saying them. “Sorry. I’ll clean it up.”

Eddie didn’t listen. She stood her ground in the doorway and wouldn’t be dismissed. At some point Annie relinquished her position in the standoff, choosing instead to leave the kitchen and shoulder check Eddie on the way out. It didn’t hurt too much at the time. The next morning she found, between the crook of her shoulder and her ribs, a faint bruise. It was the last time Annie apologized for her anger, and the first of many bruises to come.

I’ll show you.

The broken glass was gone before Eddie left for school. In the fridge were rows of cupcakes put away neatly. The trays took up half the space in there but nobody mentioned it.

Eddie stopped buying milk because it wouldn’t fit. The cupcakes remained uneaten. By the third week, a dark sludge had begun to form on the underside of the containers. Both of them avoided the kitchen. Annie took her coffee black. 

I don’t believe it.

Annie’s no savior, but she sure wishes she was.

I’m not lying to you.

Jane storms in looking like she’s gonna hit something. Annie’s already up, prepping for damage control.

“Let’s go!” Jane snaps. Annie takes Eddie by the hand and starts out after Jane. Neil makes some protests, but he joins them anyway.

Eddie hates to admit it, but she’s out of breath before they reach the gate. The pastures are right up along the main road, but they stretch further than Eddie can see on the horizon. The gate is easily more than a football field away, and Jane doesn’t show any signs of stopping when they reach it. She rattles the chains, fighting with the key. Neil moves to help her but she pushes him off.

Eddie looks all around, trying to find the problem, but she doesn’t see anything amiss. It must be bad if she and Annie had to come and see it, too. They climb a rolling hill, dragging up thinning grass into the worst of the unyielding sun.

As soon as it comes into view, Eddie regrets ever having to see it at all. Even Neil, trekking up to it, looks stunned. Annie’s the only one that refuses to waver. She walks right up to it.

“Don’t—” Jane sniffles, trying to square her shoulders. “Don’t touch her.”

Eddie wouldn’t want to touch it with a pole. She gags at the smell alone, but the sight is unbearable. It’s not like some crime scene out of a movie. There’s no obvious blood in sight, or tracks leading away from it. Even in the copious mud, where every step leaves a print clear enough to photograph, there are no tracks around the body. Or, the carcass.

It was a cow once. Eddie’s pretty sure of that. The hooves are all cracked and damaged, but the legs are mostly untouched. Its legs look so short and small compared to its barrel of a rib cage. The skin of its stomach lies in flaps over its spine and flank, revealing a yawning cavity removed of guts or anything. Flies buzz around it, feeding on the quick decaying soft tissue. It's so dark in there, the pit of its insides—something that Eddie knows was never supposed to be exposed to the light.

Its neck has a series of puncture wounds, three to be exact, perfectly round and made by who knows what. Eddie looks out at the cows in the field around them. They’re heavy and fat and immovable, even from a distance. They graze as if nothing has happened. This cow doesn’t seem like much more than its own skeleton. A dark shadow mars the earth beneath it.

“Is that blood?” Eddie’s not sure who asked that question. Maybe it was her.

Neil shakes his head, but Jane answers for him. “There ain’t no blood. Dunno how. It’s fire.” She bites the inside of her cheek and shifts her posture. Her arms cross and uncross and fold over her chest. “They burned her up,” she whispers.

Its skull is mostly there, drying in the sun, except for a distinct circle over its forehead area. The area is an inflamed yellow-pink, completely hairless; it’s been skinned. And the worst part of all: its lower jaw is gone. All of the skin is still there, melted and useless. Its lips hang on the ground. Eddie will not be able to scrape that image from her mind for a long time. It lives in the recesses. She won’t be able to walk in a dark room without feeling it beneath her feet, blubbery and dead and helpless. She takes a step to the side and feels it, actually feels the cow’s squishy corpse under her sneaker, right there, coming back for her. She shrieks.

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Annie hisses, pulling Eddie back by her sweater. And because everything has been out to get her lately, the resulting discovery is more horrifying than Eddie’s conscience could have begun to make up. Lying in the grass, severed from its body, is the cow’s long white tongue.

Eddie squirms. It’s all over her. Her arms move involuntarily, and she’s saying something like get it off me get it off go away and she’s actually fucking whimpering because she needs to get so far away from all of this right this second.

“Control your girl,” Neil mutters, clearly amused by his own suggestion. Annie pushes Eddie away and tells her to shut up and turn around if she can’t fucking handle it. Jane is not laughing. She rubs at her eyes, the bridge of her nose, her mouth. Wiping away something that isn’t there.

“How’re you gonna move it?” Annie asks.

Jane scrubs the fabric of her tank top over her face. “I want a burial.”

“Fuck no,” Neil says. “I’m not tearing up my land for your little pet.”

Jane makes a sour face, gaze locked on Neil. “She wasn’t supposed to go like this. It’s not natural.”

He steps closer to the corpse. “She wasn’t producing. I was gonna shoot her anyways.”

“No. You weren’t,” she insists, jaw set.

“We talked about this.”

Eddie’s still wondering how Jane figured out which cow is which. They all look the same, and the body before them is far beyond recognition. The cows do wear tags, but this one’s ears are gone.

Every time she looks at it she finds a new detail to make her heave. Whoever did this is out there right now, probably going about his day without a second thought. Eddie is dirty, and it’s hot out, and her throat is threatening to tear itself apart.

“I’m going to find who did it,” Jane says. That’s a promise Eddie is not going to get in the way of. It’s a little freaky the way Jane speaks, voice soft and hoarse. She’s smiling, showing just the tips of her canines. Something rolls down her cheek and maybe it’s just sweat, but it could very well be tears.

Under instructions not to touch the dead cow, Annie’s starting to look pretty bored. “I gotta dip,” she sighs. “Meeting’s today.”

No. That’s not right. She can’t leave. Doesn’t she know how messed up Jane and Neil are? She doesn’t want to be alone with them again.

Annie squeezes Eddie’s forearm and starts walking back towards the gate. Eddie should probably call after her, stop her, but she doesn’t want to sound desperate. Jane is still smiling down at the corpse, blinking rapidly. Eddie catches Neil looking at her and he turns away like nothing happened.

“Are you fuckin’ crying?” he laughs, knocking Jane on the shoulder.

She rounds on him. “Say that again.”

Neil knows better than to fight with Jane when she’s like this. She’s a fucking bulldog, half a foot shorter than him and twice as strong. When he closes his eyes he sees the curve of his chest in the mirror this morning, the frustration building as he chased after Marty, the uncomfortable twist of Eddie’s mouth, eyes shut. He’ll never be a real man, he can’t please a woman, his own horse can make a fool out of him in a matter of minutes. Life’s fucked. “Fight me, tough guy.”

Eddie takes a seat on the muddy ground, facing away from the scuffle. Up here on the hill, a gentle breeze works through her hair, cutting the heat for just a few seconds. The sun sends an awful glare over her glasses, so she closes her eyes. Never mind the bickering. There’s a cow a few yards away, and she silently goads it to come closer.

Eddie’s friend used to live on a farm out in rural PA. The two of them were convinced they could talk to animals with their minds. Eddie was a forest fairy. She didn’t have to be afraid.

She looks back over her shoulder just in time to see Neil spitting in the grass. It makes her stand up instantly.

“What are you lookin’ at?” Jane says, scowling.

The walk back to the house is quiet, deflated. Annie’s gone again already. Neil walks ahead while Jane lags behind. Eddie is thoroughly caught in the middle. Her nice sneakers are scuffed and dirty, but she can’t take her eyes off them.

Finally she begins to recognize the area. Trees are few and far between but all of the endless grass looks the same to her. She stares at the little house until it grows fuzzy and pixelated in her crossing vision, obscured by sun spots. They’re so close.

Of course, then Neil stops dead before anyone can get in the front door. “Hang on,” he says, stepping off the driveway. “The horses need to get out today.”

“Do it yourself,” Jane scoffs.

“No,” he grabs her elbow, “I said—”

“Get the fuck off me!”

“I said the horses need exercising.” His tone is low, suggestive. Jane stands indifferent. “Just c’mon.”

Neil is waiting for her in the round pen. His prized possession is ready for combat, groomed and shiny beneath the sweltering sun. The leather of Marty’s saddle gleams, oiled. His mane, for once, has been pulled and combed.

Jane’s skull is throbbing so hard it might fracture at any minute, but she can’t deny her curiosity: to what does Neil owe the pleasure? Or, to whom? Eddie hangs back awkwardly by the gate—she always looks a little awkward—and Jane admires her unquestioningly. This is gonna be good.

“Hold him,” Neil says, handing the reins to Eddie.

Marty immediately wheels around to snap at him, jostling his ridiculous shank bit in the process. That stupid horse always manages to piss himself off. Cows wouldn’t do this shit.

Neil says something to Eddie that Jane can’t hear, and then he puts his arm out. Eddie hesitates once or twice before putting her foot on his open palm. He lifts her up until she’s all the way settled on top of Marty. She grabs the horn of the saddle and holds onto it for dear life while Neil works on cinching a flank strap. Shit, Jane forgot they still had one of those, but she’s not surprised. Then it hits her: Neil is trying to cheer her up. That pansy bastard; she knew he had a heart somewhere in there.

As soon as the second girth is on, Neil is out of the way. He hops up on the fence next to Jane. “Cheers,” he says, as Marty begins to buck.

Jane hadn’t seen a real buck until Neil bid on that damn horse from the back of a truck in Vidor. Marty can sure shake a leg, panting and whipping his hind legs in the air. She doesn’t believe in a lot of that ethical bullshit the hippies are saying about horses, but it’s true that old habits die hard. Marty hates being ridden.

Jane can’t blame him; Eddie flops around like a sack of potatoes. Does she know that the more she squeezes her legs, the faster he’s gonna go? Marty throws his head down and runs circles, preparing to initiate his death drag. Naturally, Eddie falls forward and hangs onto his neck, even though it throws the rest of her body off balance. An angry horse plus a green rider makes for the perfect storm—and it’s really fucking funny to watch.

Every time Marty comes near the fence, Eddie looks up at the two of them with this hopeless, pleading expression smeared onto her twisted face. She’s so pretty when she’s scared. “Sit up,” Jane yells, just so she can watch Eddie try and correct herself before almost falling clean off as Marty pivots and leaps sideways.

Jane leans into Neil’s shoulder, trying to quit laughing and just enjoy the show.

“Get off me, fag,” he says, swatting at her, before looking to Eddie again. “Stay still up there, girlie, be gentle with him!”

Eddie doesn’t know how to be gentle. If she loosens her grip on his mane, surely she’ll fall off. She tries not to tug on it harder, but she’ll probably get hurt a lot worse than this horse will if she’s the one who hits the ground.

There are few times in Eddie’s life where she truly believes she is on top of the world. The feeling is sorely missed. In her mind she is still seventeen and cutting her own hair. First day of high school, smiling at the pretty girl in her algebra class with the short hair. She is alone in her room again, writing, pen sparkling in her hands, she cannot stop. Knitting her green scarf for the big game. Her sister is holding her up by the waist, giggling. Eddie reaches for the top of the Christmas tree. She is swooping, suddenly steady, out of her dad’s arms. The bike is keeping itself up. She is pedaling far away from here.

She loses her grip and wakes up.

“What time is it?”

There are two houses, actually.

“Holy shit, uh…”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

What? “Hm?”

“No,” I don’t think so. Should she, uh, the clock. Yeah.

Oh.

“Eddie.”

“Yeah? Where’s Marty?”

The blond one is looking at her. “Follow my finger. That’s a good girl.”

“I’m not an animal. You shouldn’t talk to me like that.”

Jane stands up quickly. She says something under breath, but Eddie can’t hear it until a few minutes later. By then it’s just a shadow, smoke gone in the air. Jane’s green boots are so shiny like the saddle. Where’s Marty?

Jane is talking again. “Kneel. Over here. Now.”

“I’m already on the ground.”

“I fucking mean it.”

Eddie tries to do what she’s told, but then Jane pushes her down. “Shh, don’t move. Stay down.”

“But you told me to kneel.”

Jane nods all serious. Her face is buzzing. “He’s coming.”

Someone comes through the gate. He was with her this morning. They know each other. Right, he lives here.

The sun hurts, but Eddie does make it back inside. She’s in bed and then everything is dark but they are still talking.

“Sounds like gibberish, right?”

“'Pretty sure she said your name.”

“Worth it.”

When Eddie is awake again she knows she is awake, because it’s not subtle. The light is so loud. It’s dark outside. She gets up and almost falls over, heart pounding. Her vision shorts in and out, yellow gray fireworks draping over her corneas. Fuck.

She wanders into a room she hasn’t been in before, caught by her own reflection. She watches her eyes in the mirror for a while. They look so pale and grey in this lighting. There’s a dark bruise around her temple from where she hit her head; skinned knees raw and still dirty; a nasty laceration runs the length of her neck and down her shoulder, just brushing her collarbones. It’s shallow, sure, but puckered and red. She hadn’t noticed the pain until now. She doesn’t even know what cut her.

She blinks and Jane is sitting behind her, on the bed. Eddie whirls around—or, she tries to. Everything hurts, but at least she’s not dreaming anymore.

“Let’s get you sat down,” Jane says, and soon Eddie is not by the mirror anymore. Jane keeps trying to guide her towards a seat, but Eddie pushes her off. Finally Jane slinks away towards that other guy. Oh—Neil. That’s what his name is.

Eddie turns, hearing a lock sliding into place. Something small and furry brushes against her legs. When she tries to look down she feels so dizzy. Her temple aches. She doesn’t wanna sit down.

“Damn, what fight did you get into today?” Annie laughs when she walks in the door. She’s staring at Eddie like they’re the only two people in the living room.

“I…” She fell. That’s not even a lie.

Neil beats her to it. “She fell,” he says. Annie nods sympathetically, still eyeing Eddie like a piece of damaged meat. It’s strangely infuriating. She wants to be desired, but not like this.

“Wait.” Eddie can’t stop herself. She can’t let Annie be fooled by them when they’re clearly so conniving. “That wasn’t what actually happened.”

“Oh?”

Eddie glances at Jane and Neil on the couch. They’re unbothered, smiling back at her. 

“Go ahead,” Neil goads sweetly. “Tell Annie how you really got all those bruises.”

Her stomach sours. They’re not supposed to be acting like this. They’re supposed to be mad. They should be jumping up, grabbing her, telling her to shut the fuck up. They should at least be having some sort of a reaction. Anything at all. “I just. I did fall, just it was outside.” Eddie forces a tight smile. “That’s why I’m so banged up.”

Annie relaxes, striding towards her and stretching up to ruffle her hair. “Aw, of course you are, baby. Life on the farm’s no easy task.”

At some point Eddie returns to the ground, tired mind working at images of a horse’s errant hooves, saw dust branding her cheek, eyes closing. That cat is in her lap again, purring, humming. Buzzing.

His throat is all tight. Damn it. Crying is for sissies. He doesn’t cry over shit. Especially not girls. Eddie doesn’t count. She’s nothing to him. Annie’s rough with her all the time. She’s used to it. Her opinion doesn’t matter.

His tears are hot and fast. He grabs at the nearest stall door, fiddling with the lock. Back and forth, and the latch won’t unjam. Marty’s ears go up at the noise, bobbing his head over the door and mouthing at Neil’s hair. Neil gets the door open and swings it wide, his usual precautions forgotten. He grabs Marty by the cheekpiece of his halter and half drags him out into the aisle. Neil’s not stupid, he still fastens the cross-ties, but his vision’s crossing with every second. He swipes at his eyes. What if someone sees him like this?

It’s too much. He wasn’t supposed to have enjoyed watching her fall. It was funny until it wasn’t. Over and over, he sees her cling to Marty, clawing desperately at his neck, like she was drowning, like she was falling from the greatest height. Like she was worried he was going to kill her.

“You wouldn’t do that,” Neil mutters, pressing his cheek to Marty’s neck. “You’re not a killer, you’re my special boy.” Fuck. He’s getting Marty’s fur all damp. Marty peers back at him curiously with those big black pupils, exposing the whites of his eyes. “I raised you. I’ll always love you,” Neil sobs, clutching at his special boy’s pretty black mane.

He reaches for the grooming kit on the floor. He curries endless circles into Marty’s short fur, from his ears to his hindquarters. He runs soft bristles down Marty’s legs. There’s barely any dirt left from when he groomed him earlier, but still Neil works the dust away diligently. He’s going to make Marty’s coat shine. His boy deserves that.

He leans over to pick Marty’s feet even though he knows he’ll get nipped at. When he does inevitably get bitten, in a matter of seconds, it just makes him cry harder. Marty’s just an animal, he doesn’t mean it. Neil still loves him.

He doesn’t get around to all four hooves. He is a bad, bad man. He sinks to the floor as Marty paws anxiously at the ground, striking him in the abdomen. It takes Neil's breath away. He lies back on the dirty stable floor under his beautiful, special boy, just watching Marty’s wide stomach expand and contract with his breathing. Neil counts all the little veins there as if they were stars. The overhead lighting is near blinding. He knows what he has to do.

The flask is somewhere in a box in the tackroom, waiting for a time just like this. He’s got them all over the property, in cabinets, drawers, the fridge. It’s some awful fucking concoction, probably something Jane mixed with the runoff from her own liquor collection. She likes wine more, anyways. She only likes to drink for fun.

Neil downs all of the foul liquid, hating himself for it. He’s dizzy already. He doesn’t think that’s from the alcohol. He can’t go back inside the house now, but he needs more. He makes it all the way to the end of the barn before remembering Marty. St. Martin, his good boy. His easily irritated, bit-shy, cow kicker of an animal. The one he’s had since he was a terrified little foal in a vast auction pen. They pulled him from his mother. That was when Neil knew he needed that horse more than any other bidder.

“Lemme put you back,” Neil says, reaching for the cross-ties. They’re heavier than he remembered. Marty won’t wanna go off the property, so this might be Neil’s last chance to really say goodbye. He unfastens Marty’s halter as he lets him back into his stall, hanging it on the hook by the door. Marty runs straight for the hay net in the corner, not looking back once. “I love you so much,” Neil whispers, putting all of his weight on the stall door. “Yeah, they’ll take good care of you even though I’m gone. Or maybe they'll just shoot you,” he laughs. “Put an end to everything. Sounds nice.” Then, not unlike a spooked horse, he bolts.

It’s darker outside than he expected. He has no idea what time it is. He fumbles his way across the grass and towards the garden. He can just make out the sheen of the greenhouse windows, reflected in the moonlight. It’s locked, because apparently he cares about security. Since when? It’s not like any of this shit really matters.

He can’t get his key ring off his belt. It’s like it’s fighting him, caught on his pants or something. What the fuck. Just—he manages to unsnag it, feeling around for the shape of the key he knows so well. He gets the greenhouse unlocked, swinging the door wide open. No use checking on his plants right now. He figures after he’s gone, nobody else will get to enjoy his sad attempt at home growing. Jane hates the smell of weed, she says, and Annie probably doesn’t even know it exists. His garden is going to die. His hard work will waste away, just like him.

It’s there, beneath one of his plant pots. Bourbon or something. He doesn’t read the label, just takes it with him. Back to the barn.

He doesn’t love Betsy the way he loves Marty, but she might as well be his oldest friend. She used to be his dad’s. Neil grew up with her. He got taken away, and when he came back, she was still there. He nearly runs to grab her shit from the tack room. Time is too slow. He does the bridle first, working backwards. She doesn’t need the cross-ties. She just stands patient in her stall. Her saddle doesn't look right, he can tell that much. He moves it all around, shifts it up and down her back. Her girth is too wide, unfamiliar, but he ignores it. He cinches her up and climbs on right there. He leans flat forward against her neck to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling, but once they’re out he sits up tall. Kind of.

He kicks Betsy hard. He’s sorry he can’t be gentle with her, but she can take it. She’s used to it. Her opinion doesn’t matter. Sensing trouble, she picks up her head and takes off down the yard at a meandering trot, tripping a few times. Neil doesn’t know what he’ll do if she breaks an ankle, but he kicks her again anyways. Over and over. She’s a lot better with vocal cues, but he’s not sure he even has a voice anymore.

The average horse weighs more than a thousand pounds. Not even grass can muffle the sound of Betsy’s frenetic movement. Annie hears them before she sees them. Eddie is settled between her legs on the couch, head resting on her shoulder. Jane watches them closely from the other side of the room.

“Hold on, baby,” Annie says, untangling herself from Eddie and getting up. She’s walking towards the window before she can stop herself. “Jane,” Annie says, swatting her on the arm when she’s slow to react. “Jane!”

“What, you see a coyote or somethin’?” Jane doesn’t really want to care, but her curiosity gets the better of her. She creeps over to the window as well.

It’s dark out, but their silhouettes are clear in the moonlight. Neil, hunched over in the saddle of a very confused horse, stumbling left and right around the yard with no obvious goal. “What the hell’s he doing out there?”

“I dunno,” Jane shrugs. “Maybe he’s in a mood.”

Annie presses her fingers to the glass. “He’s beating the hell out of her. He doesn't ride like that.”

“You think he’s drunk?”

“I think we better go and stop him before he gets any further,” Annie decides. Her and Jane rush to get their boots on. Annie grabs her jacket from the coat rack.

“Wait,” Jane says, jabbing a thumb towards Eddie. “Do we leave her here?”

“She’ll be fine, she’s a good one. Right?”

Eddie sits up, realizing the gravity of what they’re suggesting. They’re leaving her alone. This is her chance. “I won’t run, I’m not stupid,” Eddie laughs, feeling shrill and uncomfortable. Annie and Jane dash out of the house.

“Neil!” Annie calls, hands on her hips. He doesn’t notice her, or maybe he’s choosing to ignore them. He looks real close to falling right out of the saddle.

“It’s only Betsy,” Jane says. “I’ll go get her. You block the gate.”

Betsy doesn’t spook easy, but catching a horse is a tactical thing. Jane doesn’t have a stick or a whip to hold out, so she just waves her left arm in the direction of the gate, trying to encourage Betsy the opposite way. When Neil and Betsy get close, he pulls sharply up and away. He’s trying to dodge her efforts. “Damn it Neil, get off the fucking horse!”

“No,” he says, steering Betsy towards the gate and kicking her sharply in the gut. She listens this time, finally picking up a hand gallop and heading straight towards Annie.

To her credit, Annie tries real hard to stop them. Any injury she sustains is probably better than letting Neil and Betsy run off down the road. They’re going to get themselves killed. She waves her arms in the air, she yells. She goes to close the gate as a last resort. It falls off of its hinges. “What the fuck?”

“Yeah, we never fixed it,” Jane says, watching Neil race past the entrance to the farm and disappear down the long road.

Annie takes a massive breath in, shoulders heaving. “You ever watched the rodeo, Jane?”

“Course I have.”

“In bronc riding, you seen them rush the guy after the timer’s up?”

Jane nods.

“C’mon then,” Annie says, already headed towards the stable. “Let’s play cowboy.”

Just by examining the barn floor, there’s no way to tell that Neil spent hours holed up in here this evening. Everything is put neatly in its place, Marty and Gamble shuffle unbothered in their stalls. The only clue is Betsy’s wide open stall door and, as Jane discovers upon entering the tack room, the fact that his flask is gone. She grabs Gamble’s saddle and everything and heads to his stall.

Annie comes in soon afterwards. “This ain’t Marty’s right tack.”

“Oh,” Jane frowns. “He must’ve took Marty’s saddle for Betsy. Just use it anyways, I don’t have a spare.”

These two really are shit at owning horses. They were raised better than this. Annie grabs Betsy’s stuff and puts it on Marty. He kicks out at her when she tries to tighten the girth. She slaps him on the stomach and keeps going. “Stop that. Jane, help me with the bit.”

While Jane holds Marty’s neck to the wall, cornering him, Annie gets two fingers in his mouth and forces the bit past his teeth. He drops it. She pushes it in again. Jane nudges him closer to the wall. In one quick motion, Annie presses the bit to his tongue a final time and pulls the bridle over his ears. Took him long enough. Every second that Neil’s out there is a second wasted on their part.

Jane gives Annie a leg up before throwing herself at Gamble, hoping for the best. She manages to get on top of him, and they’re off.

Annie really doesn’t wanna have to kick Marty, but he’s distracted. Although he’s usually prone to taking off when he’s angry, he won’t move past a lazy canter. If she kicks him, he’ll get mad and ignore her other cues, but if he keeps on like this Neil will be dead in a ditch by the time they find him. Even Gamble’s gotten the message. He runs as fast as his little pony legs can carry him, leading the way for probably the first time in his life.

“Come. On,” Annie says, squeezing his sides and kissing at him. She grazes his shoulder with the end of her reins. He puts his head down and kicks up his heels, throwing a fit, but he won’t go any faster.

“Check it out,” Jane says, slowing down and entering what most would consider Marty’s danger zone—his hindquarters. Jane reaches a hand out, narrowly avoiding his errant cow kicks, and hits him hard right behind his saddle. Marty takes off, and Gamble scrambles to follow.

It’s been so long since Annie’s had a proper gallop. She stands up in the saddle, wind in her hair. Once a horse like Marty gets running, his brain melts out of his ears. All he can focus on is going fast and going strong.

Annie’s thoughts race faster than her body. She is trapped on a horse who will never move as fast as she needs him to, a creature with his eyes on the ground and his heart in the clouds. The fields are vacant; it’s too dark to change pace without fumbling.

Marty sees Neil before anyone else does. With a panicked whinny he sidesteps and almost sends Annie over his shoulder. Neil bursts from a clearing between the trees, still hanging onto Betsy by the neck.

Coming up behind Annie, Gamble balks, the whites of his eyes rolling. Neil kicks Betsy forwards with all his strength, veering off the road. Head swinging, Betsy’s stride breaks. Neil circles her around again. She refuses. They go again. The poor horse blanches, confused.

“He’s trying to jump the fuckin’ fence,” Jane says, locking eyes with Annie.

The cow fence, in all its barbed wire glory, is absolutely not jumpable. Annie ties her reins and slides off of Marty. Neil’s coordination is degrading; it just makes him easier to catch. Annie lunges for Betsy’s bridle at about the same time that Jane comes around and knocks Neil clean off Betsy.

Annie dusts her hands on her jeans and holds the reins of the cooling horses. Jane tumbles from Gamble and takes Neil with her, tackling him by the waist.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Annie demands, hand on her hip. Jane’s got him pinned, but he won’t stop muttering, squirming.

“…somethin’ stupid. Shouldn’t have done that. Can’t fuckin’ control myself…”

Jane lifts his useless body onto Gamble, making sure to hold his reins for him, and begins leading Betsy back towards the house.

Before he was Cody, he was Clodagh. ‘Clo’ by friends, ‘Clod’ by enemies; ‘girl’ by all.

Clodagh turns the wrinkled red slip over and over in her hands. Chlodah to the Nurse . Her teacher calls her name every day and still spells it like a disease or something.

The hallway is empty. Temperatures are in the hundreds and the school can’t afford a functional HVAC system, so everyone hides in the classrooms with the windows open. With any luck, Clodagh will be able to find the one person who can’t seem to hide from anything.

She walks past the deserted cafeteria; no. Past the main office; no. Out onto the front lawn, and she’s met with dead grass and little else. She heads back inside, chewing the inside of her cheek to tatters. The buzz of overworked box fans nestles behind her ears, under all the hair, under all the lipstick. Mam called her a whore today as she was leaving the house, made her scrub it off at the kitchen sink. Clodagh, reapplying it on her walk to school, had only smirked. She can’t wait to try calling someone else that when she gets the chance.

Clodagh still hasn’t found her , but she does run into Sarah M. by the water fountain.

“Hey, Clo.”

“Hi.” She passes by briskly, uninterested in chatter about grades or clothes. But then she retraces her steps. “Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna help me with something?”

The alley. They should’ve checked there first. She is sat up cross legged in the shade of the fence, a notebook on her lap and an apple in her hand.

It was all a little too easy to get Sarah on board. All Clodagh had to do was pitch an equation. Sarah has a crush on Tim; Tim is a boy; Chloe is a girl. Therefore: y’know, Sarah, this morning I saw Chloe talking to Tim. She was all over him, kept pulling her collar down lower. A well placed ‘she was flirting with your man’ spawns jealousy like a chicken in a fox den. Clodagh can’t imagine feeling that strongly about anyone, ever. Obsession with something you can’t have is such an astronomical waste of time.

Her and Sarah cast tall shadows across Chloe’s pretty fucking face.

“Nice shirt.”

“Yeah,” Sarah agrees. “Really makes your tits look good.”

Chloe sighs. “What do you guys want?”

To break your glasses and see what you do about it. To press you up against the metal of my hot car. To tie your hands behind your back and trip you.

“What, can’t take a compliment?” Sarah asks. She doesn’t get a response. “Answer me, bitch.”

Chloe stands up, abandoning her lunch as she straightens her skirt. “Thanks, Sara, for your fastidious attention to detail. Spoken like a true expert in staring at girls’ boobs.”

“Damn,” Clodagh mutters. She stands so close to Chloe she can feel her exhale. “You’re askin’ for it.”

Finally Chloe’s expression is starting to crumble. She’s been looking less scared and more tired as of late, and Clodagh wants desperately to be the one to change that. This close, she gets a good look at Chloe’s eyeliner. It’s perfect. Way better than anything Clodagh can pull off. She brings a thumb up to that clean, black mark and smudges it. Chloe doesn’t move, doesn’t react. Is she holding her breath?

“There you go, Chloe,” Sarah says. She’s starting to corner her, too. “Now you don’t look like such a slut.”

Chloe blinks. “You wanna get the other side?”

“I’d take your glasses off if I were you,” Clodagh warns.

“What, so you can step on them and hit me?”

“Or we can take ‘em off for you,” Sarah says defiantly.

It is only when Chloe leans down to tuck her glasses into her lunch box that Clodagh realizes just how much space is between the three of them. Or, just how little. She’s shoulder to shoulder with Sarah and nearly chest to chest with Chloe.

Absentmindedly, Chloe tugs at the wide neckline of her tank top, pulling it down and back into place. Clodagh actually feels Chloe’s fingers brush against her own t-shirt. She grins; that’s a mistake she’s going to make sure Chloe regrets.

To her delight, Sarah catches on quickly. “Are you coming on to us , too?”

Chloe rubs at her eyes. She must really not be able to see without her glasses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you know exactly what we’re talking about. And I think you know what we’re here for.”

i. Prologue

When Eddie wakes up, she cannot move her neck. Not at first. It's like she’s floating, and then the life rushes back into her and she feels sick. Her muscles are sore and stiff and her whole body is wet with sweat. It’s hot in this car.

The light is too bright. A wide open highway stretches forward like an eager cat beneath the wheels of Annie’s battered sedan. Eddie tries to speak, can’t, clears her throat. Annie watches her struggle.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re just takin’ a trip.”

The memories don’t come back easy. There was music, she can’t remember what. She sort of remembers getting ready to go out. She didn’t want to eat anything. She just wanted to go to sleep. She was dreaming about something, flashing lights and a beat she could feel in her bones. It had no rhythm, though. It was uneven and scary. People were there, and then they weren’t, and then they were too close to her and she was trapped and the walls were moving. “You drugged me.”

Annie keeps her eyes to the road, blinders up. It’s easier to keep the façade if she doesn’t have to look at Eddie’s limp figure in her passenger seat. “Don’t worry about it.”

Eddie gapes, trying to readjust herself where she sits, as if better posture might give her some leverage in the conversation. “That shit has side effects! I could get like, addicted or something.” This is a useless observation. In fact, it might only spur Annie on―she’s always liked the idea of Eddie being completely dependent on her.

“You can deal with a headache. We’ll be there soon enough.”

Eddie wants to keep arguing, wants to tell her that this time has to be the last time. She can’t gauge where Annie’s head is at. She shouldn’t mess around right now. It’s easy to just tuck her legs up and lean over the console. Swallow the bile in her throat and try to go back to sleep.

She doesn’t really find sleep, though. Her breathing is rigid, like her lungs won’t expand enough. Her body hurts more with every jolt on the road. The backs of her eyelids are no escape from the sunlight. She tries to cover her eyes with her hands, but even her own touch is too warm, and she quickly readjusts herself.

By the time Eddie opens her eyes again, the sun is higher in the sky and there are way more cars on the road. She feels even worse. Her mouth is dry and her clothes are damp. The car is getting hotter. Annie’s hair is losing its careful part, flattening in dark whorls around her forehead. She smells of sweat and peppermint, comforting and familiar.

“It’s too hot in here, Ann. Can I please open a window?” Eddie tries not to whine. She’s just so, so tired. Her head hurts bad.

“No.”

Eddie really doesn’t want to know why not. Everything is too hot, stifling, so many layers. It’s making her sweat. It’s making her itchy. She takes her shirt off. She’s surprised to see that she’s not wearing a bra―she doesn’t remember taking it off.

When Annie notices, she almost swerves. “Put your shirt back on, Christ!”

“I bet you didn't have a problem taking it off last night!”

Annie flinches. “I didn’t rape you!” Then, quieter: “I just wanted you to be comfortable.”

“Yes, and I’ll be more comfortable with less clothes in this goddamn car.” Eddie tucks her head down fast, but then remembers that Annie can’t really hit her while they’re still on the road.

Annie glances back and forth, eyes settling on nothing. She’s probably reminding herself the same thing. “People can see you.”

Eddie is curled almost horizontally in her seat, certainly below window level. People probably can’t see her. It still makes Annie nervous, though. As far as the cops are concerned, she’s a scowling, man-imitating dyke who drugged and kidnapped her lady friend and is headed in the opposite direction of anywhere she can be recognized. They might be right this time. She can’t afford to get caught.

“Just―your stuff is in the back. Put somethin’ on.”

“Let me open a window.”

“I said no.”

Eddie considers the next course of action. The best way to diffuse the situation would be to shut up and put on a clean shirt. Annie has clearly made up her mind about the rules today and any needling is going to make the consequences worse. Still, Eddie is hungover from who knows what and probably won’t enjoy whatever Annie has in store; she may as well push her around and see what happens. She thinks a tiny part of herself likes all the attention she gets when Annie really is mad. She doesn’t know anyone else who would set aside their own plans just to spend time with her. “Why not?”

“Do I need to pull over?” Annie asks. It’s less threatening and more like she’s some teacher trying to get Eddie to cool down in the hallway.

Eddie shakes her head. She can be a star student.

Annie’s hands flex on the steering wheel. “I’m just sayin’. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.”

Eddie laughs. “Ooh, that was kinda edgy. I’m scared.”

Annie says nothing at first. Then she says nothing at all. Damn. Eddie definitely fucked up. She should readjust again, stop being so vulnerable, but Annie has a point. She’d rather not be caught shirtless by unsuspecting passerby.

Annie takes an exit soon afterwards, veering towards a narrow, heavily forested road. They pass under the sign before Eddie gets a chance to look at it. The asphalt soon turns to gravel and the gravel to dirt. Annie slides beneath a lone tree in a clearing.

She unlocks the doors, making a show of walking all the way around the car, opening a door to the back seat, and throwing a shirt up at Eddie. Eddie scrambles to put it on. Always a gentleman, Annie gets the passenger door, pulling Eddie out by the elbow and sending her stumbling.

“Get down,” Annie says, pointing at the ground. Eddie drops to her knees so fast she feels dizzy. Annie stands close in front of her, grabs her jaw and tilts it upwards. A thumb digs into her cheek, and Eddie’s glasses fall crooked down her nose. Annie rights them, gently, and then slaps her.

Eddie’s vision is blurry. The tingly burning on the left side of her face tells her that Annie’s feeling a twin sensation on her palm, fingertips red where they connected with wire frames. Eddie stares at the ground, mouth open. An old shame rises within her but she pushes it away.

“I’m not gonna keep correcting you.”

Eddie laughs, eyes watering. “You think I care?”

Annie hits her again, other side. It hurts so good. Eddie deserves this. Her glasses are on the ground. She’s a stupid fucking perverted homosexual waste of a human being. She’ll never be more than this. “Stop fucking with me,” Annie snarls.

“Can’t help it.”

Annie steps forward, kicking Eddie’s legs apart, until her knees brush Eddie’s chest. The subtext is all there. You aren’t worth my time. You’re such a problem. You never know how to shut up and play along. “Why are you like this?”

The answer’s right there. There’s no hiding it now. “Because of you.”

Annie crouches low, meeting her wide eyes. This time she rubs both thumbs over Eddie’s reddened jaw, back and forth, until she relaxes like an injured deer in Annie’s care. Her teeth flash shock-white as she pulls Eddie’s face inches from her own. 

“I hope you know just how much I love you. There are so many things I could do to you, because you’re easy. But I don’t. Tell me―if I left you here right now, would you crawl out to the highway to ask for help? Or would you just wait for me to come back?”

Eddie isn’t sure what the right answer is here. It feels like a trap. It feels like maybe she would wait for Annie to come back.

“I don’t want you thinkin’ you can say whatever you want. You do what I say because you love me back. There’s no one else in this wretched world to look out for us, baby. I’m just trying to keep you safe.”

Eddie flinches as the first warm tears slip oily down her sensitive skin. Her lip quivers violently and she bites it, hard. Annie stands up, pushing her into the dirt. Her voice is cold when she says “I’ll be waitin’ in the car until you’re ready.”

It is cooler out this morning than it has been in a long while. Chloe’s got a jacket somewhere in her closet and she digs it out just for the occasion. She doesn’t have much else that she cares to bring with her—not here, not from this house. It’s barely hers to begin with.

This time, as she stands over Cody’s sleeping form beneath her covers, she doesn’t worry about him waking up. She’s feeling a little reckless. She doesn’t want to think about the odds that it all goes wrong. She’s already waited too long.

He’s pretty. He’s tall and large and lanky. His hair is downy. The blankets twist around him, because he’s always been a thrasher in his sleep. She loves him. She really does. She is going to regret this for the rest of her life. But she just can’t be sure he feels the same anymore.

Rodney and Kick are all huddled up together on her living room floor, so at first she thinks they’re talking to each other. Her heart rate spikes. They’re just sleeping.

The operators don’t work at night but she happens to have spent a lot of time recently dialing the local police station. The emergency number is as good as memorized. Anonymity isn’t her first concern, not if she’s able to communicate the danger of the whole situation and get them on her side.

The keys are burning a hole in her pocket. She keeps fidgeting with them, scraping the rough metal against her fingers just to make sure she’s still breathing and this is real and it’s happening. The truck isn’t registered under Cody’s name; he isn’t even listed on the insurance. All they’ll see is her dad. He’ll vouch for her. He’ll understand. It’ll turn out fine. The law is on her side. 

She’s tapping her foot so hard she might give herself a blister. Those work boots are made nice but they don’t fit her quite right.

She picks up the receiver and almost lets it slip from her hands and clatter to the ground. When did her world get so hard to grasp? She feels like she should be crying or something right now but nothing comes to her. Just empty, just focused. She has a set of motions to go through and she’s going to get it over and done with and then maybe she’ll stop to think about everything.

She’s not sure how to give the police a tip-off. She’s never had to do that before; when Cody made her call them about the kids, she was just putting on a character and doing an act. That’s not illegal, it was coerced. Now, though—this call could determine whether she skates free or gets tied down forever.

Her voice is so soft, even to her own ears. She is freezing up. “Hi. Yeah, I’d like to report a crime.” She tells them everything. How he took the kids off the side of the road. The room in the basement. The Zip-Ties. How she tried to help them, but he threatened her. If she can just explain everything away, it will all fall into place: the kids get returned to their families, Cody gets taken away. She wants so badly to censor herself; he really wasn’t that bad, if you look at it the way I do. He said some stuff but he didn’t actually mean it. She stifles the impulse.

Yeah, it’s been going on for over a week. She didn’t know how to report it. She was scared. He has a history of physical aggression. She knows his location. She’s calling from there right now. It’s the house of a friend of hers, Chloe Rondale? Yes, she heard all about Chloe’s children.

Chloe omits the part where she lied to the police. Where she pretended she was rescuing lost children. Where she’s still lying, she can’t stop herself, it’s too easy. All the aspects that might make her seem untrustworthy, scheming. She’s not like that. She’s above that. She didn’t mean to get so tied up in all of this.

The lady on the other line (maybe even the same one that took her call last time) says she’ll look into sending someone over in a few hours. The kids aren’t in immediate danger, and the hardworking officers do need their sleep. This is good. It gives Chloe more time.

She stumbles through her dark house like a zombie. She sure feels like one. The moonlight shines through the little windows in her front door. It’s full tonight, a perfect circle. She is unlocking it. She is touching the keys in her jacket, just one more time, just to make sure they’re still there.

“Wait.”

She gasps, hand flying to cover her mouth. Her heart is going to beat its way out of her chest. She can feel it now, up through her esophagus, laid bare to the rest of the world. They can see right through her. They can see her fear.

It’s not Cody, that much is obvious. It’s the little one with the dark hair. Rod. She’s always been a little biased towards him, if she’s being honest.

“Where are you going?” he asks. Chloe can’t really see Kick from their place on the floor, but she can feel their eyes on her.

She leans down a little closer to speak to Rod. “I’m just going for a drive.”

He frowns deeply. “But you’re coming back?”

“Yeah, soon, in a few hours. Just go back to sleep.” She swallows the bile. Lying to him feels like starving a puppy. Kick is by his side in an instant. All she can take in is their eyes.

“You’re not coming back.” It is not a question.

She looks down at the hardwood floor. They’ve got her cornered.

“Take us with you.”

“No.”

“Please.”

If they keep pushing she is going to give in. She always does. “Don’t make me do this. I said no.” Not this time.

“We’ve got his spare keys,” Kick says.

“No, I’ve got his spare keys.” They’re right here. They’re in her pocket. She’s been keeping them in a box underneath her bed. She grabbed them as soon as she woke up.

She removes them from her pocket and squints at the tag. ‘HOUSE’, it reads. Her mother’s handwriting, just like all of the tupperware. Maybe she left them out, maybe she mixed it up. This can’t be happening.

Kick brandishes the correct keys with as neutral an expression as they can manage. She knows what they’re really thinking, though: we won. This freedom is ours to take. Time will keep moving and you will stay exactly where you are.

She stares them down. She is not going to fight a child. They can’t help it. They want this just as bad as she does. But they haven’t had to suffer for nearly as long. She lunges for the keys in their hand.

“No!” they hiss, pulling away. They’re looking at her like she’s a monster. Even Rod has stepped back from her, standing like a shadow behind Kick’s protective shoulder. She can’t be that bad. She never takes anything for herself. She just wants her life back.

“Please,” they say again. “We don’t want the car. We’ll leave as soon as we get where we need to go.”

“You’re going to wake Cody,” she whispers. Kick and Rod, in silent ignorance, duck their heads and push past her out to the front of the house. All of the lights are off on the street; Rod regrets not looking for a flashlight of some sort.

Cody’s truck is parked askew down the road, taking up just enough room to ensure parallel parking is doable but frustrating. Kick leads the way. The keys are balled up tight in their fist. Rod walks a little faster to keep up with them; no one is getting in the way of them and that truck.

When they reach the vehicle in question, Rod instinctively moves to open the back door. Kick yanks him back by the fabric of his shirt. “No,” they tell him, speaking directly into his ear. Their touch makes him feel all nervous and warm inside. “You’re driving.”

Kick isn’t trying to humiliate Chloe on purpose, they just want her to know who’s in control. It’s Kick. Kick is in control. Rod is by their side. Chloe can have the backseat.

Rod really hates driving in the dark. Headlights can only go so far, especially with that night in the storm resurfacing in his mind. It’s not helping that he doesn’t know the streets of Slaughter, like, at all. Walking them is one thing but driving is another. He looks to Kick and they meet his gaze and he trusts them. They’re gonna get him out of this mess.

There are a million questions. Why didn’t they think of the truck earlier? Why is everything so easy now? What’s the plan? Kick twists in their seat to face Chloe. They don’t say anything, but she knows just what they’re asking.

“Turn right,” she says. Rod doesn’t need the answers to all those questions, not when Kick and Chloe are behind him. The trees are beginning to reveal themselves. The houses and stores are lit by the brightest sun he’s ever witnessed, an invincible ball of orange piercing the blue horizon. It illuminates the clouds, it gives life to the decaying brick.  He is driving straight towards it. He is leaving Slaughter behind.

He forgot their clothes at the house, but it doesn’t seem to matter anymore. There is nothing that could make him want to turn around. He’ll miss his favorite shirts, sure, but he’s ready to reinvent himself. He doesn’t want anything that reminds him of his past.

Chloe knows how to get to the nearest Texaco pump. They fill the tank up all the way with her money. Kick picks up a few maps from the rack outside. Rod sends up a few silent prayers in the hopes that nobody stops them, especially now that Kick’s license is a melted crisp in the ruins of Cody’s garage.

Like many things, the drive takes forever. As Rod taps his fingers at every intersection, the police begin to pull up at Chloe’s house. Just one at first, just there to check out the situation. The officer is smirking a little as he enters through the unlocked door. He’s sure that the children from this call are related to the ones from the missing case. This is his big break; he’s going to solve it all on his own.

He’s calling for backup as soon as he sees Cody. Cody doesn’t speak to him because he doesn’t really need to. He isn’t armed. He stands on the staircase in his socks and his boxers and he stares . The officer fears for his life.

More policemen show up, crowding the small property and blocking the street. It’s like the fire all over again, except Cody isn’t going down without a fight this time. They ask him about the kids and he doesn’t respond. They tell him they know what he did, that someone called in and filled them in on everything. They said he better start talking or they’ll have to make an arrest.

The officers there talk a big game, but it doesn’t take much to clue them in that something is wrong here. The house, for one, is almost empty. It looks like someone was getting ready to move. There are clothes on the floor of the sitting room, boys’ clothing. Their main suspect was recently accused of arson—it’s that dyke that thinks she’s a man.

The police don’t exactly have a warrant but this is a matter of saving those kids. Nobody around here is gonna complain if they’re doing the right thing. They pick apart the house like turkey vultures to roadkill. There are many places that kids could hide. Under beds, couches; in cabinets and the bathtub; the owner of this house, Chloe something, seems to live exclusively out of her bedroom. She’s got a cluttered desk and a threadbare armchair, posters and papers and news clippings pinned to every inch of available wall space. They can’t find a theme; it appears to be just whatever caught her fancy. Dewey Decimal classification cards are spilled all over the floor. They try her closet, her dresser drawers. No kids, just a lot of polo shirts.

As Kick navigates the best they can and wonders what they might be able to eat for lunch, police officers spill into Chloe’s basement. The hallway leading down to it is unlit and narrow. All they can find are battery powered lanterns. There is enough peanut butter and saltines and boxes of pasta to last for months or maybe longer. Three locks on the door, a gas mask on the wall. Iodine tablets and a first aid kit the size of a duffel bag. She may be a prepper, but the kids aren’t there either.

They cuff Cody with no small amount of force. He is stick thin but not afraid to pull away from their waiting hands. They get some of the heavier guys to knock him around a little, pin him against a wall. He stews in his anger, refusing to move until they drag him away from the house. Even with his hands behind his back, he leans up against the door frame, plants his feet. They push Cody down the front steps while miles away, Rod sits back in the driver’s seat, feeling safer than he has in a long while.

Chloe is not a perfect woman. At every pit stop, every fork in the road, every red light, she will consider leaving them behind. They’re old enough, she reasons. They could find their own way home. She will watch them finishing each other’s sentences, playfighting. Kick holding the map upside down and somehow still figuring out the right directions. Rod’s voice is strong when he tells them that yes they do have to wear a seatbelt. She will feel the envy sitting heavy between her ribs. That she never had a friend like that. Or—that she did, and she left her behind.

But for now, as her home phone rings off the hook and Cody begins his attempts to blame his brother for everything, Chloe sits in the backseat and waits. She is patient. Kick and Rod have more willpower than she gave them credit for; they keep moving even as they are knocked down over and over again.

This resilience will take them farther than they could reasonably stop to think about in their current states, slouching and hungry and just a little bit pissed at everything. Rod might return to that little apartment in Nevada just to find Kick gone and their mother at the mercy of whatever pills she took in a moment of desperation. Kick might sit with Rod for hours trying to find a job that won’t send him into a panic at the thought of being left alone. A drunk phone call might accidentally inform Kick and Rod’s old families of their new whereabouts. Kick’s mom isn't the mother she’s supposed to be and the empathy will be a long time in the making, but by the time the baby fat is lost and a real home is settled into, Kick and Rod will have become new people even to each other.

Now that she’s on her own, Chloe can admit to herself that she will have to make some adjustments. There may be three hundred dollars in the seams of her jacket but they aren’t gonna last forever. It should be enough to get her on a plane and out of Arizona for good. She wishes more than anything that Cody was by her side right now. He makes her nauseous, dizzy. He makes her feel important. He is strong when she is not. If he saw her now, if he was right here, he’d be holding her and telling her not to worry. Probably. If she asked nicely.

As Cody sits in the backseat of a patrol vehicle for the second time in a matter of days, he is blinded by his wrath. Chloe didn’t even say goodbye. She was too much of a fucking coward to listen to his plan. She ran away from him and she isn’t coming back. It’s too much to think about right now. He’d like to kill her. He’d like to kill himself. He’d like to sleep forever and forget everything, but hell’s not a kindly place for people like him.

It will tempt him many times in the days that follow. He will crave the end times like never before. He won’t know what to do. He will forget how to live. When Rod and Kick think back to him, it won’t matter if he is alive or dead, if he deserves it or not. They will already have brought about the demise of Cody McGee.

When they eventually do reach state lines, Rod will have decided that he wants nothing to do with cars ever again. He will walk everywhere. He will walk until he can’t anymore, just like that interminable afternoon in the desert. He will argue, when they are older, about either of them getting a license again. He doesn’t want one. He doesn’t want to be in a car. He will say that Kick doesn’t remember all of the hours in the backseat of Cody’s truck. Or being in the station wagon—they weren’t driving, so it wasn’t the same. They wouldn’t understand.

It takes time to heal fear. Fear like a house of mirrors. Fear like an open wound. It’s claustrophobia on the football field. It’s hating the cowboy movies. It’s looking into the eyes of the person you’ve loved all your life, and seeing something that wasn’t there before.

Kick curls up in the passenger seat, dreaming of the new love they might welcome for a person they’ve never met. They have seen her hands, in all those severed baby pictures. Holding them, cradling them in her arms. A body detached from its head. How old is she now? What does she wear? Does she have long hair? Is it beautiful?

They heard her voice through the phone. Calm, a little tired, gentle. She was crying but it didn’t feel sad. It’s me Susan, Kick told her, but they call me something else now.

Kick didn’t mention the part about being a girl but not actually living like one. They were hoping she would just know , upon seeing the two of them. They think if she’s been able to choose a life for herself in an impossible situation, if she’s lived with the shame of it hanging over her head all this time and still persisted—well, she must understand the choices they’ve made, too.

“Should we call her to let her know we’re coming?” they ask, biting their lip.

“What’s her name?”

Kick thinks hard. It’s always been ‘your mother’. Your mother made some decisions I am not happy about. Your mother is living a different life. Your mother has her own problems to work through. “I don’t know,” they say. I’ve never been told.

Rod glances over at them. He’s forgotten about Chloe, probably watching the whole thing from the backseat. She doesn’t matter right now. “I guess we’re gonna find out. You know the address, right?”

Kick’s not organized; they never have been. They can’t memorize for shit, and they also can’t keep papers in one place even when they do write things down. Their mom told them the address over the phone, twice, and Rod wrote it on one of the maps, but by then Kick was already rolling it around in their mouth, feeling the way the numbers would sound when they asked for her room over the intercom. Tucking it behind their tongue like a secret. Of course they know the address. They never forgot it.

They wriggle around in their seat to face Chloe. She is sitting behind the driver’s side but she is looking out the other window. “You won’t tell, right?” they ask.

She chews at her nails, an uncultured display of vulnerability they wouldn’t usually expect to see from her. She’s all distorted through the mesh partition between the front and back row. “No.”

Chloe will keep this promise until maybe a year later, when someone curious finally convinces her to open up. It will take some prying; Chloe won’t want to talk about Cody or the kids for fear of causing a repeat offense. She will live for a long time treating Cody less like a villain of her past and more like a god. She will worry that he can hear her thoughts. She will not trust tall men, or teenagers with red hair, or Catholics. She will trust them too much. She will spend all of her time in libraries. She will not read.

Her home in the big city calls to her, and the simple things it has to offer will bring her comfort. Streets, named after trees, with crosswalks and stoplights; greenery instead of sand; horses in the Wissahickon. This drive is only the beginning. This truck is the end.

When they do make it to wherever it is that Kick and Rod want to go, some isolated suburb that Chloe’s never heard of, she won’t wait to drive away. She won’t check that they’ve made it inside, or that an adult is around to help them. She doesn’t want to wait anymore.

A chorus of ‘ are we there yet ’ ‘ are we there yet ’ ‘ are we there yet ’ interrupts the uncomfortably awkward silence in the tiny cab. Kick stretches languidly across the center console, reaching an arm around Rod’s headrest.

Rod elbows them. “You would know, dumbass. What does the map say?”

“Turn left at the next…I dunno. Is that like, a ranger station?” They hold it up in front of him and he pushes it aside so he can actually see where he’s going.

“That’s a lake,” Chloe says.

“Yeah, what she said.”

Kick puts their feet up on the dashboard. There is a large hole in the seam of their sneakers that definitely wasn’t there before they got abducted. “Turn left at the next lake.”

The lake is more like a pond. It’s all marshy looking and steer graze idly in its midst. The earth out here is wide and flat, the sky is blue. Rod thinks maybe he’s died and gone to heaven.

“Wait, I just realized. When he took us there was air conditioning,” Kick says, pushing the lever all the way up. Rod was wrong— now he’s in heaven.

Kick tries the radio, but it’s just static. The lock on the glovebox is broken, so they dig through it. A cross necklace that looks like it was made by a little kid; a Beatles tape; a little envelope with mostly pictures of car parts, except for one.

They pull it out and turn around in their seat again. “Is that from when you were our age?” Chloe’s pained scowl is the same, but that’s about it. She’s got all this makeup on and longer hair and some sort of jersey.

She squints at it. “Can I see?”

Kick tries to hand it to her before remembering the mesh barrier situation, kinda like how birds fly into windows. Rod laughs.

“Just get rid of it,” Chloe says.

“Really?”

“Go for it.”

Kick folds seventeen year old Chloe in half and throws it out the window. Her high school days are long behind her. She’ll have to keep telling herself that. Cody is long behind her. For better or for worse, he can’t get to her anymore.

Rod is trying to recall why he wanted to leave home in the first place, and he’s not sure exactly. In the dark of the winter, in between classes they hated and parents whose love came with conditions, running away was a golden idea. They wouldn’t be missed, surely. He and Kick are young, and they won’t have considered that sometimes you have to lose something to realize its value. Life repeats itself because of your capacity to lose, not in spite of it, and the two of them took more than just canned food when they left.

There’s more to running away than just the open road; there’s more to family than who’s supposed to do what; there’s more to devotion than consistency. And if it all seems unforgiving, in time the details will drift from Rod’s mind. The teeth in Cody’s grin, the shape of Chloe’s glasses, the press of the bruises on his wrists which will fade eventually if he would just stop rubbing at them.

Cody McGee has always been a simple man. All he needs from life is a job that doesn’t ask too many questions, a brother who owns a house and is willing to share, a woman he can come home to. A chosen family willing to feed his transsexual delusions. He doesn’t need kids. He’s still a kid himself, he’s still got a whole shitty life to live before he settles down. But there’s something about having them within reach, two baby-faced rats in his fucked up maze, that excites him. As long as he has power over something, anything, he can breathe comfortably knowing that what does not rise up will be stepped on.

This is why he hides things. Deciding to take in the kids was not the big scandal everyone else would’ve made it out to be. With the way they were carrying themselves, they weren’t headed towards anything except an early grave. Cody knows this. He’s lived through being shunned, being punished, thinking too highly of himself. Short hair and arrogance doesn’t make those two any less of the girls they were born as; if it weren’t for Cody intercepting them, they were never going to learn to man up. He saved them.

But that was before. The shop’s gone, he burnt his last bridge with Seamus, Chloe finally got smart and left him. He didn’t think it would have to come to this, but there’s no denying it any longer: it’s him, his truck, and those punk ass teenagers against the world. He’s going to save them all, or die trying.

He hasn’t slept since Chloe walked away. Like a coward, he’s been hiding in the one place that can’t turn him away—the bar. It’s still calling itself a saloon, just like it always has. It’s not much more than a cowboy themed tourist trap with a taste for the locals. His dad sure spent a lot of time here after the war.

Cody rots at the bar for as long as he can without ordering anything. He hates alcohol, never got the appeal, but he makes sure to keep some liquor in his dresser drawer for guests. It mostly gets used for toying with Chloe; she’s braver while she’s drunk. At some point he looks up and everyone’s left the place and the bartender just gives him a knowing nod. Cody doesn’t want anyone’s fucking pity, so he leaves. Sitting on high stools and oversharing with strangers is a shit pastime anyways.

On autopilot, he finds himself idling behind the wheel of his truck. Those kids don’t know how lucky they have it, having no attachments. It must feel so liberating to be completely unmoored, to have the whole road at your feet and ready to meet you. He laughs to himself. Too bad they don’t have a fucking car, those poor idiots. Cody can’t bring himself to feel bad for them. He’s got a whole host of marionette strings tying him to this town.

He tries the radio and gets only static. There’s bird shit on his windshield. The sky is still a cool, early blue, the dark refusing to let up too easily. The stars only remind him of Seamus and that stupid ass telescope he spent their grocery money on. He turns his thoughts to something prettier.

The scars in the leather of the seats from where Chloe grasped for purchase. The necklace she made for him, the one he’ll wear every single day until she rips it from his neck. That picture he keeps in his glovebox, Chloe in a ill fitted pinny in the school locker room. Hair still at her shoulders and heat forced curls a little flat on the one side. A band-aid from where his friends put a cigarette out on her neck. She didn’t want him taking the picture, but she came back. They always come back.

His camera is at his feet, lying in wait like a tired dog. He stopped carrying it around a few days ago. He itches with inspiration, but he wasted his film on a few meaningless shots and he’d have to drive out of town to get more. And he’d have to have money. He really should’ve gotten a new picture of Chloe before she left, just so he could compare it to her old self. That’s what he gets for taking things for granted. He won’t do it again, though; when he gets her back, he’s never letting go.

Also in his glove box is one of his sisters’ rosary; he can’t remember whose. It’s the kind with the plastic beads and embroidery thread he found right before he moved out of his parents’ house. It was a sign then, something lucky.

He hasn’t prayed the rosary in forever. It felt too stale, too ingenuine. He thanks the Lord before every meal, and when he wakes up, and when he fixes a car, and when he gets paid, and when Chloe falls asleep next to him, and when a photo develops properly. He’s too lazy to recite his prayers but he’s never gonna forget them. That’s gotta be good enough.

Kick watches him from the window, face pressed to the glass. Seamus still isn’t home, so they aren’t bothering to act secretive. “He’s just sitting there.”

“In his truck?”

They nod. The pickup is nearly camouflaged against the red sand. The sun is slowly rising. Going back to Chloe or Seamus for help would just be embarrassing. Seamus is nice but he has that creepy Shirley lady going after him, and Chloe seems to be getting more unstable by the day; they obviously have more important things they could be doing than babysitting.

Besides, the first thing Rod knew when he woke up that morning was that now is the time to leave. Something is off about the place. Everything is all wrong.

He and Kick fell asleep on Cody’s couch completely unsupervised last night. They came back inside well after dark and tried the back door and it was unlocked. Kick even went upstairs to investigate, and they couldn’t find anyone in the house.

This shouldn’t be allowed to happen—the two of them could run at any moment. What happened to keeping them restrained, to keeping them locked up? It’s like Cody doesn’t even care anymore, and that’s what scares Rod the most: if Cody isn’t bothering to keep a close eye on them, it must mean escape is impossible.

“I think we should go before anything happens,” he says. Actually, Rod’s hoping something does happen. It’s foolish, he knows that, but he doesn’t feel like orchestrating some grand scheme. He’s tired. He wants someone to blame.

Kick gives him a weird look. “Oh my God.”

“What?”

“I've been saying that this entire time . Let’s fucking go!”

They have no belongings really left to bring with them besides spare clothes, so Rod balls those into a pile before joining Kick to raid the kitchen. The fridge is unplugged. All Rod finds in there is strawberry jam that’s three months expired. Kick says there’s a box of saltines in the cabinet, but by then Rod is feeling too guilty. “They’re clearly going hungry. I don’t think we should take anything.”

Kick rolls their eyes. “I’m going hungry as well.”

It is not until they’ve both left the house (Kick with crackers in hand, Rod carrying all of their clothes) that they realize they don’t know where the hell they’re going.

“Kick,” Rod says. “Where the hell are we going?”

“I thought you had a plan.”

He shakes his head.

“Maybe tour guides run through here?”

Rod hasn’t seen anything run through here at all. “We have no money.”

“But they can’t turn away lost kids.”

“Oh, is that what your mommy told you?” he mocks.

Kick hasn’t actually seen their real mom since they were a baby—only the shallow replacement their dad married as soon as she turned legal. Yet despite Kick’s mom’s efforts to stay hidden, them and Rod actually tracked her down. They called her. She’s in Nevada. She said she wants to get to meet her daughter again. She’s changed. She said they could live with her. She said she knows how bad things can get.

“Not in the fucking mood,” Kick scoffs.

“Sorry. I didn’t actually mean it.” He’s tired. Nevada looked so close on the map, just a few turns and a fork in the road away. They’d find someone who’d take them in, someone they can trust, who understands why they left in the first place. He remembers so vividly that feeling when they made it to the highway. Like they were homeward bound.

They make it back to the town center eventually, if it’s even considered that. There’s no street signs, but he recognizes it because of the ‘Don’t Pet Wild Burros’ placard. It’s that one road with the stores and the church and the electrical lines; he’s beginning to know his way around town now, even if all of the houses kind of look the same.

As per usual, the donkeys are their only company. Kick runs up to one of the churches they’ve been to and stands on their toes to scan the inside. “It’s empty.”

But that’s when he sees them. Loitering in the meager shade of the saloon’s porch, fair-skinned and fairer-haired, is a whole family. Rod can’t believe it: a couple under the age of sixty; other children . This is their chance. Rod warns Kick to act normal.

“Good morning,” Kick says, waving both arms, saltines forgotten. Perhaps the very antithesis of ‘normal’.

The kids, who have been playing quite aggressively with the rocking chairs on the deck, quiet down. Both the man and his children—who don’t look like much more than toddlers—are in tailored suits. The woman wears a shapeless dress that covers her neck, arms, and ankles. She peers up at Kick and Rod from beneath a ridiculously oversized sunhat. “Good morning,” she replies. Her husband steps a little closer to her, almost protectively. Rod hopes he’s making that part up.

“Do you live here?”

“No,” the woman says shyly. “We’ve come to spread the Word.”

“What word?” Kick asks. They’re such an idiot.

“The Word of Jesus Christ Our Savior,” the man cuts in. “Are you interested in joining our mission? There are lots of opportunities for young men like you all in the church.”

What church, Rod wonders. Why does everybody they meet have to be so weird? At least this family hasn’t yet recognized their objective heathenism. Rod misses his church. He wasn’t even thinking about the plan during that last service he went to. He didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.

Kick stares at Rod until he notices them looking. “Do I have to?” they whisper.

Rod nods. He doesn’t see why not—religious folk usually have food to share, and he trusts people with children.

They turn back to the family with a friendly smile. “Tell us more. We’d love to get involved with your church.”

While the long dress lady tends to her little blond children, her husband tells Kick and Rod all about their mission work. Something something blah blah blah ‘ kids aren’t raised the way they used to be ’ ‘ the faith is getting removed from schools ’ ‘ right to free speech ’ ‘ spread the word ’. He still hasn’t mentioned his name, or which denomination exactly they’re promoting. Those damn Evangelicals.

“Are you planning to stay here for a while?” Kick prompts when the spiel is over. They know what information they want, and they’re aiming right for the heart of it.

“Oh no, we’re just passing through. Preach the Word, in season and out of season.” Rod tries not to roll his eyes; way to lay it on thick. His church would never send people out like this.

Kick bites down on an elated grin. “Any chance you have room for us travelers? We’ve been looking for a reason to spread the word as well, especially up in Bullhead. You know how the city dwellers are, thinking they’re too busy for Him.”

This gets the woman’s attention. She glances up at her husband. “I’m sure we can make the space.”

The man attempts to quiet one of his fidgety toddlers before reaching over the railing of the porch to shake Kick and Rod’s hands. “It’s settled then. What are your names?”

“Sullivan,” Kick says easily. They really had that one ready to go. They cast Rod a tight lipped, expectant smile.

“Uh. I…Radney?” he decides. Kick bursts into laughter, failing to compose themself even as he glares back at them.

The family doesn’t seem to notice their shenanigans. “I suppose we’ll see you around,” the man confirms, not taking the liberty of introducing himself. “We’ll be leaving in about a month.”

Rod has to tap Kick on the shoulder until they close their slack jaw. He mutters something arbitrary and then he links his arm with Kick’s and walks them away before they can think to protest. He can’t be completely sure that they won’t throw a temper tantrum, right here in front of the nice family. He can’t be completely sure that he won’t throw a temper tantrum.

He walks them all the way down the street, past all the donkeys, around a few corners, until he can be sure that the family won’t be able to hear them scream.

Kick pushes their palms into their eyes. “Are you fucking kidding me? A month ?” they shout, already pacing.

Rod hops up onto the ledge of some unused shipping container. They’re pretty close to the main road now. The two of them could just start running and see what happens.

“Oh my God. I’m literally gonna scream.”

Hopefully not. Rod doesn’t want to attract too much attention. “We knew it was too good to be true, right?”

“I just pretended to believe in God for my own gain and then didn’t even gain anything.” They spin towards him, dust flying. “Do you know what that makes me?”

“A sinner?” he guesses.

“Bad at lying. Fuck, we’re never gonna get out of here.”

Rod takes a long breath through his nose. He swears he can still smell the fire from all the way on the other side of town. “We’ll find a way.”

“Whatever you say, Radney.” They can’t even pass this one off as mean. They try really hard to put some heat behind it, but it just doesn't work. Their scowl melts. They can’t stop giggling.

“You gave me no warning!” he protests, but he’s giggling too. ‘Radney’ might as well be the funniest thing either of them have heard in a long time.

They hop up next to him. Their hair is so spiky, ghost of a grin lingering on their chapped lips. Rod wants to reach out and touch it. Their hair. Not their lips, obviously. They squint their eyes at him, shock green in the bright sunlight.

“If we weren’t kidnapped, I’d kiss you.” They say it so seriously and don’t even blush or anything.

This startles him. He blinks. “If it weren’t so hot, I’d kiss you too.” That’s the truth, Lana Turner be damned.

“If we lived here, I bet this would be a pretty good spot to hang out.” They’re right. The building closest to them looks abandoned, and they’re hidden away between a few walls. The shipping container is probably older than they are, but it makes for a pretty good seat.

“I’d get bored,” Rod adds. “And there’s no ladies around here.”

“Yeah,” they agree. “If I had a toothbrush, maybe.”

“If I knew no one was looking.”

Kick doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Do I embarrass you that bad?”

Rod turns his whole body to face them. “No. I just like it when it’s just us.”

“‘Cause you’re a fuckin’ faggot,” they cackle, slapping him on the back. He won’t admit to it, but he almost falls off the ledge before regaining his balance. And he might’ve walked right into Kick’s trap, but they’re laughing again and he feels like laughing, too.

Cody, on the other hand, feels like actual fucking shit. He doesn’t know what to do with his time now that he’s got nowhere to clock in. He’s missing something, he knows this, but he can’t think of what it is. He could use some strong fucking coffee right now.

It’s getting hotter out. Sweat stings his eyes. This truck is a cage and he needs to get out of it. He throws the door open, grabs his keys, and turns his face to the world at large. This is it. There is no escaping now. Hell hath no fury like a man without his job or his girlfriend or his house—or y’know, however the saying goes.

He realizes what’s missing, now, because how could he forget: it’s those kids. Where the fuck did they run off to this time? Before he can stop himself, he is running too. He is throwing himself at the wind and he is hungry and he is tired but he is running, he is running because he doesn’t care if anyone sees him anymore and he needs this, he needs air in his lungs and an ache in his body that is greater than the one in his mind.

The first place he thinks of is Chloe’s house, but he’d rather spend all day searching fruitlessly than step foot over there. The next is the church. (Not his own—in his experience, Catholics don’t take too kindly to scruffy teenagers—but the Episcopals. Those protestant liberals practically get off on saving the rest of the world’s lost causes.)

He’s never actually been inside this church building and he sure doesn’t trust it. They’re always trying to host soup kitchens and charity events instead of minding their own business. A hot meal is tempting most nights, but he and Seamus have learned to be suspicious of free handouts. They’re capable adults.

Cody’s not looking for charity today, he’s looking for those fucking kids. He peeks inside the windows of the big red doors. No worship this morning. He’s getting angrier by the minute. He wants them back here, and he wants it now. He’s not sure he’ll be able to restrain himself if they keep wasting his time like this, even if he knows the only thing worse than kidnapped kids is kidnapped kids with bruises.

They can’t have gone far. There’s no way out of this place unless they found a way to hitchhike, but it’d have to be something real convenient. It’s pretty hard to just stumble upon a ride when nothing ever—

A passing car distracts him. He’s hypervigilant in this state, all too aware of his surroundings in a burning, seething way. The birds singing are too loud, and the ground is too dry, and the sun is too hot. The car is probably nothing.  He’s gotta keep focused.

He tries the desk at the shitty hotel, and is told that the guestbook is confidential. Since when? His next idea is the travel agency, a relatively new set up which he’s sure will be out of business by the end of the year. It’s just more outsiders trying to push their trends and values onto the people here. It’s pretty hard to make a town with a name like Slaughter any more appealing to the general public, and they’ll realize that soon enough and get the fuck out.

As Cody enters the tiny storefront, he has to remember to plaster that smile on his face. He’ll get answers by acting nice, not by scoffing at the prices on the wall. Everything is bright, clean, a ‘packaged deal’. There are pictures of tropical beaches and blue skies and city skylines. The whole concept is laughable; anyone can call an airport himself without having to pay someone to do it for him.

The lady behind the counter is smoking a cigarette. Her hair looks scorched at the ends and her makeup comes off in flakes. Cody, towering over her, can see down her shirt. He might’ve gone to school with her kid. He hopes she’ll mistake him for Seamus.

“Are you interested in one of our deals?” she asks lazily. He wants to pluck the cigarette from her mouth and step on it just to see the face she pulls. She could at least put some effort into pleasantries. Isn’t the customer always right? Man, he could really use a smoke himself.

“Just lookin’ around,” he chirps. His voice is higher than he intends but maybe it comes off as friendly. “Has anyone else stopped by this morning?”

“It’s quiet today.”

“Can’t see why. Now’s the time to escape the heat.”

She doesn’t answer, just gives him a mildly enthused laugh and rests on her forearms over the counter. So at least she’s falling for it.

“You get any kids come through here?” he asks. Wrong move.

The lady’s expression droops, her thin mouth just another fold in her sagging skin. Christ, he’s made her suspicious now. 

“Kids?” she repeats.

Two grimy sons of bitches, approximately five feet tall, eyes like spooked horses. “My brothers. Don’t want ‘em in trouble with anyone.”

She squints at him. “You’re a McGee, aren’t you?”

Uh oh. He flashes her a grin all sweet. “Yes, miss.”

“And you’re looking for…your brothers?”

Travel agent lady is trying to imply something here but Cody can’t figure out what it is. If she wants a question answered, she better say it outright. He slides his hands in his pockets and tries to remain calm. “Y’know, I bet they stopped to get ice cream or something. Thanks for your time, miss.”

She stands up. “Wait—”

He slams the door behind him hard enough to make the bell fall off. He really should eat something but Seamus has all of his fucking money.

Cody tries to think. When he was sixteen, he spent most of his time stealing makeup from his friends’ houses and sneaking cigarettes in the alley by the hollowed out shipping crate . That’s where kids go when they don’t want to be found, he’s sure of it.

As he rounds the corner he cannot fight the smile contorting his face. He is absolutely confident that the two of them will have found this place and set up camp. It’s perfect, really—the building next to it is abandoned, and the alley is formed by walls on all sides. The shipping container is rusted and peeling but it still looks sturdy enough to sit on.

And yet nobody is there. Fuck.

It’s not Cody’s fault for coming up short. There’s no way he could’ve known that just minutes before, Kick and Rod had spotted their ticket to ride: a produce truck delivering from Fort Mohave. Neither of them could remember where Fort Mohave was on a map, but they knew that it wasn’t Slaughter. Cody wouldn’t even be there to catch them because he’d been rotting in his truck since before the sun came up. Kick fast talked the driver while Rod mettled with the lock on the back door, and in no time at all they were on the move. All of this was going to make for a flawless plan. Well, except for the part where Cody watched the entire thing go down.

For the second time today he is sprinting through the narrow streets of his hometown, this time around with a real target in mind. The truck is moving at a snail’s pace but Cody keeps having to slow down and catch his breath because his chest is burning and his legs feel all weak and shaky. He doesn’t remember it being this way a few years ago when he still had actual muscle mass and it only spurs him to push harder.

With no small effort he reaches the window of the reefer, glaring at the driver until he brakes and rolls the window down. “Sir, I just saw two children climb in the back of your truck.”

The man behind the wheel, heavily bearded and probably twice Cody’s weight, shakes his head. “You’re the crazy that started that fire, aren’t you? I read about you in the papers. Get outta here.” He starts driving again. Cody keeps running.

“I’m not. Not lying, sir. This is. A serious matter.” It must not sound very serious with him panting like a fucking dog. “Stop the truck. Those kids. Are nothin’ but trouble.”

The driver rolls up the window and turns out onto the main road. From inside the truck, Kick and Rod hold onto anything they can reach—mostly each other—to keep from sliding across the floor with all of the other boxes.

“I think we’re out,” Kick says.

Rod can only nod along. He is luxuriating in the refrigerated air, nothing but cool metal and darkness closing him in on all sides.

“Rod. Earth to Rod.” Kick feels around in front of them, hand landing squarely on Rod’s face.

“What?”

“Can’t see anything. Had to check you were still there.”

Rod rolls his eyes, feeling especially uninhibited now that Kick can’t make fun of him for it. “Obviously I’m still here.”

They find his knee, and then his hand, holding on. Rod doesn’t say anything, just sits quietly in the dark. Their palm is warm against his own.

He’s not sure what the plan will be when they get out. Kick already had a conversation with the guy driving the truck, so they can’t pull an innocent stowaway act. Rod managed to figure out the latch system keeping the door in place, but he’s worried they might be locked in. They could always make a run for it, he supposes. That’s all they’ve been doing. Running and running and ending up nowhere.

His excitement is muted. They escaped. Cody is far behind them, and he won’t ever think to look here. But also nothing has changed. They are still in a small confined space at the whim of a stranger. They have no idea where they are being taken to—it could be way out of the way. At least this truck is air conditioned.

At some point Rod balls up their remaining clean clothes and rests his head on them, curled in a fetal position next to Kick’s leg. He almost lets go of their hand just to trace the goosebumps that have probably appeared there between the mosquito bite scabs and other mysterious scratches they’ve gained while on the road.

It surprises Rod how much a week away from home can change him. He hadn’t realized how smooth his life was until now. Him and Kick were no strangers to horseplay and weird bugs and a little mud, but at the end of the day some ointment or a bath or Rod’s blanket was always waiting for them. Now he feels like he’s just sitting in his own filth, never knowing when they get to eat or if they’ll still have access to a roof over their heads by the next day.

He isn’t able to fall asleep on the floor of the truck, feeling every pothole and sharp turn, but he makes peace with himself. If he doesn’t know where they’re headed, he can at least enjoy this time he has now.

Kick fashions a throne out of all the boxes, digging around through a hole in one of the cartons that got damaged along the way. As Rod lays at their feet, they suck the life out of an apple they found rolling loose. “You want one too?” they ask him.

“Want what?”

They toss an apple in the direction of his voice.

“Ow.”

He’s grateful for it, though. It’s just as cold as everything else in here and it tastes so sweet. He doesn’t know what they’ll do with the cores but that’s a problem for future Rod. He rests back against the boxes and holds the clothes tight to his chest.

The drive must take hours. That’s the only explanation. They have been sitting here for ages. It’s worse than any road trip he’s ever been on. “Do you think we’re going out of state?” he asks.

Kick shrugs; forgetting that Rod can’t see them they add “I dunno” and join him on the floor. Rod’s almost starting to get the chills being in here, which he knows he’ll feel guilty for once they’ve been kicked back out into the heat.

When the truck stops, everything topples over. Rod splays his hands out in front of him and takes most of the weight with his palms, but Kick leans on his shoulder at the same time and they both kind of fall into each other.

Before Rod has time to generate an escape plan, the doors are wrenched open. Kick instinctively shields their eyes against the glare of the sun, and someone yells in surprise. To Rod’s relief, they are not greeted by that bear of a man who was driving, but instead by two guys in uniform speaking another language—Spanish probably.

The men look at Kick and Rod in confusion and then at each other and then back to Kick and Rod. The one makes an almost comical shooing gesture and Kick grabs Rod’s hand and pulls him out of the truck, out into the bright sunlight, out into the town of…

“Where are we?”

Chloe, who hasn’t left Slaughter since her family moved in, doesn’t know where the kids ended up since she left them and she doesn’t care. There’s something much more pressing in her life right now, and it’s the ringing coming from the kitchen phone.

Cody hasn’t called her in weeks. He doesn’t like talking over the phone, he always says, when he could be seeing her face. He knows a phone call has nothing on a hand-delivered six pack after he’s made a mistake. He’d much rather show up unannounced than be the square that makes scheduled dates. Chloe’s really let her guard down when it comes to her callers these days—it’s usually just her parents, wishing her well from their retirement in Florida. It’s usually just her boss’ assistant. It’s usually just a telemarketer.

She knows it’s him because he doesn’t say a word.

“What do you want?”

Silence. She should really hang up, but she needs to know. She’s managed to avoid him well enough, but she’s not sure how much longer she can go on without his help. She doesn’t leave her bedroom except to go to work or to eat, although she hasn’t been doing much of either of those lately. She asked for a few sick days after walking away from Cody, in case he tried to do something stupid during one of her shifts. And without any car to drive out to the nearest grocery store, her basement supply is dwindling. It’s only a matter of time before she has to come crawling back to him, and he’s going to make her pay. It could at least be on her own terms.

“I’ll hang up.”

He laughs. “No you won’t.”

“I’m eating at seven, don’t be late.” She places the receiver down gently.

Cody’s not one to refuse a free meal. He arrives with three minutes to spare, hair washed and shirt tucked. Chloe seems to like it when he cleans up. He doesn’t hesitate to ring the doorbell, feeling a little like her dopey boyfriend from high school. What was his name? Not important—

“So you’re here,” she deadpans.

“So I am.” He tries for a smile.

“Just come in. And whatever you’re expecting, stop it.” She pulls him in by the elbow. He almost trips over her pair of workboots on the ground, which is odd, because normally they’re set neatly on the shoe rack with the laces tucked in. (And she absolutely does have a shoe rack for her singular pair of shoes.)

“Watch the camera,” he says, clutching at his bag right before it hits the ground. Now that he thinks about it, that faded fucking crossbody’s gotta be the only reason why Chloe let him in. Carrying it around every day might just be the one predictable thing about him.

She’s already made dinner when he comes in, set in on the coffee table because she has no furniture anywhere else. He’s never asked her why, actually. Some things are best left a private matter.

They eat in silence, him on the couch and her on the chair, refusing to look at each other like children in some fucking playground spat. It’s really getting on his nerves.

“Why now?” she asks, pushing her glasses up.

He laughs nervously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Why the fuck are you eating dinner at my house?”

“Um, ‘cause you invited me.”

She drops her fork and stands. “Then maybe you should leave.”

“Wait, no—I can explain.” Chloe frowns at him and crosses her arms. “How about I tell you while I wash these dishes?” he offers.

“I can wash my own fucking dishes.”

“Jeez, alright,” he says, hands up defensively. “Can we at least sit down somewhere?”

Chloe is aware that she should not let him further into her house. She is thinking this even as Cody is reclining on the desk chair in her room. Even as he is sitting with his legs spread wide, adjusting his pants.

“Get any new decorations while I was gone?” he drawls.

“Get to the fucking point,” she snaps.

“Damn, the mouth on you.”

She’s not going to let him get under her skin again. She’s not a teenager anymore. She won’t allow herself to be bullied like one, either. She takes a seat on her bed, legs pointedly closed. Not allowing herself to get too comfortable around him; he’ll only take advantage of it.

“Anyways,” he continues, “I am here for a reason. I’m sure you can probably guess.” He grins almost sheepishly, but it looks forced. That’s all he’s ever been: a wolf in sheep’s skin; a boy in girl’s clothing; a sadist in a repressed teenager’s body.

The room is dark when Chloe opens her eyes, light suppressed by blackout curtains. There is no telling what time it is. She feels around for her glasses.

Even in his sleep, Cody’s brow is tensed, but he looks far less intimidating like this, curled around her arm. There is a single strand of red hair on the pillowcase between them. His breathing gives a rhythm to the night, a living thing in a dead-still room. Chloe’s nose and throat burn every time she inhales. She must be dehydrated.

Staring at the ceiling, in the bed she’s only ever had to share with her thoughts, she tells herself she will only be gone for a minute. She won’t try to run. There’s nowhere to go.

She pulls the duvet off of her sweaty skin, trying to shift her weight without falling over. The air on her legs is a cold shock. She scans the floor for her discarded shorts, the ones Cody called ‘girly’ right before he took them off last night. She’s not sure where her boxers went.

Chloe’s head is still gauzy with sleep. Drawn towards the light in the hallway, she steadies herself on the railing. It’s nice to have something to cling to for now, but once she is in the kitchen she is on her own. Briefly she wishes she had a person, a guide, to tell her what to do and where to go. Like a fucking animal. She shivers, keeping her arms close to her side. That’s the same thinking that got her in this mess in the first place.

She picks up a glass that got left out on the counter. It’s probably dirty. She holds it under the faucet until it is overflowing. The water tastes metallic. Is she bleeding? Her finger comes back clean. She can’t tell if she’s going to throw up or pass out. Feebly, she hopes she doesn’t hit her head on the way down.

“Burning midnight oil?” Cody is leaning against the entrance to the kitchen, still wearing his jeans and t-shirt. Did he sleep in those? She hadn’t noticed.

“I was just getting water.”

“Scared me for a second there. I know you’re a flight risk,” he mutters, laughing a little.

He knows she’s a flight risk. He knows she’s…she knows he…they…

“Woah there.” He moves to grab her arm, keep her upright. “Let's get you back to bed.”

Back to bed. Back to her bed. He makes her feel like a child. She’s supposed to be stronger than this.

Chloe hesitates at the drawer next to the oven. She probably has Valium or painkillers or something. Cody watches her and she freezes. She feels like she should ask him permission first. She has time to consider it—he doesn’t know what’s in the drawer. He doesn’t know why she’s stopped, what she might be looking for, thinking about. He can’t read her thoughts.

But he decides for her. “C’mon, it’s late.” He takes her by the hand, leads her up the stairs. She stumbles and he catches her. It’s strange, because in the daylight he looks so frail.

There is still no light on in her bedroom. Cody adjusts the pillow and makes space for the both of them. “Look at me,” he says, quiet. Chloe tells herself she acts on reflex alone. He removes her glasses and sets them on the nightstand. She is blind now; at his whim. The darkness is grainy and soft around the edges and comfortable.

He’s got her backed into a corner, too tired to resist. She is small and weak. That’s exactly what he wants, isn’t it? The last thing going through her mind before she falls headfirst into an unwelcome sleep is that now she is laying on the other side of the bed, trapped between him and the wall.

Cody stays awake for a while afterwards. He is praying.

Chloe looks good in the morning. Prone. He almost wants to poke at her just to see if she reacts. He could do anything right now. This never happens; she’s usually awake long before he is.

Everything is going according to plan. Why would she let herself be so vulnerable if she wasn’t offering up an apology? It’s women like Chloe, the kind who get too caught up in their own heads, who make stupid decisions like the one she made. ‘This isn’t working’. Of course it is. She came right back. She should really be thanking him, if anything; he forgave her mistake and even welcomed her back with open arms.

She’s dreaming something. It makes her smile, a smile he hasn’t seen in a while. Like she’s having fun. She whispers something into the pillow, but he can’t tell what she’s saying. Then she’s awake, taking him in with those big eyes, and her smile fades. Now she just looks tired.

“What were you dreaming about?” he asks.

“Can’t remember.”

He gets his arms around her, pulling her close beneath her knit comforter. Her hair smells clean, that same shampoo that always fogged his brain when they were in school together. “Was I in it?”

“Yeah,” she says, because it’s what he wants to hear. She rests her head on his bony shoulder, trying to go back to sleep. It doesn’t work.

“You got anything going on today?”

She smiles. “Nope.” If she’s being honest, she’s forgotten what day of the week it is. The curtains are open now. His hand is on her waist.

He starts with her mouth, but his lips soon wander. Her jaw, her ear, her neck. Kisses to her cheek, words pressed to her skin. He doesn’t say ‘ I missed you ’, because he doesn’t have to.

It’s just like it used to be, like when they met each other again, when he wormed his way into her bed and she never regretted it like she thought she would. When it was just the two of them and nobody else. She misses this. She wants to stay here beneath these blankets for as long as she can stand it. As long as Cody is with her right here he is focused.

He whispers things so sweet she can’t help but blush. He’s charming when he wants to be. Nothing’s serious anymore, except for it is, except for it’s so true and exposed that there’s no room left for secret keeping. No lying, no sneaking around. Nothing between them except for their clothes, but that’s never stopped anyone. He has changed. He wasn’t capable of this before.

He smiles against her lips, and she smiles too, keeping her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer. (Did he finally wash his hair? Took him long enough.) He kisses at her neck so softly. She’d forgotten what that was like—with those kids around, he was always too stressed to treat her gently.

“How’re you doin’?” he sighs, mouthing at her palm, the underside of her wrist.

She removes her hand from his grasp and instead uses it to get some leverage, kiss him deeper, suck on his tongue a little. “Doing good.”

Cody readjusts so that his full weight is on her, their legs all tangled. His hands are everywhere, holding her, teasing her, making her feel warm and tingly and cared for.

“Y’know,” he murmurs, between lavishing her neck with attention. He’s probably given her more than a few bruises but she doesn’t think she’ll mind. “I think I have something of yours.”

Chloe pauses. “You do?”

He grins, reaching for her glasses on the nightstand and handing them back to her. Then he pushes some of the blanket aside, retrieving something from his back pocket and presenting it to her. It’s just a piece of paper, really. How on earth did he find it?

“You wanna explain this?”

No. No she absolutely does not. “Get off of me.”

“How about you tell me what your plan is?”

“I was just gonna use it to visit my family,” she says, lying through her teeth. She tries to sit up. He keeps her pinned.

“Do you think I’m stupid? They send you postcards from Florida year-round.” He holds it closer to her face as if she doesn’t already know exactly what it says: Las Vegas to Philadelphia. American Airlines. One-way trip.

She tries to take it from him. He holds it out of reach, barring his forearm over her wrists. “Hey, calm down, baby. I know you’ve been wantin’ to leave, and I won’t stop you. But I need your help first.”

Chloe takes a long breath, glaring at him. “With what?”

He pulls away to straddle her, keep her beneath him. She’s going nowhere. “I need you to make a phone call. Then you can have the ticket back.”

“Can’t you do it yourself?”

“I don’t have a great rap with the police,” he laughs.

She doesn’t want to begin imagining what Cody could possibly want from the police. “And what if I don’t?”

He leans in close, pressing his fingers beneath her chin so hard it hurts. “Then you can kiss Philly goodbye. This little ticket is pretty flimsy. Easy to lose. I know you’d hate for something to happen to it.”

He’s right. Flights out of Vegas were the cheapest she could find. She still has to give the library her two weeks notice. She has to tell her parents. She has to convince her neighbors to buy the house. Maybe a phone call is the least of her worries.

“Alright,” Cody says, after Chloe has given in to his wiles and dragged her ass out of bed. He is standing in the middle of her kitchen with his arms crossed. She’s not buying it—he’s trying to be all intimidating, but there’s still a possibility that she holds out, right? He must be worried. He must have some doubt. She’s not that easy.

She picks up the receiver and dials the number to the police station that Cody apparently has memorized. He only gave her a loose script, but she gets the gist of it. Get the kids back.

As she speaks, he nods his approval. With every word he drifts a little closer, until he’s hovering right over her shoulder. It’s stressing her the fuck out. She cups the transmitter with her palm and turns to him.

“What’re their names?”

“Uh.” Cody hadn’t thought about that part. “Rodney and Kick Rondale?”

She leers at him. “You want me to tell them ‘Kick’ ?”

He shrugs.

Resigned to her task (and the thought of that ticket), she follows through. “Yes, Kick. K-I-C-K. No, of course not. It’s a family name.”

Cody can’t help but snicker a little, to Chloe’s obvious dismay. He sobers when she asks him for their height, weight, eye color, birth date, and what they were last seen wearing. Damn, he really hadn’t thought this through.

“Give me a moment,” he hisses, searching his jeans for a piece of paper or something. Coming up clean, he looks to her. The pockets of her shorts, seemingly endless, hold the answers to everything. She hands him a notepad and a pen and he begins to write.

Kick , 5 foot. Something. He guesses 5’5. Both of them have brown eyes, right? Kick is skinnier but more broad, and the other one is kinda stubby, so…about the same weight. He doesn’t fucking know what they were wearing. A t-shirt and shorts, probably. Hunched over the kitchen table, he tries to recall the driver’s license. “Are they both sixteen?”

“No, Rod’s a year younger.”

“Great, so just. Say whatever.”

Chloe tries not to roll her eyes at him. “They want to know why they can’t find any records of these kids,” she whispers.

“Uh…’cause we’ve been living off the grid. Home schooling. It’s a religious thing.”

Chloe could call him all sorts of colorful names. She could point out all of the holes in his stupid plan. She closes her eyes and thinks of Philadelphia, of her childhood, of those tree lined streets and cool nights and the little dogs she’d say hi to while they were out walking. She thinks most of her memories there are maybe a little bit made up, but rose colored glasses just fit so pretty.

She explains the situation to the police lady on the other line. She gives her the fake descriptors. She comes up with two arbitrary birth dates and makes sure Cody writes them down so they keep their story straight in the future.

“And tell them we want posters,” he says. “All over the county. I already sent in the pictures.”

“Where the hell did you find pictures of them?”

Cody thinks back to that afternoon in his garage, when his hands were shaking so bad he didn’t know what to do with himself and the sight of the kids, so angry and spiteful, now under his care, had made him want to capture those faces forever. They’re his kids now. “Had to take a victory photo.”

Chloe’s surprised she doesn’t just slap him right then, but she’s already seen one too many interactions with Cody devolve into fisticuffs in the past week.

“Yes, ma’am. Posters wherever it would be helpful.”

Cody looks her in the eye as she’s speaking. “It’s urgent .”

“It’s an urgent situation,” she echoes. “No. I last saw them…”

“They were in the back of a Fort Mohave delivery truck.” Chloe isn’t about to ask questions. She repeats his observation word for word.

They were by themselves. She didn’t know they were planning to run away. No, they have no other known family members. They may be hostile to those trying to approach them. They didn’t leave with anything except the clothes on their back.

By the time Chloe hangs up, she feels as though she really did lose two children, and she’s poised to flee. “Give me the ticket.”

Cody looks down at her for a long time. “I’ll give it to you when the kids come home.”

“They are not our kids !”

He just shakes his head, laughs wryly. “You’re right, honey. They’re mine.”

Rod still has no idea where they landed. They’re outside some kind of a fancy building. Mountains loom in the distance, perhaps the same ones, but it’s clear they’re far from Slaughter. The streets are paved, and the houses are tall and new and clean. Power lines run above their heads, but something else catches Rod’s notice. “Kick, are you seeing it too?”

They nod.

On each utility pole, as far as the eye can see, a grainy picture has been posted with their faces on it. Taped to every door, in the corner of every window. Rod looking scared out of his mind, Kick’s face set with a grim determination. And above it: Missing Children.

“Ew,” Kick is saying. Rod is back to sitting on the curb with his head between his knees, watching the produce truck workers pack up the shipments. He is barely listening to them.

Kick puts their hand on their throat and makes an exaggerated gagging noise. “Gross.”

“What? Did you step on a worm or something?”

“No,” they say, ripping a poster from a pole and handing it to him. “Look. It says we’re siblings.”

Rod picks up some dust from the side of the road and watches it slip between his fingertips. “So?”

“I mean. Y’know,” they say, blushing a little.

“I don’t get it,” he insists. “Stop acting weird.”

They sigh, placing both hands on his shoulders. “Incest, Roddy. God. We cannot be related!”

“Oh! Gross, dude, why would you even say that!”

They join him on the curb. “Because! It’s relevant. He’s trying to turn us into some psycho family unit—”

Rod doesn’t have time to think of a good reply. A police car is rolling slowly down the wide street, and they and Rod are basically asking to get rounded up. “Act casual,” Kick whispers.

Casual. Right. Rod dives behind a scrub bush.

Seeing no other options, Kick follows his lead. The cruiser passes right by them without stopping. “That was a close one,” Rod breathes, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Kick is still there.

Uh oh.

“Stay right there,” says the man with the gun. That’s not a pistol, that’s a semi-automatic hunting rifle. And it’s inches from Rod’s nose. The man shifts his stance. He’s wearing a tailored suit and probably an unholy amount of pomade. Kick clutches Rod’s hand again.

“I’m calling the police on y’all.”

When Kick and Rod stay frozen in place, the man snaps “Get up!” and waves the gun in their faces. The produce truck is long gone, and along with it any witnesses. They are ushered into the lobby of what appears to be an upscale hotel. A woman behind a cart of luggage shrieks when she sees the three of them and the man in the suit with the giant gun barks something at her that Rod hears but doesn’t really process.

As they stumble down the hallway, Rod catches a glimpse of himself and Kick in a tacky, gold framed mirror. They are dirtier than ever—when did that happen?—and look to him like not much more than a flash of gangly limbs and gaunt faces. He’s afraid to touch anything in this place for fear of disturbing its curated cleanliness.

A door beneath the excessively opulent grand staircase opens to reveal a much smaller room and the two of them are pushed into a corner. There’s a phone on the wall and the man stands in the doorframe as he begins to dial.

The police arrive within the hour (although the fancy suit man has already hidden away the gun by then). Kick and Rod spend the night in the chairs of the station’s waiting area. Kick falls asleep on his shoulder. Rod is wide awake.

At 2:03 AM, according to the clock that has been taunting him all night, Chloe Rondale walks up to the desk and claims she is here to collect her missing sons, Kick and Rodney Rondale. She disappears down a hallway with an officer. Rod doesn’t see her for another ninety minutes. When she returns she looks as if she has been through war, but maybe that’s just how Rod feels.

The ride back is quiet, Kick stirring sleepily in the backseat of Cody’s pickup while Rod leans against the window. Cody is not with them. Chloe looks small in the driver’s seat. She doesn’t speak to them at all, doesn’t look at them.

Cody hasn’t slept either. How can he, when Chloe and the kids are coming home? He was a little worried that she might just run off with the two of them, but that’s the ingenuity of his plan: as long as he has the ticket, she has to come back to him.

He is sitting on Chloe’s couch when they walk in the door. He’s holding the ticket between his fingers like a cigarette. He is ready.

His kids look absolutely exhausted. It’s obviously their fault—they’ve been up all night. Up all night running away from him. He should trip them, knock them to the ground. Watch them scramble to get up. He should make them apologize.

But he’s looking at their unguarded expressions, the way he can see every passing thought displayed on their little faces, and he knows he’s struck the jackpot. And then there’s Chloe, too. Just for a minute there, she’s back to how it was this morning. Trusting; careless. Perfect. She did drive eight hours just to pick up the kids. He oughta reward her.

“Give it to me,” she demands.

He rises to meet her, walking slow. “Oh, baby…” He takes one more look at her pretty face, the set of her jaw, pallid in the uneasy sunlight breaching her closed blinds. It must be almost noon by now. He holds the ticket up in front of her face—just so she gets a good view. He rips it clean down the center. Halves, quarters, eighths. He tries not to enjoy it too much.

Kick has not enjoyed anything in recent memory as much as they enjoy watching Cody’s garage smolder. Chloe says he never even owned the shop like they thought, just sort of acted like he did. The real manager is only a few feet away, yelling at someone and gripping what little hair he has in his fists. Chloe has walked away now. Rod searches for her in the crowd, but the sun is in his eyes.

 The fire department from the next county over (the Slaughter VFD couldn’t handle the scale of this incident) has deemed the surrounding area completely unsafe to reside in without respiratory protection. It hasn’t deterred a single person. The air is thick with the smell of burning rubber, oil, of anything else in there that was flammable. People crowd the area like the verdant edges of a long abandoned property. Smoke rises off of the broken building in waves.

Cody is close to the entrance, talking to that boyish, nervous man from the very first day when the kids arrived here. What was his name? In the past week Kick has only seen him around a few times, working irregular hours and doing odd jobs at Cody’s whim. 

Black-and-white police cars cluster around the blackened frame of the garage, a herd of metal cows in a desert pasture, humming as they watch and wait. The redblue of their blinking lights cast alien shadows in the early morning sun. A uniformed man steps out and, passing the firemen at a brisk pace, halts in front of Cody. Kick can’t believe what they’re seeing: a man with a badge is walking their kidnapper away in cuffs . Cody was once so threatening but not anymore. His willowy frame contorts to duck into the backseat of the cruiser.

Rod stands anxiously at Kick’s side, looking back and forth and bouncing on his toes and moving his hands all around like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “Dude, his truck’s gone,” he says.

That can’t possibly be relevant right now. “He probably just parked it somewhere weird,” they dismiss.

“No, look.”

They follow his pointed finger. “I don’t see anything.”

Rod rolls his eyes and grabs their elbow, winding them through the crowd and stopping in front of Cody’s house. The front door hangs wide open. Rod’s looking at the ground.

“See? Tire tracks.”

And yeah, he’s right—deep tire tracks imprint the dusty earth right outside of Cody’s house. The tracks go back further, towards the burning shop, but they probably got muddled when all the police cars showed up.

“The truck’s gone,” Rod repeats. “But he’s not driving it.”

“Yeah, but did you see him get arrested ? We’re free! We can leave right now.”

Rod gives them the strangest look. “But we have no car.”

“What?”

“Kick…the shop burned down. With our car inside of it.”

They stare at him.

He puts a hand on their shoulder. “Did you not realize?”

They shake their head. It’s all decaying now. Their stuff is gone. The clothes, the food, their only means of transportation. “We’re fucked.”

If Kick has lost hope, it’s time to panic. The warning bells are all going off at once. Rod’s heart is beating out of his chest and his ears are doing a weird ringing thing, is that normal? Is he dying? He knows he’s kinda crushing Kick’s shoulder in his grip but he can’t seem to let go. “We can’t just give up,” he says, breathless.

“Oh, now you say that? What happened to keeping a low profile?”

He takes his hand off of them now, taking a few steps back. “You were the one that told me ‘things change’! You’re not some fairytale Prince Charming, your kiss didn’t solve everything.”

“I’m sorry about that. I was worried about you.”

Rod sighs.

“How was I supposed to know?” they continue. “Normally you’re happy about it.”

“Yeah, when we’re not fucking kidnapped!”

“Well, sorry for trying to find some joy in a shitty situation.”

If only Rod could explain what happens every time Kick kisses him. I’m supposed to like girls I do like girls aren’t we friends when did you start seeing me as not a friend. All he knows is that if he’s not a real man, at least he’s a lesbian. He used to always have that to fall back on, that somewhere out there he could be seen as not just a little girl. But Kick had to change all of that, because what does it mean to be attracted to someone who doesn’t even have a real gender? Labels were supposed to be easy.

And Rod’s pissed, sure, he’s stressed out, but someone else has caught his attention. A woman is walking right towards them, away from the crowd. A real woman. The sunlight is behind her, so he can’t make out much, but…holy cleavage.

He elbows Kick in the ribs until they stop talking. “Is she allowed to have that much showing?”

“What the fuck are you on about now—oh my God.”

“Hi,” the woman says, or maybe she’s just a girl. Her lips are bright red and her hair bounces when she walks. She’s wearing an ancient-looking dress, like something Mrs. Cleaver would wear, but it’s spotless and somehow flatters all of her curves—and she sure has a lot of them. How does she do that? She must be the closest thing to a model either of them have ever seen.

“Hiya, ma’am,” Kick says in an instant, stepping in front of Rod.

“What’s your name, honey?” she asks. Her nails are bright red. The leather of her purse is practically gleaming. Rod can’t stop watching her lips as she speaks.

“Uh. Kick.”

“Pleased to meet you, uh Kick , I’m Shirley.” She smiles warmly. “Do y’all live around here?”

Rod nudges Kick to the side. “Not really. We’re, um, visiting.” They glare at him.

“Same here. Say, you don’t happen to know anythin’ about the man who lives in this house, do you?”

What could she possibly want to know? Her friendliness seems newly sour, flipped on its head. Nobody ever talks to the two of them unless they want something.

Kick can never stay quiet for long. “Why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just looking for a friend.”

“Cody?”

Shirley frowns. “No, no. I don’t think I’ve met a Cody before.”

They keep pressing. “What’s his name?”

“Y’know, I really shouldn’t say. But thanks anyway, darling.”

All Rod can do as Shirley walks away is wonder how her pinprick heels don’t just sink into the dirt. It’s like she’s floating.

“D’you think we’ll ever meet anyone normal again?” Kick asks. They grin, showing their teeth, but there’s definitely an edge of uncertainty in there.

“At least she was hot.”

“I know, right?” They sit down on a rock in front of Cody’s house, just far enough to comfortably watch the crowd as it bores and begins to dissipate. Rod joins them on the ground, arms around his knees.

There is still no sign of Chloe, even though the onlookers have all but dispersed. A procession of police cars retrace their way past Cody’s house. There’s less smoke now, but if you look up the sky is shielded by a grayish brown haze.

Something warm drips down Kick’s upper lip. They run their finger over it. It’s blood. “Fuckin’ nosebleed,” they say, trying to wipe it away with the hem of their shirt.

Something darkens in Rod’s eyes. A hesitation. Then he’s moving to help them. The sun sure is bright today. “Stay still, you’re making it worse.” He tilts their head back.

“Are you sure that’s what you’re supposed to do?” they laugh.

“I’d give you my shirt but I ain’t about to flash the whole world.”

“I wouldn’t mind, y’know.”

“Don’t wink at me, you’re bleeding.” Rod’s not really sure what to do about it. He tries feebly to rip a piece of fabric from the bottom of his shirt, like they do in the movies. It doesn’t work. “Should I go back in?” he asks.

“What?”

He glances back at the open door. “Like, should I go look for paper towels or something? I don’t think anyone’s in there.”

Kick nods, still facing the clouds and pinching at their nose. “Just be careful.”

Rod isn’t all too worried about being careful until he opens the door and his head hits something solid.

“Jesus, kid.”

Oh shit. Red hair, broad shoulders, a stained t-shirt. But…“You’re not Cody,” Rod breathes.

“Sure ain’t,” the man laughs. “Lookin’ for someone?”

“Uh, no sir.”

“He’s not here, if that’s what it is. Didn’t you see him get cuffed?”

Rod narrows his eyes, trying to think. The man has both hands on the doorframe, casually blocking the entrance. He wants to look back for reassurance from Kick, but that would definitely look suspicious, right?

“Yep,” he says, tucking his thumbs in his belt loops. Don’t fuck this up. “Um. Do you live here, too?”

“The title is under my name, last I checked.”

So this man owns the house and Cody didn’t even bother to tell him about his ‘guests’. Maybe life from now on is just a big fucking sitcom. Rod rubs his eyes to make sure he isn’t seeing mirages. It’s hot out here. “And you know Cody?”

“Better than I know myself, unfortunately.”

Why does everything he says have to be so cryptic? And where’s Kick? Their nosebleed will probably have stopped by the time he gets back to them.

“I’ll leave now. Sorry to bother you, sir.”

“Maybe you should come in,” the man says. His smirk is just like Cody’s. “Since you’re so familiar with this place.”

Rod nearly jumps when someone taps his shoulder. Kick, obviously. “There you are,” they say. “I think our friend over there is looking for us.”

“What friend?” Rod and the man ask at the same time.

“You know. That one guy,” Kick lies, refusing to look anywhere but at Rod.

“Right, yeah. Thanks sir, we’ll be on our way.”

“Wait,” the man commands. “I saw you talking to that girl over there. What’d she say?”

Kick and Rod exchange a glance. “Um,” starts Kick. “She was looking for someone.”

“Who?”

“The man who lives in this house.”

“Fuck,” he says. “Did you tell her?”

“Well, we didn’t know—”

“ Did you tell her who lives here ?”

“No, no.” Kick takes a step back from the doorway. “She didn’t even give us a name.”

“I can’t believe she fuckin’ found me. Did she say anything else?”

“No, sir.”

“You’re sure?”

Rod decides it’s time to cut in. “What makes you think we would know anything about a random lady who walked up to us and started asking questions?”

“I don’t trust any of Cody’s friends, that’s what. And I sure as hell don’t trust Shirley. She’s one dangerous woman, and I can’t have anyone inviting her in.”

“She’s dangerous?” Rod asks, at the same time that Kick says “We’re not his friends”.

“Who’s dangerous?” says a soft voice. Rod jumps when Chloe appears from behind them, trekking through the unkempt mix of gravel and sand that might once have been called a front yard. Christ, how does she sneak up like that? His heart beats too loud in his chest. He knows he didn’t used to be so easily spooked.

The man looks over the kids’ heads like they weren’t just having a full conversation. Like he didn’t just catch them trying to walk into his house unannounced. “You ever meet Shirley?” he says.

Chloe shakes her head.

“Damn, he doesn’t tell you much does he?”

“Never does,” she agrees. Then she notices Kick. “Is your nose bleeding?”

Reaching into the pocket of her shorts, she unfolds a red handkerchief and hands it to them. They open their mouth to ask something but, tasting blood, decide to just comply with her offering.

“Are you gonna meet him up there?” the man asks Chloe. “I’ll look for his spare keys, you could take the truck.”

Chloe just smiles sadly and shakes her head. Pushes her hand a little deeper into her left pocket. “We’re on our own now. I’m gonna take these guys out and they can sleep at my house. Did he leave you with any food?”

“Not enough to share, I don’t think.”

“Come with us.”

The place she takes them to makes something in Rod’s chest pinch up. A large, yellowed sign over the door reads ‘Norm’s Diner’. A few cars are parked outside, one being completely smashed in and missing a wheel, and Rod can’t see any lights on inside the building, but other than that it looks eerily similar to the one back in his hometown.

The man from Cody’s house holds the door for everybody going into the restaurant. His name is Seamus, they’ve learned, and he’s Cody’s brother, which Kick claims they already knew, and he’ll be thirty in a few years and he hasn’t gotten over his high school girlfriend—that’s Shirley. Despite his initial weirdness, Seamus is pretty easy to talk to. Once Chloe facilitated the sharing of common interests, the walk to the diner ran pretty smoothly. Rod likes to watch the stars, did you know that? Seamus has a telescope; there’s not a lot of light pollution out here. Yeah, he’s unemployed, but at least he paid off his mortgage. No, Kick and Rod aren’t from around here. They all do a really good job of ignoring the emaciated, newly unemployed, in-custody-for-questioning, Cody-shaped elephant in the room.

The darkness of the restaurant is off putting, but the windows are open and wait staff greet them kindly and a surprising amount of people are here for a Monday morning. Everybody looks old. Rod hasn’t seen any other kids around here, not even earlier today in the crowds around the shop.

Rod traces the red and black floor tiles with the dirty toe of his sneaker while they wait for a table. His shoes have finally dried after their adventure in the rainstorm. Sweat drips down his temples, his neck, his back. It hurts a little to swallow; he hasn’t seen water since yesterday. Kick hums something familiar.

“What is that?” Rod whispers.

“‘Jealous Guy’, duh.”

That’s it. That’s the same one Cody used to hum all the time when he got home. “Where’d you hear that one?” he asks cautiously, already dreading the answer.

Kick turns their head towards the glass door at the entrance, watching another elderly couple walk in. They tap the wall behind them a little faster. “Can’t remember.” Rod’s pretty sure they just did. They’re quiet after that.

Seamus offers a seat on a folding chair to Chloe because someone got up to leave. She refuses. Kick counts to ten in French, probably the only thing they retained from that class.

Rod perks up when they are approached by a cheery man wearing a shirt that’s buttoned all the way up to the collar. Maybe he’s a waiter. Rod’s hungry.

“Hey Norm,” Seamus says with a nod. “What’s with the lights?”

“Some rats got into the wires. Nothin’ to worry about, we caught ‘em.” He winks at the kids for some reason. “So sorry to hear about the fire. I’m sure it wasn’t really her fault, she’s such a kind soul.”

Is he still talking about Cody? Female or male or whatever, there’s nothing about Cody that exudes kindness. Or possession of a soul.

“Of course,” Chloe says. Rod can’t help but notice the slight twang she’s added to her usually unaffected accent, the way she speaks in a higher register. “I’m sure it’ll all clear up soon.”

“Coffee’s on the house,” says Norm, grinning even wider. A waitress beckons them towards the back and seats them in a booth by the window, him and Kick on one side of the table and Chloe and Seamus on the other. The natural light is kinda nice, actually. Rod rests his head on the cool glass. The red vinyl of the bench sticks to the undersides of his legs. Kick fans themself with their menu.

Rod’s not sure what the etiquette is for this. Is he allowed to order something? Is there a price limit? He doesn’t have any money on him. Actually, anything he did have was inside their car.

“Don’t look so nervous, kid,” Seamus says. “Everyone likes Norm’s.”

Rod stares holes into the menu. Pancakes, eggs, bacon. Ice cream sundaes and soda and french fries. Anything he could want. Orange juice sounds really nice, actually. The last time he had that was probably the morning before they left for good. He’s feeling a little too nauseous to eat anything, actually. He wants to go home.

“Why didn’t you follow Cody to the station?” Kick asks suddenly. They really don’t know how to be subtle.

Seamus’ eyes widen. Chloe fails to suppress a laugh. “He’ll probably talk his way out of it before I get there,” she muses.

Kick nods, having gotten the information they wanted, and finally sets their menu down. “Rod, look,” they say, elbowing him and pointing. “It says they have blueberry pancakes. Like, blueberries inside the pancakes. Jimmy’s never had that.”

They’re right. The place back home never had blueberry pancakes. It had air conditioning and safety and working lights and friends but it didn’t have blueberry pancakes.

“You should order some,” he says weakly. He quickly makes eye contact with Chloe to make sure that’s okay. He’s still not sure what’s expected of them. He wasn’t prepared to be taken out to lunch with his kidnapper’s lesbian girlfriend after a week of being locked in that basement.

“Yeah, get whatever you’d like,” Chloe says with a trying smile.

Rod picks at his fingernails. His whole body is grimy, but the dirt beneath these is another story. He’s tried everything—biting at them, running his other nails through it. He found a dried up pen once and tried scratching it away with the tip, but it didn’t do a thing. The dirt just won’t go.

He swallows, and imagines he’s pushing away all of the bile that’s been building since Cody first tied their hands in his garage. He hasn’t had access to a toothbrush in forever. How long will it be until his teeth just fall out? The image won’t leave his head, it won’t go away, his mouth is rotting and he is rotting and his stomach is just a black pit, the depths of which only God knows. Rod thinks of a card he saw once on his dining room table, an illustration of Jesus in the clouds, holding someone in his arms. He thinks of it often, though he can’t remember the scripture that was on it. It must’ve been for a funeral.

The waitress with the long nails and the clicky pen comes back soon enough and brings them all water. Rod pushes his hands under his thighs. “Are y’all ready?”

Kick does get those pancakes they wanted. Seamus and Chloe ask for ‘the usual’ and the girl seems to know exactly what that means. Rod is the only one left. When did it get so hard to swallow?

“Um, I’m not…hungry.”

Chloe looks at him, tilts her head a little. “It’s alright, really,” she says. “You’re not gonna get in trouble.”

“Just. Orange juice, please?” Everybody’s looking at him. If only they would just go away. He doesn’t want to eat here, in front of them. He doesn’t want to eat at all.

The waitress nods but doesn’t write anything down. “Let me know if you want anything else, sweetie.”

As soon as she’s gone, Kick leans forward. “Is there a bathroom here?”

“Right down there,” Seamus says.

Kick grabs Rod’s arm and pulls him out of the booth. “We’ll be back soon.” They pass the bar, narrowly avoiding another waitress balancing four plates. Rod trips over his own feet a few times. It’s like all eyes are on him. He shouldn’t be so afraid of being judged by strangers. He shouldn’t care so much.

Luckily, the women’s bathroom is empty. There are only two stalls. Kick pushes Rod into one and locks the door behind them. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Huh?” He’s feeling kinda dizzy again, but he doesn’t think he has an excuse this time. The lights are out in here, too. Kick corners him. His heart flutters.

“She was offering to buy us food! Not just a can of soup, but like, a whole meal!”

“I didn’t wanna eat here.”

They put both hands on his shoulders and shake him a little. “We. Don’t. Have. A fucking. Choice. We could always save it for later.”

“Fine,” he sighs, sliding to the floor. After being in that basement for so long, he’s not too scared of a dirty floor. Kick is quick to join him, sitting right against his shoulder and pushing an arm around his waist. Jesus, he can’t keep up with their mood swings.

“I’m serious,” they insist. “What’s wrong?”

If he peers under the stall dividers, he can just make out the heels of what is probably a respectable woman who doesn’t sit on bathroom floors. She must be standing at the sink. Redoing her makeup? Putting on lipstick? Rod’s always wanted to see a woman put on her lipstick that wasn’t his mom. It would probably be hot.

“Rod,” Kick hisses. “Are you even listening to me?”

“No, sorry,” he mumbles.

They rub their thumb lightly over his right oblique. He’d like to lean into it, but he can’t trust affection from them anymore. They keep using it to trick him. “I’m just worried, okay? I’ve never seen you freeze up like that.”

They’ve absolutely seen him freeze up like that before, it just wasn’t so obvious until now. “I dunno. I mean. I don’t trust any of it,” he decides.

They pull him a little closer. The wall is suddenly very interesting. “You can’t trust everything, right? We just need to take what we’re given.”

“We’re not dogs.”

“Yeah, but we are stuck here.”

Rod exhales slowly. They have a point. He lets his head fall back. Now that he thinks about it, the empty, dark bathroom is kinda creepy. That woman is long gone. And the air is so stagnant in here. He needs some space or he might suffocate. He lets Kick breathe hot on his neck. “I just wanna go home.”

“I don’t think we have a home anymore,” they whisper.

Kick might be right. They’re usually right. “Maybe they just haven’t found us yet.” He doesn’t even believe his own lie. Maybe they just haven’t come looking. Who’s ‘they’, anyways? Certainly not his parents.

He lets himself rest on Kick a little more. It’s better now that they’re not trying to pull him closer. He tells himself he can make his own decisions. The faucet out there is leaking. He can hear it, tapping, dripping. Maybe it’s his own sweat. Chills trace his more exposed nerve endings, his cheeks, his fingertips, the crease behind his knee. His brain.

“I brought something,” they deadpan.

“What?”

They shift, grabbing at something in their back pocket. Then something else in their front pocket. It’s made more difficult with their arm around him, so they wriggle away from him before presenting it in the palm of their hand. Something scatters across the tiled floor and they don’t move to pick it up. He can’t see what it was from behind their leg, but they don’t act worried. A strange sort of déjà vu crosses him.

“Dude. What the fuck is that.”

“What does it look like?” They push their open hand closer to him.

“Well, I don’t know.”

They roll their eyes. They can’t seem to keep a bouncy smile off their face. They’re really dragging him through the emotional wringer today. “Wanna smell it?”

“Fuck, no.” What does it look like? It looks like a little white paper and a plastic bag full of dead leaves. This can’t be happening. “Kick, what’s that thing that fell?”

“Oh, this?” They fold over their knees to retrieve it from where it landed under the stall door. It’s a lighter.

The walls are coming down on him. The stall is shrinking. He backs into the corner as far as he can go and he hates that he’s seated but he’s worried if he stands up he would hit the ceiling. He’s too big for his body, his heart is in his throat, he can’t see a thing in the dark. At least, not until Kick flicks the lighter and holds up the open flame, grinning. It’s too close to his face. He doesn’t wanna get burned.

“What are you doing?” His voice is high, girlish. He’d like to wrestle it out of his throat and press on it until it becomes something less embarrassing. Or reach in and pull at his vocal cords until they expand, lower. His tongue is just a useless needle communicating the wrong songs. It’s “Jealous Guy”, on repeat. What he really meant was, ‘why would you hide that from me?’.

“Uh, I’m rolling it.”

“Stop that.”

They do stop. Scrutinizing him through thick eyelashes, fingers frozen like Rod’s the one doing something illegal. He covers his face with his hand. The headache is back, full force. “You’ll get caught.”

“No, we won’t. Just relax, it doesn’t even smell that strong.”

“Have you ever even done… that before?”

They shrug. “Secondhand. It’ll be fine.”

The two of them are suspicious enough with their overgrown buzz cuts and lack of knowledge about the town and the fact that their only guardians are the brother of a suspected arsonist and a total dyke. He doesn’t know what the punishment might be like, if they do get caught. And it wouldn’t even be his fault—it was Kick’s idea, and he shouldn’t be forced to go through with it if it’s obviously unsafe. He imagines getting up and leaving right now, slamming the stall door behind him and not even looking back to take in their startled expression, the guilt that would paint them like a wolf with a marijuana chicken in its mouth. He swallows, making peace with the clean, stuffy air. He sits still.

“You wanna light it?” they offer. It’s their way of asking for forgiveness, probably. Of trying to share.

“No.”

“Just try.” They settle next to him again, hold it out. Truth be told, he’s not sure which end he’s supposed to light it from, or what he’s supposed to do with it afterwards. He’s never had to use a lighter before. He could say no again, but then they’d just be pissed at him.

“Show me,” he says. This cracks the code. They smirk a little, pleased with themself, and take his hand and take the lighter and hold it to the end of their falling apart leaves-wrapped-in-paper situation. His fingers slip a little with the sweat on both of their hands.

It doesn’t light the first time. Or the second. There’s nothing romantic about it, any of it. When it finally catches on, Rod’s still recovering from the feeble smell of burnt paper intruding his lungs. He thought, after this morning, that they might be deterred from fire for the time being. That must’ve been too much to ask for.

The best way to describe the smell is overpowering. Kick always told them weed smelled sweet, way better than cigarette smoke. They told him he should hang out with them sometime when they disappeared right after the school day ended, that cool shit happened in a rich boy’s backyard on a Friday night. He said no every time. Sure, they made fun of him, called him a pussy, the usual. Until finally they stopped leaving him and started spending all of their time at his house, at his kitchen table, in his room, on his bed. That was probably around the time the plan began to form.

“They’re gonna know,” he says, breathing through his mouth. “It’s on our clothes now.”

“Fine,” they laugh. It feels mean. “I’ll go first.” The hit only lasts a few seconds as he watches them inhale deeply—it’s the coughing that goes on and on.

“Holy shit dude, are you choking?” If someone came in here right now and heard them, she would definitely think they were choking. Rod’s getting all frozen up again, just like how he was in front of that waitress. He doesn’t know how to do the Heimlich or anything, and he doesn’t even think it would help because Kick didn’t actually swallow anything solid. He is seconds away from letting his friend die in the bathroom stall of a shitty diner in the middle of nowhere. It will have been all his fault. The guilt will destroy him.

“I’m fine—” they say, giving him a thumbs up before their throat gives out again. Maybe he was being kinda dramatic. Kick wasn’t actually choking. They were just coughing, like a lot. It’s fine. They’re fine. Rod’s shaking, he’s gotta get that under control.

Their face is bright red by the time they’re taking another drag, probably more from embarrassment than anything else. Rod doesn’t know why they’d bother being ashamed in front of him anymore. It’s all stupid. That’s all that he can think of. Stupid. He’s just a jealous guy. One more time. Broken record, stupid. He didn’t mean to make you cry.

They cough considerably less this time. The smoke coming from their nose and mouth scares Rod a lot, actually. Sure, he’s smoked a cigarette or two with them in the past, but those are only bad if you’re an old person and have cancer or something. This weed is actively changing Kick’s brain chemistry, right before his eyes. They’re gonna be high and everyone at the table will be able to tell. They’re already running on a twenty minute bathroom break. What if Chloe comes in to check on them? What if she and Seamus thank the Lord for being relieved of their burden and leave without looking back?

“Your turn,” says Kick, offering it to him. It looks like it might burn his fingers if he touches it.

“No way, man.”

“C’mon! You need to relax. I can like, feel it working already.” They continue to hold it away from their body in his direction. “Don’t waste it.”

He glares at them and takes it and prays he doesn’t get burnt and he puts the awful thing up to his lips and inhales. It is so much worse than a minor burn to his fingertips. He’s not just smelling it now, he’s breathing it in. He can’t not breathe it in. He’s living off of it. He would gag on the taste but his throat is on fire, and he too coughs violently. He doesn’t remember it being this bad when he smoked his first cigarette. Why the fuck would he inhale so much of it? He wants it out of his system, gone. He is choosing to take real life drugs. He could lose control of his body, his speech, start hallucinating. And he’s just letting it happen to him.

Kick takes it back from him. They’re all blurry from the way Rod’s eyes are watering. Their face is splotchy and slick with sweat. He figures he must look the same.

“Are you having fun yet?”

What an asshole. He can’t think of anything mean to say so he just grumbles something unintelligible. They ignore him and put the terrible thing to their mouth again. It’s like they’re getting the hang of it, almost. He shudders just watching them, but he can’t take his eyes away. It’s a morbid fascination. His glances at the bathroom door, just for a second. Despite everything, nobody walks in.

Kick passes it back. On anxious autopilot, Rod inhales. It’s worse than he remembered. He coughs again, a few times. Why is he doing this to himself?

Kick takes it back.

Kick passes it back.

They take it back. 

They breathe deep, they inhale, they cough.

They pass it back.

Rod does the same thing except he hates himself for it.

He passes it back.

The silence between them is a tangible thing, something he can reach out and caress with his fingers. He goes to move his arms, but they’re heavy. He fixes on a point on the stall door and tries to reach up again. He’s determined this time, but he forgets what he was trying to do. It’s so ridiculous. He laughs at himself.

“Dude, I think you’re feeling it,” Kick snickers.

“No I’m not.”

“Look at me,” they say. “Yeah, see? Your eyes are like, huge.”

“Uh, I can’t see my own eyes, dumbass.” Dumbass is such a silly word. It’s like being dumb and an ass. Kick is like that a lot of the time, Rod thinks. But he shouldn’t say that out loud because then they’d be mad. It’s a secret, he tells himself.

Kick breathes it in again. It’s surprising to Rod, how much smoke that little piece of burning paper creates. The bathroom is all hazy with it. The nausea still plays at his stomach, but food sounds a lot better now. He could definitely go for some blueberry pancakes.

They pass it back. Rod doesn’t want to smoke anymore, but now that he’s holding it he figures he has to. He always has to listen to Kick, for some reason. He rests his head on their shoulder and beams up at them. “You’re upside down.”

“Yeah, and you’re high, dude.”

This makes Rod start laughing again. “So are you, dude .”

“Not really. I don’t feel anything.”

“Oh. My arms are all tingly.” Rod bats at Kick’s hands, almost knocking that terrible thing to the ground.

“Jeez, watch out.”

“Can you feel your hands? I can’t. It’s so weird.” He reaches up and plays with Kick’s ear, flicking it between his fingers. They’re wearing a small red earring. He hadn’t been paying attention to it before. It’s pretty. “Cartilage is also totally weird.”

“Earlobes aren’t made out of cartilage.”

“Yeah they are. You’re like a shark. And your nose is, too.” He pokes at Kick’s nose.

“Dude, stop touching me.”

“Fine, but can we leave now?”

“We gotta wait for it to wear off.”

Rod groans. He doesn’t feel like waiting for anything. He’s ready to eat now. It must be almost lunch time. “How long’s it gonna take?”

They push his head off of their shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Can we go outside?”

“No.”

“But there’s smoke everywhere. Someone will know.”

“Oh my God, fine.” They press the terrible thing to the floor, and rub it in with the sole of their shoe. No more fire, nothing burning, just an intoxicating cloud spilling over everything. The air is so thick around them. Rod coughs even though he’s not smoking anymore.

Kick sits for a while, just kinda breathing it in. They’re all dejected looking. Rod’s gotta fix that. He doesn’t like when they’re sad.

“How much did it cost?”

“Not much. Steve owed me.” Of course it was Steve. He’s been in high school for like, six years.

“I’m sorry it didn’t work on you.”

They smile. “At least it worked on you . You won’t be nervous now.”

“Oh, I’m nervous. They’re totally gonna know. It’s just like, I weigh more than I’m supposed to. See?” Rod lifts his arm up in slow motion, giving them his sweetest lop-sided grin.

Kick slaps his shoulder and stands up. This is good. It means they’re not sad anymore. “C’mon, dude.”

He grabs onto their hand and pushes himself off the floor. He’s so dizzy, and he can’t stand without swaying. Somehow he doesn’t mind it as much as he did when he had that fever. This is way better. He must be like, invincible.

Kick stands in front of the mirror, just like the lady that was in here earlier. Rod laughs at them. They’re not much of a lady anymore.

“My hair’s too long,” they say, tugging at the front of it and failing to keep it from flopping onto their forehead. They’re a shrunken version of themself, dark skin around their eyes like a slow bruise and hair in their face.

Rod looks at himself and almost gasps. He touches his reflection with his fingers. It’s still him, yes, but there’s something off. The mirror is just plastic, actually, not even glass. It creates little circular depressions in his face as he pushes into it, smudges it.

The first thing he notices is maybe just how dirty he looks. Sweat running down his cheeks like misplaced tears, nose red with sunburn. Freckles everywhere, hidden under an oily layer of grime. Gross. And he only just took a shower like three days ago.

He leans in closer to it, trying to figure out what might have changed about him. If his broken mind could have imprinted on his body somehow. His pupils are huge, and for a moment he just stares at them like they’re the funniest thing in the world.

“Alright, buddy,” Kick says, guiding him away by the elbow. “Let’s walk.”

They take him along a really weird route, sneaking around pretty women carrying plates of food and darting across the kitchens, out an aluminum plated door as it swings open. A young man with a white apron and a cigarette in his mouth gives them a startled look as they brush past him, into the clearing behind Norm’s Diner. There’s not much here really, just the sun so bright after all that time in the dark bathroom and the burning sensation on his skin is now worse than the burning in his throat.

The heat is quite comfortable actually, like a familiar blanket. Rod’s just waiting for it to catch up with him and then he’ll hate it all over again. Kick walks around a little, exploring the various rocks and sand hills of the makeshift parking lot. They turn the corner of the squat, dull building, kicking gravel onto the highway. All the travel guides and road maps Rod read about the ‘Historic Route 66’ made it sound super interesting. He wanders into the middle of the road. Slaughter sits wavering in the near distance. If he looks in the other direction, all he sees is the road. Blacktop for miles, no cars coming.

Just as Rod starts to hold his arms out, daring something to come hit him, Kick calls him back. They shake his shoulders, testing if he can stand up straight. They inspect his eyes. It makes him giggle, and they sigh. “I guess we have to go back inside now. Just don’t say anything.”

Got it. He can totally do that. He makes a zipping motion over his lips, nodding. Kick ruffles his hair. The two of them manage to slip in the front door without being stopped, and Rod’s sure that they’ve really fooled everyone now. He was just over worrying earlier. No one’s gonna know.

Seamus is laughing before they even sit down at the table. Chloe’s smile is more one of amused disbelief. Rod thinks he hears her say something like, “Unbelievable,” under her breath, but he can’t be too sure.

“Y’all have a good time in there?” says Seamus. It sounds earnest, but his face looks like he’s making fun of them. It’s kinda funny, actually, and Rod laughs along with him.

Kick rolls their eyes and puts a hand on Rod’s shoulder. “He did.”

“But at least you had the decency to go outside…right?” Chloe asks, eyebrow raised. She looks like a comic book character, but it’s alright, ‘cause she would never actually be angry at them. She’s too soft for that.

“Yeah, obviously,” Kick shrugs.

Why are they lying? It’s not nice to lie. No legacy is so rich as honesty, or whatever. “No we didn’t.”

“ Rod ,” they hiss through gritted teeth.

It doesn’t deter him, and he continues. “We were in the bathroom the whole time. Just like we said, except for when we went outside. But that was after we stopped—” Oh. Oops. He definitely isn’t supposed to tell them about the weed thing. He tries to give a convincing smile, but his face isn’t quite doing what he wants it to, so he tacks on a “and we weren’t lying”.

“Oh my God,” Chloe says. She’s also doing something with her face. Now she’s laughing, sort of, so Rod joins in. He doesn’t wanna be rude.

“He’s so out of it, what’d you do to him, man?” someone says. Rod was staring out the window, so he’s not sure. Birds are super pretty, actually. He should look at them more often.

“You guys can’t tell us what not to do,” Kick mumbles.

“Ooh, good one,” Seamus teases. He turns to Chloe. “What are these, your cousins or some shit?”

“Uh. Long story.”

Seamus raises his eyebrows like he’s waiting to hear the story. Chloe does not continue, and he leaves it alone because then the waitress comes back with their food. She gives Rod a sympathetic look and asks if he’d like her to put something in for him, if maybe he’s more hungry now. Did the Rod of half an hour ago seriously not order anything? He is such an idiot. He wants to tell her that, that he’s sorry he wasn’t more nice to her earlier, that her dress is really pretty even though secretly he knows it’s just a uniform. But he isn’t supposed to talk. He looks at Kick.

“We’ll share,” they assure her.

Rod is confident that he is playing it totally cool. In fact, everyone keeps making small talk around him without even discussing the fact that him and Kick sort of smell like whatever it was they were smoking in there. (He knows this because while Kick was eating their pancakes he leaned in to sniff the sleeve of their shirt, and they smelled strongly of fried earth and diesel. It was completely subtle and nobody noticed.)

Clearly Seamus and Chloe are not aware of their illegal activities because they haven’t even brought it up. They don’t treat him differently at all. Seamus does keep making odd comments at him like ‘I bet the weather’s nice up there’ and ‘I’m glad someone’s having a good day today’, but Rod figures Seamus, being related to Cody, must come from an odd family.

Rod zones out for a while. He can’t help it when he’s all sleepy and his sweat is gluing him to the seat and it’s nice just to rest his head on the window sill like this, just for a little.

“Sit up, man,” Kick says after a while. Somebody took all the plates from the table. Where’d they go? Rod didn’t even notice they were gone.

Chloe flags the waitress when she comes by, and asks for the check.

Seamus cuts her off. “I’ll pay,” he assures her.

Chloe eye him doubtfully, kinda like how she looked at Kick and Rod earlier when they emerged from the bathroom. “With what money?”

Seamus draws a blank. Chloe pays. Norm waves goodbye to them just as a small lady approaches him, speaking softly and pointing in the direction of the woman’s bathroom.

“Oh shit,” Chloe laughs, nodding at Seamus. “We gotta get out of here.” They all leave in a giggling hurry, not slowing down until they reach a turn in the main road. Rod is breathing heavy by the time the town comes into view again. It’s like walking through mud, even though the road is flat. For the millionth time, Rod worries he’ll pass out, although Seamus might beat him to it.

Seamus lags behind the group, cheeks ruddy, placing his feet with little precision. It’s the same thing he was doing on the way here, but Rod was more curious to hear about his telescope then. “Are you okay?” Rod asks him.

“Just the heat,” he shrugs, still with that quirk of a smile on his face. “I’ll get through it.”

Chloe leads them through a part of the town Rod and Kick have never seen before. Not that there’s much to see, but the structures do get closer together the more they walk. A Catholic church with a yellowed, plastic cross sticking up on the roof. Next to it, a liquor and smoke shop. Smithson General Store, est. 1898. Most of the buildings are unmarked, and Rod isn’t too interested in finding out what exactly dwells inside them.

The whole build of the house is a contrast to Cody’s. It’s got a second floor, and it doesn’t look one well-timed gust of wind from falling in on itself. The gray paint job, while sun bleached, is even and not peeling. The shutters are open and the yard is weed free.

“Alright, I should head out,” Seamus says. “Thanks for the meal, Chloe, I’ll pay ya back one of these days.”

Chloe nods approvingly, unclipping her keys from her belt. “Go get some rest.” Seamus nods back and walks away, wobbling a little, in a different direction. Kick watches him the whole time until he turns a corner, trying to follow his route back to Cody’s house in case of emergency. Chloe holds the door open and doesn’t say anything; the kids just walk in.

The inside of her house is like stepping into another planet. Everything is clean, flat, neutral. The blue throw pillows match the curtains; there’s not a single patterned anything; the floor shines. It looks like one of those store displays Rod climbed on when he was little and his parents would still drive him and Kick into the city for a day. Chloe even has a fan in the window, and Kick wastes no time pressing their face in front of it and complaining about the heat dramatically.

There’s something weird about the light switch, so of course Rod has to go and check it out. Houses like this might as well be a playground for him, and Chloe did invite them in. He presses the switch and it slides down. The lights dim like a movie theatre. He pushes it back up, and the lights rise. “Woah.”

Still standing by the doorway, Chloe laughs at his surprise. She’s blushing a little. “Uh, my parent’s money bought the house. I guess I was supposed to spend it on college.”

“I’m never going to college,” Kick utters, amazed.

“No duh, you didn’t even finish high school.”

“Neither did you, smartass.”

“You didn’t graduate?” Chloe asks, taking a seat on her unstained, uncreased couch.

“It would’ve taken too long,” Kick explains.

“I can’t blame you, I guess. High school sucks.” She crosses her legs, and Rod figures he’s allowed to sit on the chair across from her. There might as well be no rules now that Cody’s not here. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

Kick steps away from the fan, perching on the arm of the chair Rod’s sitting on. “Who even goes to school here? Like, I haven’t seen any kids at all.”

Chloe grins. “The school shut down last year ‘cause no one signed up. But it was still  open while I was there, unfortunately.”

“Where’d everyone go?”

“They fled,” she replies quickly. “Nothing worth staying for.”

Kick and Rod stare at her, waiting. You don’t say something like that without having an explanation prepared.

“I have the library. That’s enough for me.” But what she’s really saying is crystal clear. What she’s really saying is currently being fingerprinted in the next county over.

Rod changes the subject. “What was so bad about your school, though? Ours was mostly just boring.”

Chloe grimaces. “Well, mine was never boring, at least. I was still wearing make up and letting a pretty red haired girl be mean to me, which. Doesn’t happen too much anymore. I’m glad to be out of there.”

Kick is shocked. “You liked Cody ? In high school? Like, with the big hair?”

“Why’s that so surprising?”

Rod narrows his eyes. “Because he kidnaps children.”

Chloe shifts, uncomfortable. “I didn’t know that at the time. He’s never done something like, like this before.”

“But you said he was mean.”

“He chased me with a lighter, yeah, but that was just typical immaturity. He told me…” Chloe is silent for a long time. “Shit.”

Kick leans forward. “What?”

Chloe laughs at herself, biting the inside of her cheek. “He told me he changed.”

Something in the air between them, something heated, something glass, tips and shatters. Rod can hear Cody’s voice in his head. I changed. I’m different now. I’m not like I was.

Because isn’t that what everyone wishes they could say about themselves? I won’t pretend I’m sorry for what I did, but it won’t happen again. It wasn’t supposed to hurt so bad. I’m a new man. I still love you.

“Why are we still here?” Kick asks, flippant. It is the least earnest thing Rod has ever heard from them. It is a question he has been asking himself the entire time.

Chloe sets her glasses on the coffee table and rubs at her eyes with both hands. She slumps forward and kinda just sits there for a moment, head hung low. “I’m sorry,” she says.

“We know.” Rod tries to be gentler than Kick. Chloe looks younger, more scared without her glasses. She puts them back on.

“No, really, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I messed up. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Rod is taken with the urge to comfort her. Her fragile, broken words make him angry. She doesn’t deserve to feel sad when she’s always been so nice to them. She doesn’t need to apologize. When he tries to speak, his voice folds in on itself, a wispy tower of cards. Neither of them respond.

Chloe ducks her head again. She can’t even look at them. “It’s okay that you’re upset with me,” she breathes. She must be on the edge of tears; Rod could recognize those signs anywhere. “But you know how he is, right? You’ve seen him. I didn’t want to push it. And I figured you’d like it here, since I have a lot more than he does. I know you don’t have a car, and I can’t bear the thought of you guys walking around on your own out there. You’re just kids, y’know, and it’s not safe to go without shelter for very long.” She tries to smile sympathetically and the result is an expression so unnerving and false that Rod wonders if some nonhuman entity has taken control of her body. Cody can fake a grin much easier than that. He’s probably had more practice.

“But why?” Kick presses. “Why do you even care about us still?”

“Because I have to. He’d want me to.”

 “Huh. If some guy made me look after his kids I would abandon them first chance I got.” Rod tries to hide his laughter behind his hand. Kick would be a terrible step-kidnapper.

Chloe is not so amused. Her mind is elsewhere, and she gazes off at nothing. I made a mistake. I’m sorry. You can forgive me. I’ve changed.

Rod tries to see into other parts of the house. The room attached to the one they’re in has no furniture. Besides the overheads above them, all of the lights are off. It forms a peculiar vignette not unlike the edges of a stage. There is no TV, no pictures on the wall; a coffee table with no water rings; a candle that looks like it’s never been lit. Completely unlived in.

“Make yourselves at home,” Chloe mutters, and then she gets out of her chair and disappears up the stairwell. Weird.

Kick rolls their eyes as she walks away. “D’you think she’ll try to stop us?”

“From what, leaving?” Rod sits up straighter in his chair. “We can’t. There’s no way to get anywhere.”

“Yeah, but we have nothing to lose now. We should just go, someone’ll help us out.”

“Who?”

“Shh, keep your voice down,” they say.

Rod frowns. “She’s not gonna stop us.”

“Exactly.”

From somewhere in the house, a phone rings. Kick springs up to look for it, and Rod is close behind. They find it in the kitchen, and Kick picks it up without hesitation. “What’s her last name?” they whisper.

He tries to think. She introduced herself as Chloe. They’ve never seen where she works, or had any reason to meet her family. She showed them Cody’s picture with his full name, but not her own. And after that she fed them from tupperware with a name on it, if only he could remember. He opens a cabinet and, finding it bare, tries the next. There are neat rows of Pyrex tupperware, stacked to the ceiling, all of which are marked ‘RONDALE’. “Try Rondale,” he guesses.

“Rondale residence,” they say sweetly, curling the cord around their finger. Then they snort and cover the receiver, turning to Rod. “It’s Seamus.”

While Kick listens, Rod explores the kitchen. As predicted, the fridge is completely empty, and so are all of the drawers except for one, which has three forks, three spoons, and a large kitchen knife. What on earth? He tries a door that looks like a pantry. It’s locked.

Kick says, “We’ll tell her”, and hangs up. “He said Cody’s out of the station and called him to say he wants to talk to Chloe when he gets back.”

They don’t tell her. They slip out of Chloe’s house without closing the door. Kick takes the lead, pointing out which way they think Seamus went when he left. The houses next to Chloe’s are similar to hers, two stories and clean yards on a paved street, but as they walk further away the infrastructure deteriorates. Rod almost jumps out of his skin when he sees a dead mouse rotting on the side of the road (which is now less road and more sand), and Kick teases him about it for the rest of their time walking.

They wander around Slaughter, walking dazed in the heat with only a vague goal in mind. All they know about Cody’s shack is that there is nothing beyond it besides the ruins of the garage, so they’ll have to run into it before they hit unobstructed desert. Kick suggests just walking on the outskirts of the town, which actually is really smart now that Rod thinks about it. It takes forever, just walking and walking and walking until finally a shape calls out to them in the distance.

“Is that—?” Kick cuts themself off, panting. The heat has wrapped its tongue around their burning muscles, invaded their lungs. They would kill for water.

“Yeah,” Rod agrees. As they get closer, there it is: a very familiar F-150, crimson in the blinding sunlight. It’s Cody’s truck, and not far behind it, the charred shop. Looming like a threat on the horizon, there’s Cody’s house. There’s Cody.

The smell of the fire is pungent, penetrating everything. Rod’s not sure exactly how to describe it, but it lingers around the wreckage like a moist, smoky warning. Even from lengths away, the odor seeps into his sinuses. It’s like the bathroom stall all over again.

Cody is lounging on the front steps of the house like he didn’t just get arrested earlier this morning. Seamus appears from behind the front door, limping in that off-balanced way of his. He comes to stand next to the kids, keeping Cody at arm’s length.

When they finally dare to approach him, Cody looks them in the eye and says, “I knew you’d come back.” Not even Kick can protest that.

“What happened?” Kick asks. Rod would get mad at them for asking but the curiosity is eating away at him as well.

“We got it cleared up,” Cody replies calmly. “It was just a misunderstanding.”

Rod doesn’t exactly trust that answer. It’s never just a misunderstanding, is it? Not when the law is involved.

Kick is oblivious to the context clues. “Well then how’d you get back?”

“They wouldn’t let me use the phone,” Cody says. He speaks in a weird lilting tone, like he’s telling them a fairy tale while he cleans his gun. “So I was just walkin’ down 66 when, lo and behold, this pretty lady drives up to me. She was all mad, tried to run me off the road or some shit, until I turned around and stopped. And then”—he turns to Seamus, grinning—“she told me she was lookin’ for a brother of mine. And she offered to give me a ride, if I could tell her where he was. And guess what she told me? She said she was sorry about the fire, huh. She said it was his fault. Yeah.” He gets up off the steps and walks towards Seamus. He covers the distance in about three strides. He rests his thumbs on the collar of Seamus’ shirt and leans in to speak directly in his ear. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.”

The first punch doesn’t land. Nor does the second, or the third. Seamus is taller than Cody, but he should know intimidation falls flat on a starved man. And Cody is certainly hungry for something.

Rod feels strangely neutral about the whole violence thing. He is watching two people try to hurt each other. He sees that every day. The sound of their grunting and shuffling, Seamus’ half-hearted protests of ‘it wasn’t me it was that bitch’ travel in one ear and out the other.

Watching them scrap is mostly just sad. Two pasty-skinned skeletons fight each other and not very successfully. Cody gets in a few hits, more than his brother at least. He’s good at dodging, ducks under and pins Seamus to the wall of the house and yells at him.

“He should kick him,” Kick says. Their tried and true method.

Rod doesn’t take his eyes away from the brawl unfolding, but he does elbow them. “Don’t say that.”

They might have a point, though. It wouldn’t be too hard to knock one of them off his feet, right? Seamus has no balance and Cody has no strength. Rod knows what it’s like when adrenaline is the only thing keeping you standing.

Kick inhales sharply through their teeth when Seamus finally gets in a good hit. It’s less of a slap and more like an open punch. Cody’s usually pale face twists to the side, cheeks aflame. Seamus backs off after that, shaking out his hands and airing his guilt like clothes on a laundry line. Cody takes his hesitation as an excuse to enact revenge.

“Fuck, not this again. They’ll take him straight back to the station.” 

Rod and Kick turn around. It’s Chloe. Her gaze is flat, annoyed. She is looking past the two of them. Her fingers clench and she shoves them in the pockets of her shorts. Nobody seems to care that he and Kick are hanging out, observing silently. They aren’t a threat or a victim in this game. They aren’t even being used.

Things stay quiet for a few days. Kick and Rod navigate their way through the town, spending most of their time outside. The nice old ladies at the Episcopal Church can be relied on to feed them lunch. No one’s ever behind the counter at the general store, so Kick steals penny candy and wilted produce and uses the bathroom in there. The saloon has a TV in the corner that’s always playing old cowboy movies, and the bartender doesn’t bother asking for their ages as long as they keep a distance from the counter. When it gets dark out they turn up at Chloe’s house, and she takes them in like puppies in a box and lets them sleep on her couch and even do laundry sometimes. They make sure to be gone by sunrise.

One day Rod decides to walk farther out into the sand. He thought it might be nice to escape the town a little. The mountains seem to be getting closer, and he wonders if maybe he could climb one. What if it gets cooler the further up you go? He filled up a canteen he found in Chloe’s kitchen and pushed it as best he could into his pocket and set off.

For a while all he can see is the gravelly sediment that the town rests on, but the rocks get bigger and more scattered the more he walks.

His shoes are filled with sand. He’s not worried about shaking them out later; since everything’s so dry, the dust just falls right out. He pulls his socks higher up his leg to avoid contact with the burning sand. His neck is angry and peeling with a barely healed sunburn, bound to only get worse the further out he walks. At some point he gave up on trying to avoid the sun’s wrath. It is everything and it is everywhere, just like the dust in his nostrils and the dirt on his skin.

He keeps his eyes trained on the mountains with every step, even as they waver and the sweat drips into his eyes. When did his water get so low? He only took a few sips.

Walking is a mechanical motion and he likes how far removed he is from anything. His brain could be melting out of his ears, for all he cares. When he woke up this morning he felt like crying again and now he just feels nothing, so it must be working.

He gives up on the mountains. They’re far away, he realizes, and by the time he got there he’d be too tired to start climbing them. He yawns. His dry skin hurts to touch. His canteen is pretty much empty. Maybe he should rest, just sit down for a little.

There is a tree. It’s out of the way of the path he was creating, but it’s the only shadow big enough to cover him. He walks and walks. It’s getting closer, for real this time. His head is aching from trying to keep his eyes open in the brightness for so long. The sand in the shade of the tree is warm, but bearable. His legs sort of give out, and he sinks to the ground. The earth is hugging him, he thinks. The sand is gentle. It molds to his shape. He’ll just sit down for a little while.

“Rod. Rod, wake up wake up wake up.”

Rod is being shaken. There are hands on his shoulders and Kick is attached to them. “I’m trying,” he says.

“Stand up,” they reply. “Eat something. I brought water for you.”

Rod looks up at the branches of the tree. They cast pretty, dappled light over his bare shins, over Kick’s face. He is grateful for them. The tree makes for the only beauty he’s seen out in this desert. Rod looks down and Kick is walking away.

The next hands to wake him are not Kick’s. The right side of his face explodes in pain. Sunburn times a thousand. 

“You’re lucky I don’t fucking kill you, kid.” Cody is crouching over him, dusting the sand off of his hands and glaring at Rod. “Well? Do I need to hit you again?”

“Stop that,” Chloe says, approaching the tree. With the light behind her like that she almost looks like an angel. “At least let him drink something, or he won’t be strong enough to make it back.”

Cody throws a metal container of water at Rod. It hits him square in the chest, and for a moment he’s sure he’ll never breathe again.

“Where’s Kick?” he asks when the air returns, hotter and drier than before. “They were here, they were right here.”

“You’re dehydrated,” is all Choe says. She lets Cody haul Rod up by the shoulder and half drag him back to the waiting truck. And since when can you drive in the desert? He squirms when the hot sand hits him. The back of his hands and his arms and his legs are bright red. When he looks in the mirror of the vehicle, he can see his face is the worst of all. He swears he can still feel a sharp tingling from where Cody slapped him.

“You’re gonna wanna buckle for this,” Chloe tells him, but it sounds like she’s speaking more to herself. And then the truck is roaring past the sand. It’s nothing he’s ever experienced. Like being suspended in the air, held back only by the weight of his body. This must be what it feels like to fly.

The seatbelt isn’t a huge help. The whole truck shakes with the impact of hitting the sand, accelerating over dunes and hills. Rod tries to hold on to the side of the door, the underside of the seats, anything that’ll keep him from straining all of his muscles at once. He thanks God that Cody had already turned the truck around before he picked Rod up, because he definitely couldn’t handle that kind of movement. He wonders if all of his skin could start oozing at once. He’s still a little worried that he might be melting.

The rocks are a whole other obstacle. Cody’s tires must be flat or something because every time they hit a bump, Rod can feel the rim coming into contact with the ground. The noise is horrible and Cody drives like he’s putting all of his energy into not crashing. Jesus.

They don’t crash. Actually, Rod almost wishes they did. His head hurts, and he's tired, and sinking into darkness doesn’t sound that bad. As long as death has air conditioning.

Kick is waiting for him when he gets back. They’re sat out in front of Cody’s house on the same rock they watched the fire from. As he stumbles out of the truck, they run up and hug him. “I can’t believe he actually brought you back”, they’re saying, and “what the fuck is wrong with you?”, and “holy shit Roddy”, and “I thought you were gone for real this time”.

All Rod can say is, “He kept me alive”, and Kick will think that he is talking about Cody.

“I’m never letting you near a desert again. Why didn’t you tell me where you were going?”

“I was just on a walk.” His throat is all scratchy and it hurts to breathe.

“One hell of a walk,” Cody grumbles, sauntering over to them. “I shoulda known you were messed in the head.”

Kick looks at Rod with the kind of sad smile a dedicated handler might cast upon a stray dog that only walks in circles. The kind of pity that says they agree with Cody’s observation.

“I risked my life drivin’ out to rescue you,” Cody continues. “You have Chloe to thank for that, and this one right here.” He clamps a hand on Kick’s shoulder and rocks them off balance a little, but Rod can tell it has the emotional impact of being punched. For the first time in a long time, he sees real fear on their face. They erase it quickly, enough so that he can choose to believe it was never there. “I’m done with your shit, both of you.”

“We’re done with your shit!” Kick argues. “You wouldn’t have to deal with this if you hadn’t kidnapped us. And Rod’s never walked into a literal desert before, so I think—”

“I don’t give a damn what you think! You don’t have a choice. I’ve given you my food. I’ve given you a place to sleep. You’ll take what you fucking get and you’ll stop pitching your little sob story to my girlfriend.”

The door of the truck slams from where Cody parked it a few feet away. Chloe must be more angry than they’ve ever seen her. Her usual softness is consumed by a rigid posture, and she wears that mask of unpredictability that Rod’s learned is just a stepping stone for some serious shit to go down. She’s obviously been listening this whole time. Whatever it is, it throws Cody way off. His mouth hangs open, waiting, vulnerable again.

Ignoring the kids, Chloe marches right up to Cody and without saying a word, grabs his neck, and…kisses him. Gross. Rod watches the tension release from Cody’s body as he moves to press against her, to hold her close to him. No fight can last forever. But she pushes him off.