Away (6 page)

His eyes contract. He draws in a deep breath and says, “Fine. Fine Noah...just go.”

He then steps away from the door, opening the way to leave from this world of men and into a world where I could be looking for a cold-blooded killer. As I pass him and grab the doorknob, however, I hear a sniff from the left.

My younger brother Brennan is staring at me from outside his room. The look he gives me is one of betrayal, anger. He has tears in his eyes. He’s only sixteen.

I nod to him. It rips me up to leave him like this, but I’m setting an example for him. Sometimes older siblings have to do things that suck. “I’ll be back Brennan,” I say. “I promise. I’ve never broken a promise to you.”

He doesn’t move. I open the door and step out into the sunlight, out into what is probably going to be a very dangerous trip. I might not come back. But as long as Rosemary does, it doesn’t matter. I take one reassuring glance back at my father and brother, and then close the door behind me.

Through their shutters, the neighbors are peeking out to look at me. Word got around this small town about what I planned on doing. Good thing I lived off a main highway, so I could book it out of here and nobody could watch me going. I throw my bag in the seat next to the drivers and then pull out of my driveway, heading away from town.

I don’t know where he took her. But I know where to start looking.

*

When I wake up, the sun blinds my eyes and my arms are sore from being behind me, as I’ve been laying on them. The clouds blur by, a colorful reel of film, and it feels like I’m floating amongst the skies.

A bump sends me flying and I realize I’m on the floor of the backseat of the SUV. My entire body aches with the jolts that I’ve been experiencing all night. My father is still driving on the interstate and with a sinking feeling I realize that no, it wasn’t all just a nightmare. This was really real, and there was no way I’d be able to wake up from this. But here was a question. Why had I been sleeping in the first place? Then something clicked in my head. I realize that once Jack hit Noah, I must’ve passed out.

He hit Noah.

I sit up immediately, pushing myself into the backseat. “Hello Rosemary,” Jack says.

I can barely breathe. Inhaling in short, quick breaths, I hiss, “You killed him.”

His face is blank. “Who?”

“YOU KILLED HIM!” I scream, and I lunge forward, slamming against him so he veers off to the side. A horn is blasted at us as he jerks the wheel around roughly as I wham myself into him over and over, biting him because I cannot hit him, anything to cause him pain, to make him realize what he had done to me.

“Rosemary, stop!” he shouts. He grabs me by my hair and wrenches me down so I’m on the floor of the backseat again. “Don’t do that again!”

“You killed him,” I say, tears jetting down my face as I look up. “The boy on the bike. You killed him!”

Understanding floods his face, but it doesn’t show any remorse. “We didn’t have a choice, Rosemary. If he had gotten to the police we would’ve been caught. It is what it is.”

“I hate you,” I say, and he winces. “I hate you more than anything.”

“You say that now,” he says, glancing in the rearview mirror to glance at me. “Soon you’ll understand.”

“He was my boyfriend! I loved him!” I scream.

“Rosemary, you don’t know what love is,” he says in an exhausted tone. “There are plenty of people out there. You’ll find somebody else, but that’s not important right now.”

“I don’t want anyone but Noah! Now let me out of this car!” I get up to lunge for him again but he reaches over and clicks open the glovebox, pulling out a small...

Pistol. I freeze. A cold, icy sensation shoots through me. A gun. He has a gun. “I don’t want to scare you,” Jack says, and he waves the pistol in the air. “But I do have this. And if I have to use it in order to make you stay long enough for you to realize that you want to live with me, so be it. Now sit back down.”

I obey. “The police are going to be looking for me,” I threaten. “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you don’t bring me back home.”

“The police have no idea where I’m heading,” Jack says. “We’re already long gone.”

“What do you want to do with me?” I ask, not sure if I want to know the answer.

“I’ve got a house,” he says. “We’re going to live in it, you and me. Make up for all the years your mother kept us apart.”

“You can’t do this,” I say. “I’ve got friends, and I go to school back in Lousdale. My life is there. Let me go!”

“It’s too late, the damage is already done,” he says. “I can’t send you back, Rosemary. That’s it. You’re with me now, and you have to stay.”

“I’d rather be anywhere than here with you,” I spit, and his frown becomes deeper. I turn away from him, looking out the window. He whispers, “You think like that now, but it won’t be forever.”

I don’t answer. I just let the tears roll as they come, not caring if Jack’s paying any attention or not. Noah’s gone. My father had run him over with the very vehicle I was trapped in, and no amount of begging was going to get him, or me, back.

*

Toledo is a beautiful city, but Marcus happened to live in the most disgusting part of it. The only reason I know where he lives is because Rosemary had to drop off something at his apartment a long time ago. I remember I wouldn’t let her go alone. Thank God he wasn’t home so we had to leave it on his doorstep. But hopefully this time, he would be.

I stopped my car in front of the dilapidated apartment building. I’m pretty sure the only neighbors Marcus has here are the rats. The sky is overcast, grey, making the crumbling hole with the broken windows and wrecked doors look even more disgusting.

I swing my backpack over my shoulder and climb the dirty carpeted stairs, going to door number 6. I raise my hand to knock, but then pause. It was unbelievable that the city still allowed people to live in these conditions. Was he even still here?

I had to try. Hammering my fist upon the door, I cry, “Marcus! Open up, or I’ll bust this door down!”

“You can go ahead and try, boy, but you can’t break that door anymore than it already is,” Marcus says through the wood, and a fury rises within me when I hear his voice. I want nothing more than to take and beat him, but I can’t afford to lose my temper. Not now.

“You need to let me in. It’s important,” I say, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.

“If you’re asking about the girl, I told police I don’t know where she is! Now go away!” He’s lying so badly you can hear it through the door.

“I’ve got something for you,” I say, and I shake my bag. A clinking sound rings within. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

There’s a pause. Then the door unlocks and Marcus glares at me, his face red as a tomato. “Now you listen here, boy,” he says, and his eyes glance to my bag. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do-”

“I just want to make a bargain,” I say. I shake the bag again and the clinking makes his eyes widen. “Get in so I can shut the door,” he grumbles and I oblige, making sure I have a tight grip on the bag.

I didn’t think anything could look as terrible as the outside of the apartment, but I was very wrong. Ragged curtains darken each part of the room, illuminating couches with rips and holes, tiles ripped up from the floors to reveal stains and what looks like a pile of week old vomit in the corner. Bottles and cups lie everywhere, along with cigarette butts and rotting food. A television mindlessly blasts public television, flickering in and out every few seconds. A horrible smell, one of mildew and mixed human odors, reaches my nose and I nearly gag. But I breathe through my mouth lightly and say, “I know that you know what happened to Rosemary. It’s written all over your face. The cops might have not been able to get it out of you, but I will. And I’m not leaving till I get answers.”

“I told you, I don’t know anything. If that’s what you came here for, you’re wasting your time,” He sits himself down on a mouse-chewed lounge chair and burps, wiping off his snotty nose.

“We both know that’s not true.” I put my backpack on the table and unzip it, slowly pulling out five bottles of...

“Liquor,” I tell him, and immediately I’ve got his attention. “Made in the 1920’s. Unopened, unused. Still has the dust on it.”

“Where’d you get that?” Marcus asks in a whisper, acting like I’ve found the Holy Grail.

“Never mind how I got it. It’s all yours, if you can tell me where Rosemary is.” I turn the bottles towards him and wait, leaning on the table.

He licks his lips. He then looks away, saying, “You might as well leave that here. I don’t know what happened to her and I don’t care, and you’ll get in trouble if you take that back with you. You’re underage. I’ll call the cops.”

“I don’t give a damn what happens to me,” I say viciously. I take a bottle and throw it against the floor. It bursts open, splattering liquor and glass everywhere. Marcus screams, throwing his hands up in the air. “What did you do that for? That was one of the best makes!”

I lift up another bottle. “I’ll keep doing it until you tell me where Rosemary is!”

“You ain’t getting nothing outta me,” he hisses through his teeth. I smash another bottle and he lets out another scream.

Sweat starts forming on my neck. I’m running out of bottles. If this doesn’t work, I’m sunk. I break the neck of a bottle and take a drink right in front of Marcus. It burns my throat, makes my eyes water and tastes disgusting. I have no idea why he wants it so much. But then with Marcus maybe he’s drank so much that he needs something this powerful just to feel it go down, just to feel alive. “Good stuff,” I say, shoving down a cough. “Wouldn’t you like a drink? No? Guess not.”

I go to tip over the bottle, start spilling it all over the floor. But before I can let one drop fall, he bursts, “Alright! Alright, give me one drink! One drink! Then I’ll tell you!”

“You’re not getting anything until I know! Now tell me!”

“ALRIGHT!!!” he roars. He jumps off the chair and says, “Jack called me up last week one evening.”

“Jack? Your brother?” I say, and my heart starts pounding.

“Yes. He told me he was coming back to Lousdale, to get his daughter back,” Marcus growls, not taking his eyes off the booze.

“Do you know where he’s headed?” I ask.

“Not sure. But if I had to guess, it’d be back to Detroit.” He looks at me. “That’s all I know, no lie. Now are you gonna keep your word?”

I’m already starting to head out the door. “Thanks for the info. It’s all yours.”

“You’d better watch yourself, boy!” Marcus calls after me as I shut the door. “Jack doesn’t mean to hurt nobody, but he’s the craziest mother you’ll ever meet this side of Lake Michigan. You’d be better off running away from him than towards! Forget about your girl. There ain’t no woman that special.”

“I guess you wouldn’t know.” I slam the door and then start running down the steps back to my car. Rosemary was with Jack, which meant that she was still alive and that he didn’t want to hurt her.  But the longer Rosemary was with him, the greater the chance that he would lose control, which meant I had to find her. And it had to be fast.

Chapter Four

He had to pick the rest stop in the middle of nowhere. Away from the highway, surrounded by nothing but flatland, making it impossible to hide. It consisted of nothing but two bathrooms and a vending machine. I was on my own.

“Be quick,” Jack told me as he uncuffed my hands and turned into the men’s bathroom. “We have to leave soon.”

I shook my hands, grateful to have the cuffs off, slipping off my jacket to put it on the bench beside the door. I nodded at him and pretended to head into the women’s room.

Once the door shut behind him as he went into the men’s, I bolted. I got out the door, spinning in circles. Nothing but flat farmland. It was a horrible place to run. But I had to try. I headed to the car, opened the driver’s door and looked for the keys. No good. He wasn’t that dumb. The highway was a mile off. Could I make it?

I had no option. Running as fast as I could I turned towards the interstate and started booking it. My breathing was already labored from my fear, and my lungs swelled up in my chest, fit to burst. What would happen if he caught me?

Don’t think that. This is just like racing with Noah,
I thought, and as I remembered his name a pang shot through my heart.
Me and Noah are just having another race, and he’s right behind me. He’s not going to win this time. He’s not going to win.

That wasn’t Noah behind me. But Noah was faster than Jack, and I could run almost as fast as he could, which meant maybe I could beat him. I push my body faster and faster, leaping off of my toes to make my strides longer. As the highway nears, I feel a bit of hope. Can I make it?

“ROSEMARY!”

The roar of the dragon rings in my ears and I cry out as I stress my body to its limits. I glance behind me, see the flaming red eyes, the yellowed teeth clenched in fury. Go, go, faster, faster! Don’t let him catch you!

Jack is gaining on me. He’s faster than I thought. “Please, no!” I scream, and I put on one last burst of speed but it’s no use. I’m exhausted. Before I know it the weight of the entire world is tackling me down to the ground and slamming me into the dirt.