Charlie’s driver pulls a gun. Things have descended into the realm of ‘fucked’ very quickly, but as soon as that gun comes out, I know it’s game over. I can see it all happening—the cashier trying to be a big guy, rushing the other two men, the gun going off, the cashier falling to the ground…
But the gun never goes off, and it’s not the cashier who falls to the ground. It’s the woman. The cashier turns, and his complete horror is perfectly visible even through the crappy camera footage. Charlie says something, and then the driver is pushing past the cashier, snatching something up off the counter. He stoops, pushes the girl over, and lifts her shirt up, baring her stomach.
“Oh fuck. He’s not—he’s not gonna—” Myers says. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking the driver is going to sexually assault her on top of whatever he’s already done, but he doesn’t. He bends over her body, blocking whatever he’s up to. His shoulder shifts up and down for a moment and then he pulls the girl’s shirt back down to cover her belly. He throws something down on top of her where she lies—something long, and thin, and black—laughing. Now that he’s no longer obstructing the camera’s view of her, it’s plain to see there’s something wrong with the girl. There is something seriously wrong with her. She struggles back up onto her hands and knees on the floor, and it looks like she’s retching, her body jerking violently. The cashier rushes to the girl’s side, placing an unsure hand on her back, his mouth moving as he speaks frantically to her.
Charlie and the driver casually stroll out of the gas station… and the woman on her knees begins to vomit blood.
Six Days Earlier
Alexis Romera is safe.
Sometimes a phrase will haunt you for hours.
Alexis Romera is safe.
Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, a certain thought is all you can keep thinking inside your head, over and over again.
Alexis Romera is safe.
This is the phrase that I suffer through on repeat as we drive away from San Jacinto, until the words begin to fuck with my head. Sloane is sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a pair of ass-hugging shorts that I’m pretty sure I somehow dreamed into existence, her long, perfect legs stretching out into the footwell, and all I can think is, Alexis Romera is safe. Alexis Romera is fucking safe.
These words, roughly translated, also mean, Sloane Romera no longer needs you, Sloane Romera no longer needs you, which is why they’re stuck inside my head on a goddamn loop that I can’t seem to shake.
“Right. Right. Right! You’re gonna miss the exit!” Sloane clamps her hand over the steering wheel as though she’s going to swerve us off the exit ramp, but I give her the death look. The death look. The one that tells her she better remove her hand from the steering wheel at her earliest convenience or risk losing the thing. No one drives the Camaro but me. And no one touches the damn steering wheel, either.
“I know my way to Dana Point, Sloane.” I take the off-ramp, making sure to leave it until the very last minute in order to scare the crap out of her when I swerve. Sloane inhales sharply, but she doesn’t say anything. She disapproves of my reckless driving. Which makes me even more reckless. I just love lighting a fire in this woman, by whatever means necessary.
“You think you’re so smart, don’t you?” she says, staring straight out of the window as we begin to head south.
“Mostly.”
“Good. I suppose you mostly don’t care that you didn’t give Michael and the others chance to see where you were going, then?”
My boy Michael has been following behind us in his sedan since we left San Jacinto, accompanied by Cade and another Widow Maker called Carnie on their bikes. I left the exit until the very last second to piss Sloane off, sure, but I also did it for another reason; I wanted to lose those guys. I give Sloane a non-committal shrug, which she scowls at. I don’t see the scowl; I feel it, burning with supernova intensity into the side of my face.
“Why would you tell Michael to come with us if you didn’t actually want him to come with us?”
“Because I need him to do something for me after we pick up Lacey. I didn’t think Cade and Carnie would insist on giving us a fucking cavalcade, though. The last thing you want is Rebel’s crew rocking up on Ma and Pa Romera’s front lawn. I’m gonna send him straight to the job.”
Sloane grunts at this. “My father would have a heart attack. But then…”
“What?”
She chuckles a little, and I don’t like the twisted edge to it. “Well, my father’s gonna have a heart attack anyway, the moment he sets eyes on you. Cade and Carnie would just have been the icing on the cake.”