Cyrus appeared so handsome and cute and friendly when we met. He rescued me from whatever awaited me on the boat, but apparently I’d gotten in a car with a murderer. Anyone who survived a kidnapping and then immediately didn’t tell the police had something to hide. And it wasn’t something good.
“No,” I said, trying to remain calm even though a second dose of adrenaline had just hit my body, preparing me to throw myself out of the moving vehicle.
The police helped people. That was their job. Taxpayers’ dollars paid for them to do it. If we went to them and told our story, they would help us.
Cyrus slid his gaze back onto the road. “Okay, you’re right. Next turn off, we go to the police. I drove inland to get off Highway One, and hopefully we lost the assholes from the service station. It should be enough.”
I found comfort in his words for about two seconds. Something about his tone made me question if he believed his own promise. The police were good. Right?
An exit came less than half a mile later and Cyrus turned off the highway. Except we saw no signs leading us to anything. Not even a McDonald’s. We drove further down the offramp and the reason grew obvious. We were in the backwoods.
Like alligator eat your leg off territory.
Trees were the only thing waiting for us when we reached the stop sign at the end of the off ramp. Cyrus shrugged and turned on the right blinker. We drove through a town, which was really more one stop sign with four corners and two stores for each side of the street.
“Do they even have a police station?” I asked as I checked through all the windows of the Jeep. Every town had a station, right?
I didn’t even see a gas station, town library, or a pizza place. On the left, a tiny bar had its lights shuttered. It might be the only place to get food in the small town, but it wasn’t currently serving.
Cyrus turned down a side street and found an empty parking lot where he stopped the car. “I want to conserve gas,” he said, and I leaned over to check the gauge.
We were hovering right at empty. “Do you think we’re safe here?” I asked, scanning the empty parking lot, fearful someone might jump out and attack us at any moment.
“It’s dark,” he said nodding and letting his gaze follow the same path I did at the darkened streets. “Let’s park the car and rest. I swear in the morning we’ll find the police station, but I need a quick break before I pass out.”
We were both crashing hard from days of no water and lack of sleep.
In his promise, I found my missing trust. Cyrus agreed to find a police station, and it wasn’t his fault the road we turned off led us to the smallest town in America. There was no way for him to know, so I trusted he didn’t plan to lead me into the next Dateline special.
We’d be safe here.
“Okay,” I said, unbuckling my seatbelt.
Cyrus beat me to it as he jumped out of the car, getting into the back seat and then fighting with the seats until both of the back rows lay flat, creating a wide surface.
“It won’t be comfortable,” he said, digging through a car emergency kit and pulling out a shiny gray emergency blanket. “But you can stretch out.”
“What about you?” I asked as he returned to the driver’s seat.
I crawled over the console and sat in the middle of the back space. Cyrus had already begun rummaging through the glove box so I barely heard his answer. “I’ll sleep in the driver’s seat.”
Then like he was a magician, or an angel dropped from heaven above, his hand returned from the glove box and in it was a bar wrapped in crinkly paper. A granola bar. One of those cheap ones full of sugar that parents bought their kids to shut them up in the mornings.
“It expired a year ago,” Cyrus said, pulling back the wrapper to read the date.
“I do not care.” If we weren’t so close to escape, civilization, and proper food, I’d be out rooting the wilderness for weeds. I didn’t have enough knowledge about berries to keep myself alive, but I’d lick an oak tree if that’s what it took to survive.
He passed the granola bar back to me without a second thought and I hastily unwrapped it. I was getting ready to take a bite before I remembered if I was as hungry, Cyrus was hungrier. I hadn’t eaten in the two days they held me on the boat, but Cyrus was there longer than me.
“Let’s split it,” I offered, breaking the bar apart and giving him the slightly larger half.
He shook his head. “No, you eat it.”
Now was not the time to be a martyr. If he died, I’d be all alone. I held out the piece of granola bar and wiggled it in his face, hoping to entice him.
“Eat your half and don’t be stubborn when there’s food right in front of us.”
Cyrus laughed but eventually he took his half of the bar and shoved it in his mouth, eating it in two bites and three chews. “Once we get to the police station in the morning, you can call your mother, too,” Cyrus said when he finished chewing.
