I throw the car into reverse. It grinds and chugs, finally pulling free so I can put it back in gear and drive around the other vehicle. Something drags on the ground. Probably important. Not enough for me to check. I press harder on the accelerator.
If the police flash me, I’ll stop. Maybe. Anyone else will go straight under my wheels.
Nobody comes. My car makes too much noise to be drivable for long, but I keep it going until the crash is so far behind me, I feel comfortable pulling over.
“Come on,” I say in my best kid-friendly voice. “Let go of me and you can have your own big-girl seat.”
She doesn’t budge. I can’t blame her. A shake settles into my muscles and the blood soaked into my clothing makes me gag. I need a hug, too. We wind up rocking back and forth, comforting each other until a nearby blast of sirens jerks me back to reality.
“What’s your name?”
She rubs her eyes with the back of her hand and shyly smiles. “Sophia.”
“That’s such a pretty name. Can you tell me why you don’t want to go to the police?”
I feel stupid asking. The girl looks around five or six; hardly old enough to articulate what’s bound to be a bias of her parents or caregivers. She draws her head back and stares at me with solemn grey eyes. “They’re fuckwits.”
“Oh,” I say, startled into a laugh. “Is that right?”
I mean, I don’tdisagree.
“Where can I take you if you don’t want the police?”
“Home.”
Her voice is even smaller than she is. A whisper against my chest. Home sounds pretty good to me, too, but I hope she doesn’t mean mine because that’s not happening. Aside from the legal issues that might arise, there’s also the problem that Sergio knows where I live.
He’s visited me there, dropped stuff off after hours.
“Where do you live?”
She scrunches her nose in a gesture that would be adorable if it weren’t a pretty good indicator that she doesn’t know.
Oh, hell. It’s adorable no matter what it means. And I don’t like kids much. Even before they get doused in gangster blood and ruin my life.
“Can you remember your street?”
She shakes her head but asks, “Do you have a phone?”
I drag it from my back pocket, glad to see it still holds a small charge. Sophia’s eyes light up and she takes it in her pudgy hands, scrolling through the home screens like a pro.
She gets into maps, then hauls it around, enlarging and shrinking it until an empty section takes up half the screen. “Here.”
“Yeah, that’s not a house, kid.”
“Yes, it is.”
Her lower lip pouts and I glance around me, searching for someone to interpret whatever child behaviour this is. No volunteers. “You live in a forest?”
She nods, so eagerly I believe she might be correct. It’s not like street teams are roaming West Melton, updating the location every week.
At worst, we’ll be able to hide out in the woods if a hitman comes after us.
“Okay. If this is right, you need to get into the passenger seat to navigate.”
“Can I keep this?” She holds my phone up like a trophy.
“Sure. You’ll need that to tell me which way to go.”
