“You sit down now, Janelle. We have a lot to discuss.”
My stomach churns. It hits me that I’m in a motel room with Zebulon and the last time we were in a confined space together, he demanded that I kiss him as payment. In those two weeks, he’s grown a bit of stubble that’s a mixture of ash blond and copper. His features look sharper with the stubble and his eyes seem even more pale.
I sit, not wanting to stir him to aggression if I can weasel out of his request with grace. If he wants me to sleep with him… Oh God. I’ll be in the worst position imaginable. Life in prison or sex with a man I don’t even know. I would obviously choose the sex, but it doesn’t make me feel good about myself to be in that position.
“We’re leaving town,” Zeb says calmly. Really, it’s a command – and it’s a crazy one.
“What?”
“You killed someone,” he says. “I promised you that I would make it go away, and it starts with us leaving town.”
“Where are we going?”
I hope Canada. Maybe Barbados, if we’re lucky.
“Oklahoma and Texas.”
“What?”
My concerns over Zeb selling me heighten drastically. His expression doesn’t soften either, making it difficult for me to gauge how much I should worry about my future here.
“I have business back West and I’m not leaving you here. Only one way to protect you.”
“I can’t. I have rent due in five days. I have bills to pay… I have work.”
Zeb conducts his quiet mental calculations and I hate that I can’t tell what he’s thinking. “How much do they pay you?”
“Excuse me?”
I don’t see what my income has to do with anything. I’m not letting Zeb do all of this for me and pay my rent too. I split everything 60-40 with Rakeem because he made less money during the winter months, but I can’t let Zeb handle my crime and then start swinging around cash. Where does he get money?
“I’m serious,” Zeb says. “I need a number.”
“Every two weeks I get paid $1,900 after tax.”
Zeb looks up to the right for a moment. “Okay.”
“My rent is $2,475,” I continue, hoping this emphasizes why I can’t pack up and leave on a whim just because he says so.
“It’s cheaper out West.”
“Well, I’d rather live in Boston than a place with evil racists.”
“You mean Texas?” Zeb asks with an impish smile on his face. It’s the first time he’s smiled and I don’t like that it came after I said the phrase “evil racists”.
“Zeb…”
He isn’t giving me a choice, is he? I scan Zeb’s face for any chance that I might soften his resolve to drag me across the country, but I suspect he made this plan before he held me in that alleyway. I shudder, suddenly feeling trapped beneath his blue gaze. Maybe I shouldn’t have called him for help.
Then again, what’s the alternative? I go to prison? I can’t do that either. If this means stepping over to the dark side and becoming this person who hides from the law and runs into the arms of a criminal… maybe that’s who I really am. Maybe I’m not that good of a person or certainly not self-sacrificial enough to spend the rest of my life in prison when I have a choice.
Isn’t it human nature to avoid captivity? We’re meant to be free, even if it’s at the expense of our morals. Zeb, for all the harshness on his face, at least tries to comfort me. I don’t appreciate the angle he takes.
“I’ll pay your bills while we’re gone so you don’t have to worry.”
“I don’t need a man to pay my bills.”
“But you need me to keep you out of prison,” he says.
