Something wasn’t right.
Goosebumps are hard lumps across my skin, the kind that you can’t shake.
I stumble to my feet, supporting Jade, dragging her out of the car as quickly as my trembling arms and aching biceps will allow.
“Find your feet, J,” I breathe, urgency grating out of my teeth.
I feel weak and frightened and tears lick at the back of my eyes. And yet, among the alcohol and fear, I latch onto urgency and the desire to fight.
I don’t speak until I’ve guided Jade into the overgrown brush and behind a tree that sits back and away from the road, and most importantly away from him.
My best friend falls to her beat-up knees, and I will myself not to retch beside her when I smell the sour contents of her stomach splash onto the ground and rebound onto her face, pushing the back of my hand to my mouth and turning away.
“Jade, we aren’t getting back into that car.” My words are muffled by my palm. I glance back over my shoulder.
She cuts me off with a whine.
“What, no, I don’t want to walk, my feet hurt.”
I spin around and crouch down, reaching for her arm perhaps a little too roughly. Her blue eyes slice to mine, crimson blood trailing into her long eyelashes from the cut on her forehead. She does her best to blink the stream of pearls away.
Jade drops her gaze to my hand coiled around her bicep, and I know she can feel it, the trembling explosion of my fingers vibrating into her bones.
“There’s something up with this guy. He’s, I dunno, just…” I’m stumbling over my words, anticipating the weight of our next decision, what this could mean for us. “Can you please just trust me on this? I’ll get rid of him, but we need to walk.”
She nods, her eyes never leaving mine until she’s hurling to her side, emptying what she’d left behind.
I stand on shaky feet, stepping toward the trunk of the tree. Sucking in a sharp breath, I corner it, finding the headlights to the sedan turned off.
The dark hole we had carelessly sunk into felt like an omen rapidly closing in around us now.
The only light is a shadow, a pale glow gleaming from the tucked moon above, and the cherry ofhiscigarette stuck between the hole of his black ski mask.
I raise my voice, it comes out in a croak, “You know you can take that mask off now, right? We aren’t at the party anymore.”
He laughs, taking a hit of his nicotine, and I don’t miss the amused lilt to the sound. It’s unnatural, as if the mask he is wearing isn’t the only one he’d worked to erect.
Nervous, I reach for a piece of bark hanging loosely from the tree beside me. I begin to vivisect it between shaking fingers. “Thanks for the ride, but she’s too sick, we’ll find?—”
A gruff exhale cuts me off, then a laugh, something infected.
Malignant.
It hits me like a mallet.
Silence presses heavy, and I know that if this man isn’t a good person he will be able to taste my fear. Bottomless, cold and brittle. He will feast on it. So, I finish what I was saying with as much confidence as I can muster.
“We’ll–we’ll find another ride.”
A tsk. A sharp inhale, followed by a menacing exhale, then a mumble I can’t place.
The crunch of loose rock is what I hear next when the rubber of his boot squashes the cigarette he was pulling on. And when he speaks this time, I don’t miss the malice that lingers behind the mask of his voice.
“What about what I want?”
My stomach sours and a chill creeps down my spine.
I bite the inside of my cheek, try to swallow my fear, offering this asshole something I didn’t have. “Do you want money or something?”
