We stood directly beneath a streetlight, so I knew he could see my face more clearly now than when we first met.
“Are you just an aimless traveler, or do you have somewhere you’re trying to get to?” I asked instead, ignoring his question. The only visible cut I could point to was my split lip, and antiseptic wouldn’t do much for that—or for the bruises and bite marks spreading across my neck, chest, and arms.
“Both,” he answered simply, offering no explanation.
One hand still held the antiseptic while the other lifted my chin, making me flinch at the lack of warning.
I held his gaze as he studied my cheekbones, tilting my head to examine the exposed skin along my neck where my hair had been tucked into the cap. I tried to guess what he was thinking. Why was he here in Belham? I knew he wasn’t local—his accent gave that away.
His jaw tightened slightly as he found no real lacerations. I couldn’t tell if it was confusion or if he was starting to piece things together. When he dropped my chin and turned away,putting the antiseptic back, I braced myself for questions that never came.
Ideas rushed through my head anyway—stories I could tell if he asked. I was walking home from work and got attacked in an alley. I slipped and fell, busted my lip on the pavement. I wandered into a circus tent and found myself squaring up with one of those aerial dancers. You wouldn’t believe the damage she can do with those hanging sheets.
None of it mattered in the end. My ridiculous stories were never needed.
“There’s not much to do for bruises, and I don’t have any ice packs,” he said, closing the first-aid kit. “Best option is a gas station. Bottle of water on it for the swelling. Maybe some Tylenol.”
Why wasn’t he pressing me for answers? He had to have some kind of theory. Was he seeing through my disguise? Or did he just… not care?
Once the kit was put away, he left the driver’s door open and leaned over the roof of the car.
“Are you coming?”
His voice snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts. I had two seconds to weigh a million different outcomes.
“Where are we going?” I asked before I could stop myself, even though he’d already told me he didn’t know.
Erich smirked and gave a half shrug.
I didn’t know what either of us were signing up for. Most girls my age would have been terrified by that uncertainty. But I found a strange comfort in it. Wherever we were going, it would be away from there.
So I reached for the passenger door handle and climbed into a stranger’s car.
Chapter 5 – May 24, 1993 – Camille
Erich made the occasional comment in response to my small talk while keeping his eyes on the road, but he wasn’t what I would consider an animated driver. Sleep was catching up with me, pulling me away from the horrors of my night from Hell. My head started to fall forward until I woke in a panic and sat up straight, only to repeat the process.
I don’t remember when I finally let the band Kansas sing me to sleep. It played on the radio in the dim car as my forehead gently rested against the passenger-side window. The blur of trees and hills passing us on the road became the mobile hanging above my crib.
What woke me up was not my new chauffeur, but the voice in my head screaming that I was making a huge mistake. It jolted every nerve in my body to life as I remembered I was in the passenger seat of a strange car, speeding down the highwayat eighty miles per hour. The bubble of blissful ignorance burst as I remembered home—my family, Reed, running away, Erich.
I sat up straight, brushing back a long, curly section of my hair from the side of my face. In my drowsy state, I tried to stuff it back into place, only to realize my baseball cap was on the floor at my feet, leaving my lie exposed.
“Perfect time to wake up,” Erich said. He ignored the fact I bent down to grab the hat with the stealth of an elephant. I frantically tried to shove my hair back into my cap, but it was too late to hide behind my fake identity.
I must’ve been out for most of the ride. The dashboard clock read 5:30 in block numbers, and the last I remembered seeing it, it read 12:45. The early morning sun was beginning to rise, taking the stage from the moon and stars.
I focused my attention out over the fast-moving hills, a few cows dotting the greenery. The burnt orange color of the rising sun was breathtaking. I had never seen anything more peaceful and wondered how long I might have lived without knowing a scene like this existed. It seemed to stretch for miles, broken only by hay bales and the occasional red barn in the distance.
Erich tapped at the car’s steering wheel, a signal that brought me back to the current time.
“That last sign said there’d be a gas station at the next exit. How are you feeling?”
I was about to answer when I realized how little I had told him about what happened before I got into his car. I should have had something prepared. He had no idea how sore my arms were, battered from the grip of my older brother, how my neck still tingled and sent chills through my body as I remembered—
“We’re going to stop,” Erich said, a hint of humor in his voice. I wanted to be offended, but I hadn’t exactly given him much to work with. “As long as your hair is down to cover thosebruises and you don’t get the cops called on us. That’s the last thing I need—a night behind bars.”
My face burned at the obvious jab. He flipped the turn signal and took the exit. I couldn’t help but wonder how he was still awake and driving after nearly five hours.
