Another part of me feels a sickening sense of familiarity.
When we hit the pay area, he points to the exact-change line. “I got this.”
He hands me the money, and I throw it into the basket. The black-and-white striped arm rises. I look across at the woman in the credit-card payment booth, but she’s talking to the driver in that car.
“Don’t bother,” he says. “People don’t notice shit. They don’t care.”
Of course he’d say that. But he’s wrong. “Some care.”
“You go on and think so, then.” His voice is unconcerned, easy. His whole body is easy, like we really are a couple on a drive. He tells me to turn left. He directs us toward the highway.
“Did you follow me here?”
“How do you know I don’t just really love museums?” he says. “Maybe I’m a museum lover like you.”
“I don’t love museums,” I whisper.
“Then what were you doing at one?”
“A school project. It’s extra credit if you go to the museum.”
“Aren’t you a good little girl.” He points, directing me to the highway on-ramp. “The hardworking ant.”
I merge in. He said he wouldn’t hurt me if I do what he says. Still, I’m shaking a little. Shaking inside. It’s fear. Mostly. I try for a joke. “Did you just call me an ant?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of that fable? The ant works all summer, preparing stores of food for the coming winter, while the grasshopper lies around and sings and enjoys himself. Then the winter rolls in, and it’s cold and harsh, like a fucking wasteland. And the grasshopper is shivering and starving, and he begs the ant for food and the ant says, ‘You shouldn’t have fucked around all summer.’”
“The ant doesn’t give him food?”
“I don’t know. That’s where it ends. The grasshopper’s sorry for being a fuckup, but it’s too late.”
I check his face to see whether he’s joking. “Did you just make that up?”
“No. It’s a fable. We read it in a musty old book somewhere.”
“You and your parents read it?” I say. Though I can’t imagine him with parents. Or with books.
He shrugs. “Just some old book in a box in a basement somewhere.”
“I guess I am kind of the ant,” I say. “Except I would share.”
He grunts.
“Are you the grasshopper?” I ask. “The one who blows off all the work he’s supposed to do? Just does whatever he wants?”
“Nah,” he says. “I’m not the grasshopper.”
“You’re the ant? Preparing for the future?” I look over at him. I should probably be scared, but I’m actually curious. “Would you share?”
He looks out the window. “I’m not the ant or the grasshopper,” he says.
“You can’t be neither.”
“I can.”
“No, you can’t. You either plan and think ahead, or you don’t.”
“Maybe I’m the winter, bringing all the hell,” he says. “The winter nobody ever wants to see coming, but here I am.”
With a little shiver, I put my eyes back on the road. “Do you really think that?”’ I ask softly. Because it would be horrible if somebody thought that about themselves.
“Drive,” he barks.
“Where are we going?”
“Just drive.”
We’re heading north. With a sick feeling, I realize this is the highway we took last time we were together. The one that heads out toward Big Moosehorn Park. Why is he bringing me back there?
Oh God. Is he going to finish what he started?
Maybe he thought about it and realized he should have drowned me that night. My foot lets up on the gas pedal. I could be driving myself to my own funeral.
“I didn’t tell,” I whisper.
The car is slowing down. “I know you didn’t.”
“Then why…”
“Because. Because this is how things are going to happen. When I say jump, you jump. When I say drive, you motherfucking drive. That’s how it is between us now.”
“For how long?” I hate how small my voice sounds when it comes out. I hate how I always knew he’d come back, knew it wasn’t over.
His gaze is dark with promise. He looks older than he did that night somehow. Less of a mystery, more of a promise. “Forever, Brooke. I let you live that night, and now you’re in my debt. Understand? You’re mine.”
A chill comes over me, and at the same time, the heat of anger in my neck, my face. Not because of the threat of it, but because of the truth. He connected us that night in a dark, sick way.
He made me lie to everyone I love. Made me his.
Maybe it’s the anger making me feel brave, I don’t know, but I give him my worst fuck you look. The kind of look I reserve for when guys my age are being douchebags. The kind of look that puts people in their place. “I’ll never be yours,” I say.
It doesn’t put him in his place.
He turns to me with full-on intensity. There’s heat in his emerald eyes, but also a kind of wonder. And sadness, a little bit. I cringe as he reaches over and touches my hair again. “Too late,” he says.
My pulse whooshes in my ears. “What are you going to do?”
The question feels alive in the air between us. Alive with speculation, as if I’d asked more questions. Are you going to touch me? Kiss me?
Are you going to kill me?
He’s touching my hair. His hand brushes my shoulder, a ghost of a touch, but it feels electric, shivering over my body. Sweat trickles down my spine. My heart hammers in my chest like a wild thing under my stiff white school shirt.
He seems to be thinking about the question. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he doesn’t want to know.
The Burger Benny sign looms up ahead, bright blue and yellow. Ever since that night, I get this weird mixture of feelings when I pass one of those signs, like when you remember a feeling from a dream and you don’t know what it is. All you know is that it connects to some deep part of you.
I hate that we’re connected like that.
He gestures with the gun at the exit for Burger Benny. “Get off there.”
“I have to be home for dinner soon. They’re expecting me. They’ll be worried, and after last time, they won’t wait and see. If I don’t check in, they’ll call the police.”
“That’s why you’re going to call and make up an excuse why you’re late.”
“I can’t just do that.”
“Okay. Then call and tell the truth. You’re driving your buddy around. The guy who killed Madsen.”
My blood races. The more time I spend with him, the more trapped I feel. Telling them that would terrify them. And they wouldn’t be able to help. No one can help.
“The guy you covered for,” he continues. “That’s who you’re with. You know what accessory after the fact is? I’ll give you a hint—it’s not something you want on your pretty, perfect record.”
He pulls his hand away from my hair and opens my bag.
“Hey!” I say.
He fishes out my phone and hands it to me. “Make the call, little bird. Make it good.”