Hostage (13 page)

Code

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Like it isn’t enough that we just got through that road block without a hitch but then I go and remind Wren that she could have me thrown in jail for what I’ve done to her? Who does that? Clearly some asshole whose brain is in his dick.

Or up his ass. Take your pick.

Wren’s looking at me right now like she’s never looked at me before. Not even after all that we’ve done has she looked at me this intently. It’s a little unnerving.

I’ve got two choices here—I can push her for an answer about whether or not she’s going to press charges against me and have me thrown in jail, if she gets the chance, or I can get back to the reality of what’s going on here and what we’re going to do now.

I don’t feel right about staying on the interstate, but I also don’t have a fucking GPS to navigate the back roads, and I don’t want to drag this road trip out any longer than I have to. I’m so fucking close to freedom that I can taste it.

There’s that fucking song again about freedom, echoing in my head.

But all the times I’ve been chasing freedom before in my life, I’ve never actually found it. I’m not sure why crossing the border this time will be different, but there’s a hope I can’t seem to deny. I doubt there will be another road block, but I can’t be sure. I look over at Wren. “I think we need to get off this road.”

She looks at me, a little confused. “Why? We’ve already gone through the road block. We should be good to go.”

I shake my head. “We still don’t know who or what exactly they were looking for back there or if this is the only block they’ve got set up.” My heart is racing, and I begin to sweat. Panic. I don’t normally panic easily, but something about this whole situation is suddenly freaking me the fuck out.

“Code, I really don’t think that it’s a problem. Besides, I don’t know the back roads around here. Do you?”

“No.” My mind is racing. “Do you have a phone?”

Wren rolls her eyes at me. “Uh, yeah. I’ve got a phone that I’ve had with me the entire time and didn’t call the police or my father. Are you for real?”

Okay. Stupid question.

“Don’t you have a phone?”

“I do but it’s a throwaway deal that just calls and texts. No maps or GPS. I wasn’t expecting to be on this road trip from hell.”

“Look, it is not my fault that you didn’t plan well for your run for the border. So don’t go getting all bent out of shape at me.”

I kind of like this side of her. She’s not so much playing the victim card, and yet she’s not being defiant in a ‘fuck you’ kind of way. Right now, it’s almost like we’re in this together, and she’s just as frustrated as I am.

Maybe more.

“Okay, so what other options are there?”

Wren twists in her seat, and I can tell that she’s really thinking about it. Go figure. “I guess we could stop at a gas station and get a state map. It may not list all of the side roads, but it would give us at least a little bit of help with staying on the right course.”

It makes sense, but I’m not particularly ready to stop again yet. It’s too light out, and I’m too edgy. I don’t want to draw attention to us. Unfortunately, I think that she’s right.

“Sounds like a plan. Thanks,” I say and smile at her. She practically beams back at me for the attempt at praise.

That makes me wonder if she ever actually gets any praise. Who’s in her life that tells her ‘good job’ or ‘thank you’? It’s none of my business, but when you’re essentially trapped in a car with someone—or on the run with your life at stake with someone—you start to wonder about them and what they’re like when you’re not, you know, on the fucking run.

I pull over at the next exit, and it doesn’t take long to find a gas station. “Stay put,” I tell her. Sure she’s got the pink hair and the stripper clothes going on, but that’s not to say that someone’s not going to recognize her.

Five minutes later I’m back in the car, and I hand her a bag.

“That’s a pretty heavy map,” she says, taking the bag from me.

“All you had was coffee this morning. I figured you’d be hungry.” I don’t even look at her because I can’t. I can feel her staring at me—like she’s surprised that I would be considerate. I guess if I was in her place I would be surprised too. After all, I’m just the prick who kidnapped her, fucked her, and took her on the run with me.

Why bother candy-coating it. I’m basically a douche.

But I have my moments when my conscience kicks in.

I hear her rustling through the bag as I pull the car around to the side of the parking lot and start looking at the map.

“Oh my god, I love these!” Wren says from beside me and I look over and see her with the pack of chocolate chip cookies that I grabbed. And then she let out a giggle when she saw that I got milk to go with them. She looked over at me, and this time I couldn’t help but look back.

“You can’t have cookies without milk,” I say with a shrug and go back to looking at the map. “It looks like if we follow this road out front here, we can…”

Wren kisses me on the cheek.

It’s a simple gesture. I’m not even sure she realized that she did it or who she was doing it to, but for whatever it’s worth, that was her way of saying thank you. For fucking cookies and milk.

I really am a douche.

I clear my throat and go back to planning the route that we’re going to try. “It’s a little bit out of the way—maybe add another hour or two to the drive—but I think we can deal with that, right?”

She nods while eating a cookie.

I pull back out on to the road, and I feel better—more relaxed. We drive for about fifteen minutes in complete silence. I’m good with it for the most part. I need to stay focused. I want to put as much distance as I can between us and the interstate.

There’s nothing out here. It’s like no-man’s land. There’s an occasional house, but other than that, it’s pretty desolate.

Next to me, Wren lets out a little moan of pleasure—and I know it’s pleasure because I’ve made her make that sound—and I can’t believe that a cookie can be all that.

“Can I have a bite?”

The look she gives me is almost comical, and for a minute, I almost believe that she’s going to say no. She eventually holds out her hand to feed the damn thing to me. My eyes lock with hers as I take a bite and damn if it’s not fucking good.

“It’s good, right?” she asks, a happy and relaxed look on her face.

“You taste better.” She blushes as my words. “And there’s nothing I’d like more than to have you for a snack.”

“Code…” Her skin is flushed and I know what my words do to her. If I reached out right now, I’d find her panties to be wet.

My fingers almost twitch with the need to find out.

The car jerks and sounds like it backfires. “What the fuck?” I look at the dashboard and all of the gages look fine but the car starts to sputter and hesitate.

“What’s going on?”

“I have no fucking clue.” The car makes it—barely—for another five miles and then it just stops. Smoke is pouring out from under the hood, and I know that we are totally screwed.

Wren

“Damn it,” Code grits out, after the car jerks to a stop on the side of the road. “Fucking piece of junk.”

I sigh and lean my head back against the headrest of the seat. I’m confused and exhausted and emotional about everything, and I have no fucking idea in the world what I want to happen from this mess.

I just want to be at peace—find that pathway of light between the billows—but I don’t think I’ve ever really felt that way. The closest I’ve had was that shaky stability where I make everyone happy and so my life remains uneventful.

That isn’t peace, though. I’m not sure what peace is. It sure as hell isn’t being stranded on the side of the road in the middle of Texas with a would-be kidnapper that you seem to be developing feelings for.

“I guess your friend didn’t want to spare a better car than this.” I wipe perspiration off my forehead. It’s mid-morning, and it’s already really hot out. It’s going to be hot as hell here soon, with no air conditioning and no working car.

“Ass.” Code is obviously thinking, and he’s covered his eyes with his hand, as if to block out distractions.

Maybe I’m a distraction. Maybe he’s trying to block me out. The thought kind of hurts, but I push it away because it’s ridiculous and hardly something I should be thinking about right now.

I think for a minute about what we can do. “There was a gas station several miles back, but it would take us forever to walk back there. I guess maybe we could call information and see if we can find a garage with a tow truck.”

“Yeah. We’ll do that if we have to, but I don’t want to risk being recognized.”

“I’m not sure what else we can do. We can sit here and hope someone drives by who can help us, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone on this road much, and there would still be the possibility of being recognized.”

“Yeah.” He exhales and straightens up, looking over at me. His face softens a little, and he reaches out to cup my cheek. “I guess you’re really impressed by my mind-blowing escape plan here, aren’t you?”

Ridiculously, I can’t hold back a little laugh. “It really is very impressive. Dingy basements. Cheap hotels. Cheap-ass cars that can’t make it even a hundred miles. Not to mention a pink-haired hostage.”

“I’m okay with the pink-haired hostage,” he murmurs, dropping his hand and looking away from me kind of quickly. “But everything else is like a fucking dark comedy.”

I feel another one of those swells of emotion, like my heart is suddenly too big for my chest. I try to push that feeling away too, since it’s inappropriate, but it doesn’t want to go away.

“I don’t guess you have any other friends you could call for help,” I say, trying to focus back on the matter at hand. “Like Jamie, but maybe closer to around here. Where are we anyway? Close to San Antonio?”

“Not too far.” He sounds more business-like now too. “But I don’t have any friends around here. Definitely no one I can trust enough to put ourselves in their hands. I guess we’ll have to try for a tow truck and hope for the best.” He pulls out of his phone.

Then I suddenly remember something. “Wait.” I reach over and put a hand on his forearm.

He stops at my gesture, looking down at my hand, which is resting just over part of his tattoo.

I swallow hard and pull my hand away. “I have a friend from high school who lives in San Antonio. Maybe she can help us.”

“Yeah, right. She’ll help us right into the welcoming arms of the cops.”

“No, I don’t think she will. She was always kind of wild and rebellious, and she never seemed to believe much in law and order.”

“But she’ll have seen the news. She’ll know you’ve been kidnapped. Even if she’s not a do-gooder, she’ll have the basic decency to call the police about having seen you.” His tone is dry, almost bitter, and I can’t tell who the bitterness is directed at—my friend, whom he’s never met, or himself.

I think maybe himself. More and more, he doesn’t seem to even want to have taken me at the bank. Maybe he’s confused, like I am. Wanting two opposing options at the same time.

“I can tell her that I’ve run away with you and the cops have got it wrong. I can sell this whole story about us being in this doomed, destined love affair. I really think she’ll go for it. Maybe she’ll come pick us up and take us to the bus station or something.”

He stares at me for a minute, as if weighing the risks and rewards. Then he nods, and I realize it means he trusts me enough to let me make a call on his phone.

He trusts me.
Me
. How ironic is that?

And how ironic is it that his trust isn’t going to be broken. Not right now, anyway.

I can’t turn on my phone without cluing the authorities into our location, since they’re almost certainly trying to track me by my phone. So I call information on Code’s phone and ask for the number for Jill Mulroney.

If she’s not listed, then we’re screwed.

They connect me through, and Jill sounds absolutely thrilled to hear from me. She’s been watching the news and has been worried about me, but I assure her it isn’t what it sounds. I tell her we’re in love and are trying to get away from my dad, and that’s how this whole kidnapping story has gotten out. I feel bad for throwing my dad to the wolves like that—he’s been too busy to be a dad most of his life, but he’s never hurt me—but I don’t really have a choice at the moment.

We can hardly just hang out on the side of the road like this.

Jill is at work, but she says she’ll take some time and come get us, no problem. I do the best I can to tell her our location, and she says she’ll be here in a half-hour or so.

So Code and I wait. I can tell he’s kind of tense, since his shoulders are stiff and he won’t look at me much. I wish I knew what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s trying to decide whether I’m more trouble than I’m worth and he’s considering dumping me and taking off on his own.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea, since the cops are looking for a guy with a girl. I try not to think about whether I’m hoping this will happen or not.

“So where should we tell Jill to take us?” I ask after a while. “The bus station? We have the fake ID’s, so we might be okay.”

“Yeah.” He rubs his hand over his jaw. “But they’re going to be checking all the buses, trains, and cabs for us really closely. What we need is a way to get down to the border that they’d never expect. Something people on the run wouldn’t consider.”

“Like on the bus of a traveling rock band or something,” I say, mostly joking. “With our hair, we’d fit right in.”

He gives a huff of something close to a laugh. “Yeah. Something like that.”

“Or like a school bus. Maybe we could blend in with a bunch of high-schooler’s going site-seeing in Mexico. Although I guess they probably don’t take field trips to Mexico.”

He straightens up, his expression changing.

“What?” I ask. “It’s really not a good idea. We’d never blend in with high-schoolers, even if they let us on the bus, which they’d never do.”

“Not a school bus, but what about a tour bus. They have bus tours sometimes that cross the border. Maybe we could find one of those. We’d buy tickets for both of us, and then I could pretend we broke up or something and cross the border on my own. It might work. They’re not likely to be looking for us on a tour bus.”

“It might actually work.” I try to think through possibilities, a strange sort of excitement roused inside me—and also an irrational poignancy at the thought of his crossing into Mexico on his own. “We’d have to do some research to find a tour that’s leaving soon that goes where we need it to go. I’m not sure they’re so common that we can just drop in and assume one will be leaving.”

“Maybe your friend can let us use her phone so we can look them up.” He looks different now. Less resigned. Like he sees a way out of this.

I feel that way too. For some reason, this is starting to feel more like an adventure than an ordeal—and I’m sure it has something to do with my changing feelings for Code.

“Yeah. I’m sure she will. But maybe we can be vague about our plans. I trust her as much as anyone, but still…”

“We won’t give her any details. I don’t trust anyone.” I can tell from the sound of his voice that he means it.

I trust my dad—for the most part—but he’s really it. Maybe Code and I aren’t as different as we seem.

I’m still thinking about this when a car pulls up beside us and the window opens to reveal a familiar, grinning face. “Wren,” Jill says, “I love the hair! You were always such a little princess—I can’t believe you’re running away like this. But I’m definitely impressed.” Her eyes linger on Code. “And I’m glad to see you’ve found yourself a real man at last.”

***

Jill is happy to let us use her phone while she drives us toward San Antonio.

After much searching, we finally find a tour that is leaving tomorrow at noon. It leaves from San Antonio, and it goes to Laredo, then across the border and ends up in Mexico City for two nights before it heads back to San Antonio.

Code and I ask Jill to drop us off at the travel agency who is arranging the tour. That way, she’ll know what agency we used but not why we are using them, in case she decides to go to the police. Jill looks disappointed, since I can tell she was hoping for more of an adventure, but it’s clear that Code wants to get rid of her as soon as possible.

I can’t really blame him. I’m pretty sure we can trust Jill, but he doesn’t know her at all.

So I thank Jill profusely and promise to drop her a note as soon as I can to let her know we’re okay.

Then we go in and arrange for tickets for the tour. Code has to pay cash, but they don’t seem to think it’s strange, so maybe other people pay for tours like this in cash too.

Then we’ve got to wait until tomorrow, so we do the only thing we can do—find a motel nearby that doesn’t have much security and get a room.

We order pizza and watch TV and it really isn’t that bad a day. I start to feel a little more relaxed, like my whole world isn’t going to fall apart because this thing has happened.

Code is acting different too. Like I’m a partner instead of a hostage.

I kind of like it. I’ve never been a partner before.

I eventually take a shower and get ready for bed. It’s a little early, but there’s nothing much else to do.

Code is watching me when I come out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a t-shirt. His eyes are intense, serious, deep.

“One more day,” he says. “We’ll get to Laredo tomorrow.”

“I know.” For no good reason, the words feel almost bittersweet. “I guess we’ll have to do the site-seeing stuff they have planned for Laredo tomorrow. If we don’t, it will look too suspicious.”

He nods. “We’ll spend tomorrow night in Laredo with the tour, and then I’ll let you go the following morning.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

It is a plan. I seems like it would work fine. I try to be excited about getting rid of Code at last, about going back home to my college classes and the people who are supposed to be my friends.

To people who don’t understand me at all.

As if he’s reading my mind, he adds, “I guess you’ll be glad to get back to your real life.”

I sigh and climb into bed. “Yeah.”

He’s been sitting in bed, propped up against the headboard, but now he rolls over on his side to look at me. “You aren’t relieved?”

“Of course I’m relieved.”

“I guess your boyfriend is really worried about you.” A different kind of tension has tightened in his face, one I don’t really understand.

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

He frowns. “Then who fucked you the other day, before you came to the bank.”

Oh. Philip. I’ve almost forgotten about him. I give a little shrug and am embarrassed to admit the truth the Code.

He reaches over to take my chin in his hand and turn my face to look at his. “Who fucked you?”

“Just a guy.”

“He’s not your boyfriend?”

I suddenly realize he’s not happy about the idea that I had sex with someone else. The tension I see on his face is possessiveness, maybe jealousy.

I really shouldn’t like it so much. “I’ve gone out with him a few times.”

“But you liked him enough to fuck him?”

“I sometimes fuck guys I don’t like.” There’s no reason in the world for me to admit that to Code, but for some reason I just did.

His frown has intensified and he leans closer to me. “Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You just don’t want to tell me. Why do you fuck guys you don’t like?”

“Just because. It’s easier.” I pull my face out of his hand and roll over on my back, staring up at the ceiling. “I never really cared about sex one way or the other.”

“Is that why you fucked me?”

I can’t begin to understand the edge to his voice. He might be angry, but it’s not really at me. I feel guilty suddenly—for so many reasons. “Maybe at first.”

“What do you mean, at first?”

“At first, maybe I thought about fucking you to get you on my side or to distract you or something. You suspected that, right?”