The Bad Boy's Dance (12 page)

              “We’re being followed.”

Chapter Eleven

Courage th
e
Cowardly Dog and Tribal Tattoos

You know those movies where you’re sitting at the edge of your seat, watching a high-speed car chase that wrecks streets, flips cars over, and is ultimately the coolest thing ever?

              It sucks to the max in real life.

              I clung to my seatbelt as we flew over a curve in the road, tires squealing as they fought to keep us from flipping over. The window was lowered, and my hair whipped out of my bun from the sheer force of the wind. There was a small dip in the road, and when Asher drove over it, we were suspended in the air for a terrifying second before we crashed back down to the road.

              “How far away are they?” Asher yelled over the wind.

              Turning in my seat, I estimated the distance between us and the shiny black Mercedes. “About twenty feet!”

              “We need to lose them! We can’t do that in an open road. We’re sitting ducks!” he sounded frustrated. We violently collided with a speed bump, hurtling me into the window.

              I was scared. Terrified, actually, but I was doing a good job of hiding it. I didn’t want Asher to waste any energy on me, not when we were being followed.

              Then I saw something that made my stomach turn and the fist of fear in my chest clench even tighter.

              “Asher!” I screeched. “They’re pointing guns at the car!”

              He veered sharply to the left just as the first shot rang. A few bullets connected with the rearview mirror, but they didn’t shatter it. “I had the glass bullet-proofed!” Asher explained as he drove manically.

              Oh, okay. That was totally normal. When I got my car, I bulletproofed it to. It went well with my Hello Kitty beads.

              Sarcasm intended.

              The only good thing was that concentrating at firing at us was slowing them down. We were now thirty feet ahead of them, but Asher was right; we were sitting ducks unless we had somewhere to hide.

              Now something about South Dakota- there are a lot of forests. Many kids were lost there each year, and there were some really creepy people bumming out here. The road we were racing along now was bordered by the woods on the left side, and then a huge lake about fifty feet below us was to our right.

              Asher seemed to realize this at the same time I did, because the next thing I knew, we were smashing through the highway roadblocks and immersed in the cover of trees. Thankfully, these woods weren’t dense, or else we’d have crashed for sure. As it was, Asher sped deeper and deeper through the trees, scattering animals and crushing fallen twigs and leaves beneath his spinning tires.

              “I think we lost them!” I shouted. “It’s nighttime and we’re in the woods. There’s no way they can find us.”

              Asher slowed and finally sputtered to a stop. Honestly, it was a little surprising he’d listened to me.
              “That’s a moot point now,” he sighed and pointed at the glowing dashboard. “We’re out of gas.”

              “What?!” I shrieked, making Asher wince. “Are you kidding me?! We’re stuck in the middle of the woods at night with a random car shooting at us, and we’re
out of gas
?”

              “I’m
aware
of the situation! Keep your voice down!”

              “Why? It’s not like anyone is gonna hear me, since we’re in the
middle of freaking nowhere!
”

              Asher looked five seconds away from throttling me. Before, that might have scared me witless. I didn’t have time to think about what it meant that he didn’t scare me anymore.

              “We need to get away from the car. I don’t know if they’ll find it, but we need to be long gone before that. Stop wailing at come with me,” he snapped.

              Shutting off the engine and pocketing the keys, he exited the car. Now that the headlights were off, we were in complete darkness. Only the moonlight saved us from being immersed in pitch black.

              Hesitantly, I went to where Asher was standing impatiently, waiting for me. “This is the scene from every slasher movie, you know! And like every other horror movie known to man. Oh my God, we’re going to be murdered as revenge because we’re strong and healthy and they’re bent on destruction,” I whispered loudly, nauseating fear starting to swell in my chest.

              Asher eyeballed me and snatched my wrist. Dragging me along with him, we walked deeper through the thick of trees. Crickets chirped, frogs croaked, and the tinkling sound of a lazy river would have been very scenic and picturesque if it was in daylight, but at night it was downright creepy.

              “Phones!” I burst. “Why don’t we call for help?”

              Moving fast, I whipped my phone from my pocket, but my hope died instantly. “No signal.”

              Asher’s shoulders relaxed. Why was he relieved I couldn’t call for help? “It’s best not to involve the police. Not until we have more information.”

              He still had my wrist in a death grip. This would have bothered me but for the fact that I would happily Super Glue myself to him at the moment. It was dark, we were lost in the woods, and-oh schnitzel. Something was crawling in my sweater!

              Asher didn’t even bother asking what I was doing when I started beating at myself frantically, trying to squish whatever crawler had decided my sweater was the best place to get it on and make some baby crawlers.

              I knew I shouldn’t have worn blue!

              We continued walking. I lost track of how long it had been since we’d abandoned the car. Both our phones died, and my trepidation only grew with each step. My family was going to flip, especially if they called Dana and discovered I was with Asher. They’d think he kidnapped me or something. Which, if you think about it,

              Finally, I collapsed on a nearby boulder, sticking my head between my knees. “No more!” I panted. “There is a reason I’m not in a sport! My PE teacher benched me freshman year after I tripped over a clump of grass and dislocated my shoulder.”

              Asher was contemplative. Then, in one rapid move, I was thrown over his shoulder and he was tromping through the woods once more.

              “Put me down! Are you crazy? What do you think you’re doing?!” I pounded my fists on his back, but it didn’t faze him. Apparently carrying a girl a girl caveman style wasn’t problematic. That reminded me of Fred Flintstone. So if Asher was the caveman…

              That made me the leg of beef.

              I resorted to clawing at his spine with my fingers, but he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him. Scratching a wall of muscle was useless.

              His back muscles flexed as he moved, and I had to admit, he had a mighty fine rear. I had the urge to poke it to see if it was as firm as it looked.

              So I did. Yup, no jiggling there either.

              “Did you cop a feel?” Asher asked me, amused. I returned to my natural shade of tomato and was thankful he couldn’t see me.

              “Why would you think that?” I chuckled nervously, mentally cursing myself for not playing it cool and denying his accusation. Then again, when did I ever play anything cool? I was impulsive and sucked at lying.

              “I distinctly felt a finger poke my ass, angel, and unless Slenderman is nearby…” he trailed off, his meaning clear. But now I was too distracted by something else to be mortified- there would be plenty of time for that later.

              “I forgot about Slenderman! What if he’s watching us right now? He has no face! No eyes! How can he see? Dana made me play the game once and I crashed right into him. I pretended I was trying to give him a hug because he was sad, but I wasn’t! He has no face, how can he look sad? Don’t pick up any pieces of paper taped to trees!” I babbled.

              Asher deposited me on my feet, and I was sure he’d ditch me because I wouldn’t shut up. But no, his gaze was fixed on something ahead. “Do you see that?” he gestured. “It’s a barn, and there’s an attached house. They might have a phone so I can call someone to come pick us up.”

              This was how every horror movie went. We were playing exactly by the script. There’d be a crazy axe murderer in the house who wouldn’t let us leave and would try to sell our body parts to medical suppliers for money.

              When I mentioned this very plausible theory to Asher, he stopped, searched for something in his pocket, and told me to open my mouth.

              “Um, no. Who-” I was cut off when he shoved a stick of gum into my open mouth.

              “Chew on that and don’t talk. I’m trying to think of a plan to help us right now and I can’t do that if I’m fighting the desire to gag you.”

              Scowling at him, I obeyed and chewed, only because the expression of extreme concentration on his face verified that he was indeed trying to think of how to get us out of this instead of coming up with theories of our untimely demise like I was.

              The closer we got to the house, the more I got in tune with my inner Cartoon Network.

              The barn was huge, painted a faded red with bales of hay outside for the cows that were milling around. The attached house was large, but needed some serious repair. The porch light was flickering, and the steps creaked with the wind.

              So this was how Courage the Cowardly Dog felt.

              Asher stopped in front of the steps leading to the door. “Don’t freak, okay?” he warned.

              That’s just the thing a person wants to hear stranded in the woods in front of a house that may or may not contain a serial killer.

              Asher bent and started rolling up his pant leg. I wanted to ask what he was doing, but he might actually gag me. I wouldn’t put it past the douche.

              Strapped to his calf was a small pistol, barely fitting in the palm of his hand. I gawked at him, but he didn’t acknowledge the obvious question. When did he ever?

              Tapping the pistol against his lip in a macabre version of a ‘shush’ motion, he crept to the front door and knocked loudly.

              He kept the pistol behind his back. I knew he extracted it just in case, but why did he even have a gun in the first place? Did he always carry one? How had the school not caught him yet?

              I shivered from the bite of the howling wind, wrapping my coat tighter around me. When the door opened, I was fully expecting to see Eugene and Muriel greeting us with a little pink dog hiding behind Muriel’s skirt.

              Instead, a homely old couple stared at us in astonishment. The woman was small and rounded, very grandmotherly, but there was a strength in her veiny hands that indicated hard work. Her husband was bigger, with cropped gray hair and a puffy mustache.

              “Hi. My friend and I need to know if we can use your phone.” Way to get straight to the point, dude.

              Internally  I was having a mini-panic attack. What if they spotted Asher’s gun?

              “Oh my,” the old woman gasped. “What happened?”

              “We veered off the road and ran out of gas somewhere west of the road. We walked here from there,” he explained. I noticed he didn’t mention we’d been chased. He made it sound like he’d had a blonde moment and decided the road wasn’t fun enough.

              “You poor dears! Come in, come in! Get out of this cold!” she ushered Asher in a second after he tucked the gun away in the waistband of his jeans.

              She gestured to me. “Honey, you’re freezing! Come on, don’t be shy. We’re honest folk, I promise!”

              I’ll bet that’s what Ted Bundy said too.

              The woman wasn’t setting off any red flags. Her husband had yet to speak, but he seemed harmless. Asher beckoned me from inside, and taking a deep breath, I climbed the steps and entered the house.

              It was brightly lit on the inside, and the TV was buzzing merrily. The smell of something baking made my stomach growl, reminding me of how very hungry was. I’d wasted a very fine cupcake on Brenda Curtis today, after all.

              “Take a seat on the couch and I’ll fix you something to eat,” the woman insisted. “I’m Henrietta, by the way. This is Gerard, my husband. Make yourselves at home!”

              Asher and I were herded onto the couch while Henrietta and Gerard went into the small kitchen behind us. Whispering, I nudged Asher with my elbow, “I haven’t seen a phone anywhere, have you?”

              He shook his head. “No, but I don’t think they even have one.”

              What? Who lived in this century and didn’t have some sort of communication with the outside world?

              Henrietta and Gerard returned, laden with trays of mouthwatering food. Once they set it down, I dug into the pasta, pausing to thank them with my mouth full. “Tank Phoo,” I said, and Henrietta chuckled.