Chapter 27 - Goldie Freaks Out
The next day, on her way home from work, Goldie cranked the Into the Woods original Broadway soundtrack up and rolled her window all the way down. The wind blew her hair across her face and whipped it around behind her. She’d have tangles galore by the time she got home, but who cared? She had her car back. She was an adult. She had a bear. Kind of. He was keeping her sister safe.
The winding mountain roads with their switchback curves and steep angles were a pleasure to drive in Pascal, and she felt her tense muscles release further with every breath of fresh air.
She had just turned onto Sycamore Road, could see the duplex’s twin mailboxes, when her phone chirped with a text. Goldie pulled into the driveway, put the car in park, and grabbed her phone. Speak of the devil’s daughter. It was Darby.
Another text came through as Goldie was unlocking her screen. Then another as she tapped on the text app. Another as it was loading up her contacts. Hold your horses, Darby. Jeez.
But what she saw made Goldie’s blood run cold. Short, frantic texts from her sister kept coming in, each one urgent sentence long: Some kid just brought me a note. Said a guy in the parking lot paid him $10 to deliver it. Same paper as before but this one is handwritten. Says to come outside and he will show me that we can finally be together. I can’t stop shaking.
Goldie’s heart started to pound and a low buzz filled her head. He was here? In Five Hills? At the diner? Oh sweet fancy Moses, he was going to get Darby. Snatch her. Kill her. Goldie texted back with fingers shaking so badly she could barely hit the right letters: Stay calm. Don’t move. I’m coming to get you.
She threw her phone to the side and slammed the car into reverse, tires screeching as she backed onto the road. As she put it in drive and hit the gas, a thought struck Goldie. She didn’t have to do this alone, right? She had help now. Flint had promised.
Keeping one eye on the road, she hit the speed dial for his number that Flint had programmed into her phone and listened as it rang. And rang. And rang. And shuffled her over to voicemail. Goldie’s jaw clenched. Figures. She tossed her phone into the passenger seat. She wasn’t angry. No. She was just disappointed.
Darby’s safety came before vampires, and if Flint wasn’t taking care of Darby like he’d promised… Goldie’d take the two of them somewhere where nobody could follow, and they’d never be let down again because they’d never ask for help.
Plans ratcheted up in her her mind. Just let me get to her in time, please. They weren’t going home to pack up Darby’s makeup and clothes, to grab her favorite boots or her art supplies. The book of photographs packed in Goldie’s go-bag, of her fairy tale sock collection and the little jewelry case from Tallulah’s bedroom. They’d have to leave it all behind. She knew she wasn’t being rational, planning to grab Darby and just… go, but she couldn’t help herself. Her greatest fear was playing out in front of her as she sped down the mountain road.
Goldie scrambled for her phone again, her finger stabbing at the button that would automatically dial her sister’s number. For once Darby answered on the first ring. “How long until you get here? Something is so weird. He’s out there. I can feel him, it’s so strange. Like I want to go to him but if I do he’ll… I don’t know, but I still want to go.”
Goldie kept her voice level. It was no good if they were both too keyed up to think straight. “I’ll be in the parking lot in sixty seconds. Stay on the phone. I’m going to pull up right next to the door and you’re doing to jump in the car. Okay?”
She could hear Darby almost panting on the other end of the line. “Got it.”
Gravel skittered under her wheels as Goldie pulled into the parking lot of the Bear Claw Diner and cast her eyes around the parking lot. She didn’t know what she expected to see; a man with a bomb strapped to his chest, holding a wedding dress in Darby’s size? But there was nobody. Plenty of cars, but no people she could see. “Dar, I’m coming straight in. Get ready to run.”
She squeaked the car in as close to the door as she could and put her fingers on the automatic door locks, ready to hit the button as soon as Darby was inside. A flash of pink showed through the glass on the front door just before her sister came tearing through, the door swinging so hard on its hinges it slammed off the outside wall. Darby ripped open the back door and dove inside with her head down.
Goldie was just about to pull away when a flash of platinum blonde hair caught her eye. Shiloh burst through the exit, gaze immediately lasered in on Goldie’s. The mysterious woman with the ripped body took one look at Darby in the backseat, slammed the car’s back door shut, and helped herself to the passenger side. “What the fuck, Goldie?”
But Goldie’s mind was reeling too fast to answer. In the seconds between catching sight of Shiloh and the car door slamming shut, she had realized what the woman’s presence meant: Flint hadn’t failed her. Darby had been protected the whole time. Too late to go back now.
Goldie put the car in drive and peeled out of her spot in front of the door, checking her mirrors and wincing as gravel kicked up on other cars in the lot, metallic pings ringing loud and clear over the sound of Pascal’s revving engine. Come on, baby. You can do this. Her little car wasn’t made for speed as much as reliability, the wheels skittering over the rocks until they found enough grip to move. Dust blown up from the clay underneath made it hard to see anything else behind her as Goldie got back on Wayah Road and headed north. Out of town.
Away.