People do stupid things in moments of desperation. Loneliness only increases that level of idiocy. And it seemed I was drowning in hopelessness and suffocating on isolation, because picking a girl up from a gas station and offering to drive her over a thousand miles away was downright reckless. Probably the only smart thing I did was ask to see her driver’s license to verify she wasn’t a minor so I wouldn’t be charged with kidnapping on top of everything else I would more than likely face. Granted, she’d offered up her ID; that hadn’t been my idea. So yeah, I couldn’t even take credit for that.

The second I’d noticed blood on her face, I couldn’t walk away. My one weakness, my Achilles heel, was a battered woman. Granted, at the time, I wasn’t sure Maggie could’ve been considered a “woman.” I was almost positive she was sixteen or seventeen. Eighteen wasn’t much better, yet at least legally, she was considered an adult. Regardless, that was beside the point. She was hurt, and I needed to help her.

“So, this was your boss’s car?” Maggie interrupted the powerful rumble of the engine with her sweet, angelic voice that I could listen to forever. I almost prayed she’d spend the entire drive talking so I could memorize the soft dips and raspy lilts in her tone.

“Yeah. We had worked on it together for the better part of a year. Some customer dropped it off and signed it over so he didn’t have to deal with it. I guess he’d been one of Tony’s customers for years or something, not sure. Anyway, he gave it to Tony and told him to use it to get us kids off the streets.”

“Were you some kind of troublemaker or something?”

I shouldn’t have laughed; it wasn’t funny, but the way she asked was cute and harmless. “Eh…” I shrugged and forced myself to keep my eyes on the road, fighting the desire to admire her in the dark. “I guess you could say I was when I first got there. Tony had a way of straightening us boys out. He gave us a purpose, a reason to show up and work hard every day.”

“That’s awesome. I’m so sorry you lost him; he sounds like a great guy.”

“He really was. Unfortunately, he worried more about us than he did himself. You better believe he was on our asses to see a doctor if we got sick, yet that man would go forever with a barking cough, saying it just needed to run its course.” I shook my head with a laugh, unable to forget the best parts of him. “He used to tell us he was a man, so he could handle it. We had to go to a doctor because our balls hadn’t dropped. To him, we were just kids.”

“If you don’t mind me asking…how’d he die?”

I gave in to the need to see her and turned to the side, finding her eyes glued to me. It was an inappropriate time to smile, though I couldn’t help myself. “From what we were told, it was a chain reaction. Ultimately, his lungs filled with fluid while he was asleep, and in a sense, he drowned. They also said his kidneys failed, and apparently, it’s possible that caused the other thing. I don’t remember the terms—they didn’t mean anything to me.”

“That’s gotta be a horrible way to die.”

I split my focus between her and the road several times before saying, “I’m not too sure of a good way to die.”

Maggie shifted in her seat enough to twist her body to face me. “No, I just mean drowning. Like can you imagine how awful that would be? Breathing is more than instinct; our bodies do it naturally. Have you ever tried to hold your breath past the point of needing air?”

My chest rumbled with laughter. “Uh, no. Because I’ll pass out.”

“Exactly, which is your body’s natural reset button.”

I scratched my cheek and allowed the sound of the tiny hairs crackling beneath my nails to create a melody for my thoughts. “You wanna be a doctor or something?”

“Not particularly. Why? Is something wrong?”

“Depends… Would you try to fix it if there was?” I couldn’t keep the smile out of my words.

She was quiet for a second, as if actually contemplating it. “Well, there’s a small chance I might know what it is and could maybe suggest ways to make it better. If not, I’m great at using Google—except, there are some scary things on those medical websites. And if it’s really bad, I’d probably make you find a hospital.”

“Then I guess I picked the right person to sit shotgun in my car, huh?”

“I’m fairly useful in a lot of situations.” Her teasing tone curled my lips, and I found myself once again wishing we weren’t in the car, at night, so I could study her.

Maybe it was a bad idea to offer her a ride. It shouldn’t be this difficult to keep my eyes on the road. I practically had a mental mantra going: she’s too young. Granted, she was eighteen—which didn’t make me feel any better about it. I still had five years on her. Add in that I had no idea who the hell she was running from, and there was a good chance this would end in disaster.

I needed to change the subject—away from all the ways she could be useful. “Aside from Florida, where are we going?”

“Um…” Her hum vibrated through me, somehow overshadowing both the reverberation of the engine and whirr of the road beneath the tires. “Wherever. I’ve always dreamed of going to New Orleans to see Bourbon Street. Oh!” She abruptly clapped her hands when something occurred to her, startling the shit out of me. “If we go there, can we stop by a cemetery? All their graves are above ground, and I think that’d be really cool to see.”

She grew quiet when I didn’t respond right away, and I was almost too scared to look her way for fear her silence was more than simply waiting for an answer. So rather than turn my head, I flicked my gaze from the road then back toward her several times, only catching the sight of her out of the corner of my eye. Even though it was too dark to see her expression clearly, her posture was enough to show she was embarrassed.

“Never mind. Forget I mentioned it.” Her voice had gone so soft it was almost a whisper. “This isn’t a vacation. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I slowed down so I could split my focus between driving and her, and leaned into the console that separated us. I had no clue where I was headed, other than south, and somehow, I was more lost in our conversation than I was in my directions. “Where’d that come from?”

There was something about Maggie I couldn’t figure out. She had moments of strength and power, where she came across as someone who could hold her own, with bouts of vulnerability sprinkled in. Then there was the shy side of her, when she seemed almost too scared to ask a question. And when she mentioned New Orleans with such an excited, childlike demeanor, I was once again reminded of her age. But now, it was like witnessing her shut down, pulling a veil over her face to hide her humiliation. As much as I longed to hear her story, find out more about her, I figured we had plenty of time on the road for that.

“Nowhere. It was stupid.” And this was the defiant side of her embarrassment. “You asked where else we were going other than Florida, and I guess I got caught up in thinking about what options we had.”

I’d meant where specifically in Florida, though I had no desire to correct the misunderstanding now. There was no need to further mortify her, and at this point, I doubted she’d be able to laugh at it.

“Okay…” I started, hoping the words would come to me as I went. I wasn’t used to this kind of thing. I typically hung around guys—most of whom struggled with staying out of trouble—not dealing with female insecurities. “I asked a question, you answered it. So why take it back?”

“Because, Talon…it was dumb. You were probably asking about pit stops, where to stay for the night. Not places to go sightseeing.” She shifted in her seat again, this time, turning to face the windshield. So far, this feisty side of her was my favorite.

I wasn’t sure how to respond, and more than likely, anything I said would be wrong. So rather than comment, I resigned myself to focusing on the pavement in front of the car. I could’ve asked her to pull up a map so I’d at least have an idea how far out of the way I was going, though I chose to wait it out and check for myself when we stopped.

We had to have gone thirty miles without uttering a word to one another, which only made the drive feel more like a hundred. I thought she might’ve fallen asleep, except every time I glanced her way, she had the side of her head pressed against the window with her eyes open, watching the night fly past her.

“I’m not sure how much farther I can go without sleep. We kinda got a late start, so I haven’t been able to get you very far.” I hoped she’d at least smile, but I got nothing.

Instead, she picked up her head and looked at me for the first time in half an hour.

“Would you object if I pull off at the next motel?”

We’d made it to the interstate. At least here, I had an idea of where to go; although if I had to take one connecting highway to another, we were shit out of luck.

“That’s fine. I could use some sleep.” And then she went back to not talking.

I wanted to believe her silence was brought on by the late hour—exhaustion didn’t make me very talkative. Yet that was more than likely wishful thinking on my part. I figured we could stop for the night, get a few hours of rest, and then head out again in the morning. Hopefully, the sun would bring about a different side of her than the one I was trapped in the car with.

About ten miles later, I exited the interstate and followed the signs for lodging. The first one we came to was a chain, so I kept going. If we went a little farther into this town, I was sure we’d come to one that accepted cash.

“What was wrong with that one?” Even if I hadn’t noticed her posture become straight and rigid, I would’ve heard the panic in her voice. So far, I must not have given her a reason to question my motives, and passing a motel in a desolate part of town gave her one.

“Sweetheart, you said someone was looking for you, right? Motels run by chains require identification and a credit card to rent a room. I mean, I can turn around; I just figured you’d rather not take the chance. If they report you missing, I’m pretty sure the first thing they do is check bank records to see where you’ve used your card.”

I had slowed down even more than the low speed limit, waiting for her response. She was quiet for a moment, likely contemplating the risk. I refused to tell her why I couldn’t use my license, so I hoped the threat of her being found would be enough to make her opt to continue.

Finally, in a small voice, she said, “You’re right. I didn’t think about that. So then where should we go? Will we have to pull over and sleep in the car? If so, don’t you think a rest stop would be safer than like…” She looked out the window. “Than a Walmart parking lot?”

“There should be a place around here. If not, I’ll turn around and head down the interstate a little more until we find a rest area. But I don’t think we’ll need to do that.” And about a mile later, we found a place. I pulled in and said, “This is what I call a hoe-tel.”

She stared at me in confusion for a moment. “I don’t get it.”

“Prostitutes typically frequent places like this, because most of the time, they offer rooms by the hour.” I shrugged and turned off the engine. “Cheaters use them, too. They don’t require a credit card, so I guess they appeal to the assholes who don’t want their wives finding out when they pay the bills.”

“Which side of that spectrum are you on? It’s obvious this information comes from experience. So are you the guy who pays for sex? Or the one who needs to hide it from someone else?”

I shook my head and pushed the car door open, laughing under my breath. The temperature had either dropped or the car had kept me warm, because as soon as I stepped out, a chill ran through me and embedded itself into my bones. I crossed my arms to ward off the shivers and met Maggie in front of the hood.

“Maybe I have knowledge about it from other people…not personal experience.” I smiled to show her it wasn’t said with malice, and I was finally able to breathe again when she smirked and lifted her brows.

“I’m sure they all say that.”

I held open the tiny lobby door for Maggie and then followed her in. A rough-looking woman sat behind a hard sheet of plastic—for her sake, hopefully bulletproof—and greeted us by lifting her gaze over the glasses perched low on her nose. If this didn’t make someone feel safe, nothing would.

“Hi, how are you?” I asked as I approached the speaker in the window. “We need two rooms for the night.”

“Sorry, we only have one.” Either she was actually a man, or this woman ate a pack of cigarettes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I turned to face Maggie, waiting for her objection. There was no way she’d be comfortable sharing a room with me a couple of hours after we met. Regardless of the fact that she’d accepted a ride out of state in my car, common sense should’ve told her to err on the side of caution.

To my surprise, she nodded and said, “Yeah, that’s fine.” Then she faced the attendant behind the glass. “It has two beds, right?”

“That’s right,” she answered with her attention on whatever she had in front of her. She must’ve been filling out something to rent us a room, because she stopped writing and told us how much we owed.

Maggie slid her bag around her shoulder and reached for the same front zipper compartment where her license had been located earlier. Before she could pull out her wallet, I stopped her by saying, “Don’t worry about it. I was gonna pay for my room anyway, so I got this one.”

Actually, I just didn’t want anyone to see where she kept her money. With it stuffed into the front pocket, anyone walking behind her could easily get to it. I hadn’t contemplated that scenario until just now, and in case anyone lurked around the corner listening, I decided to wait until later to warn her.

After I paid, the woman swapped the cash in the metal drawer for a key and pushed it through for us to take. Then she went back to whatever she did to keep herself entertained until the end of her shift. Luckily, there was a red, plastic tag attached to the key with a number on it. We headed outside and counted down until we found the room that matched.

The stench of stale cigarettes hit me like a brick wall as soon as I opened the door. Maggie covered her face with the sleeve of my jacket when we walked in, and I couldn’t fight the smile at the memory of catching her breathing in my scent off the fabric—several times.

“That smell’s gonna get into our clothes and noses. We’ll be smelling like an ashtray for weeks,” I said as I closed the door behind us. “Too bad we can’t crack a window or something to air it out. Between the weather outside and the possible crime rate in the area, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Yeah, I have to agree with you.” She drew her hand away from her face, and the magnitude of her disgust became evident by her curled upper lip and scrunched nose. “I’m sure we’ll get used to it in a minute.”

I wished with everything in me that I could’ve offered her something better, something nicer—hell, something cleaner. Unfortunately, the risks were too great. I told her she didn’t have to worry, that I had her and she’d be safe, yet there was no way I could ensure a word of that if anyone found out where I was.

One look at the beds and my skin practically crawled. I remembered talking with the guys at the shop one day about motel bedspreads, and I was pretty sure that conversation had been about real motels, not seedy establishments such as this one. Apparently, someone went around with a black light and tested however many bedspreads in however many different places all over the country, and they found that the very thing people slept under turned out to be dirtier than the floor. Which really, it made sense. A lot of the customers who stayed in places like these came for sex, and not the kind you got under the covers for.

“I think I’m gonna head up to that Walmart we passed and grab a couple blankets. Maybe a couple pillows, too.” We both stood at the end of each mattress and stared in disgust at the possible diseases that riddled the comforters. “Why don’t you go ahead and take a shower while I’m gone. I’ll hurry so you can get to bed soon.”

She nodded without taking her eyes off the invisible filth.

“Make sure you latch the top and use the chain lock, too. I’ll knock when I come back.” I headed to the door and waited for Maggie to snap out of the trance and follow behind me. I refused to leave until I was confident she was safe inside without me. Honestly, I was relieved they only had one room available. Otherwise, I never would’ve gotten any sleep. This area reminded me so much of home—and a girl her age should never be alone in a place like that.

As soon as I heard all the locks engage, I hopped in my car, making a mental note to grab another hoodie while I was there. And while I was at it, I also needed a package of boxers and a couple of extra shirts. I hadn’t planned to leave town so quickly, so I had nothing on me other than the clothes I wore and the money in my wallet.

And when I returned, I did so with far more bags than I’d intended—one sack included toothbrushes and body spray. If we ended up staying at other places like this one, we’d need something to rid ourselves of the stench.

I knocked twice before Maggie peeked through the curtain. Good girl. She may have ignored everything she was ever taught about safety when it came to me—hiding inside a gas-station bathroom together, getting into my car on the side of the road, sharing a room with a stranger—but at least she didn’t seem to be as reckless with the motel locks.

She opened the door and grabbed a couple of bags from my hand to help me in. She laughed when she set them on the tiny table next to the TV. “You said you were only going for blankets and pillows.”

“Yeah, but I remembered a few more things. I didn’t exactly wanna shower and then put on dirty clothes. Jeans are one thing, but everyone needs clean shirts.” As soon as the words left my tongue, I noticed her damp hair streaming down the front of my hoodie, and then my gaze fell to the pair of tight, ripped jeans she’d had on prior to me leaving for the store. “Why didn’t you change? Those jeans can’t possibly be comfortable to sleep in.”

She glanced down her body to her feet adorned with socks and shrugged.

I pointed to the backpack sitting next to the bed. “You didn’t pack anything to sleep in?”

“No…I guess I forgot.”

I dug through the bags and found the boxers I’d added to the cart, as well as the pair of sweatpants. “I was gonna wear these to bed”—I held up the pants—“but you can use them if you’d like. We can swing by on our way out in the morning and grab you something in case we have to stop again overnight. The only problem is, that means I’ll be in my boxers. If that makes you uncomfortable, you’re more than welcome to wear them and I’ll take the sweats.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No…you know what? I’ll just sleep in my jeans. You should at least get some decent sleep. You have enough discomfort to worry about between the cut and your swollen lip.” I tossed the sweatpants to her and continued to go through the shopping bags.

“You wear these. I can take a pair of boxers.” She exchanged them for the other.

Honestly, I would’ve rather her be warm, yet at this point, as long as she wasn’t sleeping in jeans that looked painted on, I couldn’t argue.

“Why’d you get cupcakes?” she asked and held up the package of treats.

“It’s your birthday, right? At least, that’s what your license said. Well…I guess technically, it’s past midnight, but we haven’t gone to bed, so it still counts.”

Her eyes lit up like a cloudless summer sky. “These are for my birthday?”

“Yeah. Except, I totally forgot candles. And a lighter.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, I couldn’t miss the sheen of tears that made the color brighter. “Thank you. That was really sweet.”

And just like that, another side of her came out. The humble side.

If I could, I’d pull it out of her every chance I got, because it was the one that made her the most human. In that moment, she wasn’t too young. She wasn’t shy or quiet, or defensive. There was no embarrassment shutting her down, either.

She was just herself.

She was just Maggie Abrams.

And I wanted to know everything about her.