Brooke

The burger tastes amazing, juicy and salty on my tongue. God, how long has it been since I had a burger? It feels like forever, those two strawberries a distant dream.

I don’t want him to see how good this is for me, how desperate I am. I want to swallow the entire burger, that’s how much I want this. Except then he’d know. I can feel him watching me, weighing me. I can feel his gaze on my skin like a brand, hot and possessive.

We’re going through woods now. Some kind of backwoods road.

I need to get away, form a plan, push back for once, but I don’t know how. Do I try to fight him? Or do I somehow smash through my window? Dive out of a moving vehicle and run? In a full-length gown?

The headlights catch a wooden sign for a hiking area up ahead. The sign is cut ragged on the edges to look rustic. Disney rustic. We’re in the state park, I realize. “I was here once,” I say. “With my Girl Scout troop.”

“Don’t.” His rumbly tone makes my chest tighten. Even his voice is overwhelming, taking over everything.

“Don’t what?”

“Try to humanize yourself. It doesn’t work on people like me.”

I want to tell him I wasn’t doing that—I wasn’t doing anything at all, just saying a thing that came into my mind—but he probably won’t believe me, and I don’t want to get him angry. I’ve seen him angry. I mouth the word okay and take another bite, hating myself for wanting the burger more than anything else in that moment. Gluttony, my mom would call it.

Some of the juice drips down my chin. I wipe it quick, embarrassed. “Sorry,” I mumble out of habit, feeling him watching.

I can’t imagine how I must look in this torn dress, stuffing my face. I should have stood my ground about the burger. My mother would have refused, even if she were starving.

I take another big bite and close my eyes, enjoying the comfort and satisfaction of food entering my belly. A better person might not taste it. A better person might be focusing on her circumstances, but this burger is the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I take another bite. I chew, eyes closed. I swallow the goodness. I’m dissolving in rapture.

A rough sound comes from the driver side. I risk a look, steeling myself for the judgment in his eyes, the condemnation. I’m so used to this that it shouldn’t hurt, but it always does.

His face is in the shadows—all I see is the unruly outline of his black hair. Suddenly the glow from the headlights reflects off his face. The breath goes out of me. It’s not judgment I see. It’s something else.

I look away quickly, feeling as if I saw something I should never have seen. Something new in his eyes. Hunger, raw and feral. My heart pounds the way it did back in that alley, when I was listening to the thwaps.

I reach into the bag and grab some fries, stuffing them into my mouth. I don’t even care.

Something bad’s going to happen, and nothing matters anymore…and the fries are warm and salty and delicious. I’ve been hungry forever. This is my last meal, the one he chose for me.

And it’s perfect.

The dress cuts into my stomach, squeezing me. It’s a vise grip, squeezing the life out of me, but I can’t stop eating. There’s not enough room in this dress for food or life, barely even room for breathing, but I don’t care.

For a second, it’s just me and this rich, greasy, forbidden meal and not him looking at me like that. I stuff more fries into my mouth, ravenous. Screw it—I’m eating all of them.

Tears in my eyes. I’m a mess. For once it doesn’t matter.

I make a tray on my lap with the bag, and I squeeze ketchup all over the fries and eat them that way. The road gets really bumpy just around the time I finish my meal.

I force myself back to reality. Everything’s dark around us, no lights at all except for our headlights. I see something glint up ahead, and I realize it’s the river.

The road stops at the river. Whatever’s going to happen, it’ll happen now.

And that’s when the buzzing in my head starts. This animal buzzing—maybe it’s panic. I can’t get a breath. He stops the van at the river’s edge, and I’m gasping for breath.

He looks at me. “What’s going on with you? What’s wrong?” He sounds angry.

“I can’t breathe,” I gasp. “I can’t get a breath. This dress. I shouldn’t have…” I try to suck in air, but I can’t. I press my hands to my belly. “No.”

He’s got this strange look on his face, like he’s alarmed, like I’m a wild animal trapped in his car with him. Isn’t that funny? Like I’m the animal. I would laugh if I could breathe.

“It’s too tight…I shouldn’t have…”

“Loosen it.”

“I can’t just…” I feel dizzy, crazy. Suddenly heavy hands are on my shoulders, turning me, pushing me to the door. His fingers are at my back. He’s unzipping my dress. The sound echoes through the tiny space. “No,” I beg. “Please don’t.”

“Shut up.” He yanks the zipper all the way down to the base of my spine. I feel the cold on my skin, the release. The rush of air into my lungs.

I hold the front of the dress to me and turn, shrinking back, as far away as I can get from him in this tiny space. I stare at him, eyes wide, backed into the corner where the seat meets the door.

“Better?”

I just watch him. “Are you going to rip the rest of my clothes off now?”

He snorts. “Any dress that makes you choose between breathing and eating isn’t worth wearing.”

“I’d rather keep it on.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to rip it off you.”

I keep it at my chest, heaving breaths. I don’t believe him. I can’t.

“I’m not going to rip it off you,” he repeats. “Okay? That’s not where this is going.”

“Where is it going?”

He moves his hand to the armrest on his door. Everything slows. I jerk as a pop at my back tells me he just unlocked the doors. “Get out.”

I watch him, afraid to move. What will he do to me outside?

“Do it. Get out. And don’t even think about running. You won’t like what happens. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “You really won’t like it.”

With shaking hands, I open my door. He opens his, eyes on me. I start to climb out.

He’s one step ahead of me, shutting his door, a devil in black.

The van’s still running. He left it running. What does that mean? That he’s going to kill me quick? That I’m not even worth turning the engine off for?

He’s walking around the front, quick steps in the glare of the headlights. He freezes and turns my way, alarmed, as though he just realized something.

It’s like a cord is connecting us—in that instant I know what he’s thinking. I could slide over. I could take the van.

And I do.

I slam the door behind me and scramble to the driver’s side to lock him out. I yank the front of my dress up as I settle into the driver’s side. I’m shaking as I release the parking brake. I kick off my heels and fumble for the pedals.

I’ve taken driver’s ed, but I don’t have my license yet. Still, I know where stuff is. Get it in reverse! I tell myself. Press the brake pedal. Find the shift thing and get it in reverse!

He bangs on the window. I find the brake and grab the shifter. Something grinds as I get it in reverse.

He’s pounding on the window. No—punching it.

The van jerks to life, and I’m backing away. I’m going fast, driving crazy, but I’m doing it— backing the way we came. I see him illuminated in the headlights, running after me, powered by pure fury.

I can’t let him catch me now. I won’t like what happens—he promised as much.

I keep going backward. I can’t see anything. I’m hitting and crunching things. He’s catching up.

A loud clunk. My neck jerks as the van slams to a stop.

He’s closing in. I shift into drive and move forward. He jumps to the side as I pass, but then he’s back, driving his fist into the passenger-side window over and over. The glass breaks with a crackling sound.

I step on the gas, but he’s got the door open. No!

He gets in, smashing over me like I’m not even there. He jams his foot over mine, onto the brake. He shifts it into park and gets out, yanking me right out with him by the arm.

“That wasn’t smart at all.”

I clutch my dress to my front as he shoves me forward.

I fall onto something hard—a downed tree, maybe. He’s right there, picking me up.

I kick and struggle, but he just lifts me into the air, squeezing me so tight against him that I can’t do anything at all—one arm under my knees, holding my legs together, and one around my shoulders—and he’s somehow got my arms pinned together.

“No,” I beg.

“Shhh,” he says.

“Help!” I yell. “Help!”

“Nobody’ll hear you out here, little bird,” he says, sounding almost sad. Not angry at all, like I expected. He killed the other guy out of anger, but me he’s killing out of sadness. It pours out of him as he walks to the river, carrying me there. “That’s what you’re like, you know? A pretty little bird and you keep singing, thinking someone’s going to understand. But all we hear is a song.”

I hear the slosh of the water around his feet. He keeps going, eyes dark, fixed up above, like he’s concentrating really, really hard on the moon.

“Please.”

“Stop talking.” Still he stares at the moon, wading into the river. He keeps walking, deeper and deeper. I gasp when the water hits my bare feet. He seems to clutch me a little tighter.

He’s going to drown me.

I struggle with everything I have, but it’s like fighting steel.

He doesn’t react to the cold, rushing water at all, just goes deeper and deeper. I feel its icy fingers climb my bare back where the zipper to my dress gapes open. I hold him tighter.

I get a new idea—I won’t let him go. He can’t drown me if I don’t let go of him. But then I realize he probably can. He can do anything.

If he goes deep enough, he’ll be able to breathe and I won’t. I’ll drown and die, clinging onto him.

And then I’ll die and stop clinging to him. And he’ll let me go.

No—he’ll let my body go. I’ll just be a body.

I kick and fight for all I’m worth, but he just clutches me harder. My pulse races. It’s the weirdest thing, somebody killing you while they’re holding you so tightly.

I try to remember the last time somebody held me so tightly, and I can’t. Certainly not my parents. Things have been bad with them for a long time. Halfhearted hugs and air kisses. My friends would never hug me like this, with every muscle.

Just this guy. And he’s murdering me.

So this is what you have to do to get a hug around here? I think wildly. You have to die?

My face is hot, and I realize I’m crying. I push my face to his shirt, which is still warm. A weird last consolation, like the food, clinging to my own killer.

He’ll be watching the moon, still. He won’t ever look at me again. Nobody will ever see me alive ever again. They’ll just see my body. The water is up to my waist and knees, up to his chest.

I imagine floating off, my dress billowing out around me, floating off. They’ll find my body mostly naked. “Can I ask you one thing?” I say.

“No,” he growls.

“Please?” I say. “Can you zip my dress back up?”

He stops walking. “What?” The water rushes around us, freezing.

“I don’t want them to find me…”

He stands still for so long I think he doesn’t understand. Or maybe he’s not going to do it. Why would he? Then he turns and goes to the shallower water and sets me down. Water rushes around my ankles. He looks at me hard. “Hold up your hair.”

I hold up my hair and turn around. He pulls my zipper up a tiny ways, or at least he tries. The zipper won’t budge. He tugs at the dress, trying to get the two sides together, just like my mom did a world ago. But the sides won’t come together, and the zipper keeps cutting into my back. He swears, and I hear a snap and see the flash of metal. I suck in a breath and pull away, but he has my dress, and he yanks me back. There’s a rip and a snap again. And then the sound of a zipper going up.

He cut the dress. I imagine a tear down the back of it. But at least I won’t be naked.

“Thank you,” I sob.

He presses down the sides to get it looking more together, I suppose. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck.”

We stand like that for a few seconds that may as well be an eternity. I’m lost in the harsh sounds of our breaths. Isn’t it strange how they mingle, even though he’s working against me? Even though he’s about to extinguish mine? All I can feel is the cold water at my legs and his hands hot on my hips.

The world goes upside down as he hauls me up over his shoulder.

And carries me out of the river.

He sets me down on the bank and stands over me, dripping wet, burning green eyes rimmed with thick black lashes. “You remember what I said about your phone? It’s still in the front seat of the van.”

I’m huddled at his feet. I don’t know what he’s saying.

“How I could kill all the people you called last? Remember?”

“Yeah,” I say, shivering in the cold.

“But there’s a chance I won’t kill them. If I read in the news about a girl found in the woods. She witnessed a murder outside her party, but she didn’t see the guy’s face. She tried to call 911, but he came up behind her and he put a bag over her head—a pillowcase or something. He drove her here, and she got away. That’s all she knows. She remembers nothing. She never saw this.” He points to the white scar design on his arm. “She definitely doesn't do something stupid like tell the cops what really happened when they promise to keep it out of the paper. Because he finds out.”

It dawns on me slowly. I don’t know why I take so long to get it, except that I’m freezing from the river and in shock from the violence—and full for the first time in years.

He’s going to let me go.

It doesn’t feel real that he would take me captive. It feels even less real that he would let me go.

“I won’t,” I whisper. “I won’t tell.”

I don’t know whether I’m telling the truth. I don’t know what I’ll say if my mom and dad are looking at me, if a police officer is asking me questions. It’s a future that may never happen. It’s more of a dream than even this.

He must see uncertainty in my eyes or hear it in my voice. He shoves large wet hands into my hair and pulls me up to face him. His grip brings tears to my eyes, but I don’t whimper. I don’t fight.

His mouth is close to mine. Almost like a kiss, that’s how close.

Is this how you get your first kiss?

I can almost feel his lips, his breath tactile against mine. We’re both breathing hard, both fighting. I know why I’m fighting—for my life, for tomorrow. For a future I can barely imagine. I don’t know why he’s fighting, why he could kill that old man but not me.

His voice is low, fierce. “I’ll find them, but I won’t kill them right away. I’ll kill them slow and I’ll make you watch.”

The images flash through my mind, my mother on the ground, my father bleeding. My friend Chelsea crying, bewildered. Thwap.

And only then do I know for sure—I’ll never let that happen.

I grip his arm. It’s still wet from the river. My hand is wet too. We’re slick together, but I hold on tight. This is important. I need him to understand how serious I am. I need him to see that I mean it. “I swear to you—” My voice is trembling but not with fear this time. With determination.

The intensity in his stare doesn’t lessen one bit. He gives me a shake with my hair.

I know what he wants. “Your scars,” I say on a gasp, because the pain in my scalp burns. “I’ll never tell a single soul about your scars. I swear to you.”

I don’t bother swearing to God. I think a man like him doesn’t have faith in anything.

He’s studying my eyes, hands tightening around the back of my head. He’s not sure. Second-guessing his decision. I can’t let him do it—I can’t.

I’m good in school, an A student. This is what we do in school—we get told things and tell them back. I do it now, just for him.

“I was hiding, calling 911, and he came up behind me,” I whisper. “He put something over my head and forced me into a vehicle. One of the vans, maybe. We drove around forever. I was so scared, I don’t remember anything, or how much time passed. Nothing. He said if I took it off, he’d kill me.”

He watches my eyes. “He stopped and got out once, but that’s all you remember.”

“He stopped and got out once,” I repeat. “I don’t know where we were. That thing was over my head.”

“They can’t make you tell something you don’t remember,” he says.

“Okay,” I say.

“Did you hear any other sounds?” he asks.

This is a test, just like they have in school. I can do this. “That’s all I remember.” I let the hysteria I feel creep into my voice. “We just drove around and stopped once.”

“He let you out here, and you whipped the sack off your head and ran.”

“I whipped the sack off my head and ran.”

“What direction?” he asks, fingertips digging into my skull, gemlike gaze fixed on my face.

“I don’t remember,” I say.

“Did he chase you?”

“I don’t know. I ran.”

He releases me. I stumble back, fall onto the mud.

He just watches me. “The people you love are counting on you to keep that up.”

I swallow, afraid even to move. He has no reason to leave me alive, no reason to trust me. Even if he believes I mean what I’m saying, he can’t be sure I’ll keep my word. Leaving me alive is a risk. He’s a stranger, he’s an animal, but he’s taking this risk to let me live.

Something drops by my hand onto the riverbed, a clatter of metal on plastic. I don’t look down.

I’m afraid to know what he’s left me.

“Find the nearest woman,” he says gruffly. “Tell her what I told you.”

He turns and walks away without a single backward glance. The van makes a turn as it pulls from its perch, headlights flashing onto me, lighting up my torn dress and blinding me all at once. For a second I think this might be it, that he’s decided to run me over instead of drowning me. Then the van turns away. It jolts and bounces its way back onto the road. In a matter of seconds, the red taillights fade into nothing.

It’s surreal, being out here alone. Like this really was a bad dream.

My ruined dress proves otherwise.

A laugh bursts out of me, hysteria and grief and leftover fear. I’m not safe yet. I still have to get out of here. I have to hope I don’t run into some man who would take advantage of my state. Find the nearest woman, he told me. As if he was worried about my safety.

I look down at the small silver thing on the white river rocks. A knife. He left me something to protect myself with. As if somebody like me knows how to use a knife.