Leather & Lark: The Ruinous Love Trilogy (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, 2)

“Don’t hold your breath,” I yell to the man in the sinking car as he pounds on the window and begs for my mercy. “Get it?”

I don’t think he heard me. But that’s okay. I just smile as I wave with one hand, my gun trained on him with the other in case the window budges and he manages to slither his way out.

Fortunately, the pressure of the climbing water makes it nearly impossible for him to escape, and in mere moments, the vehicle is submerged. Bubbles burst in the black water as the car slides beneath the gentle waves of Scituate Reservoir. The headlights point to the stars, flickering as the electrical connections succumb to the flood.

“Well, shit.”

This isn’t good.

Actually, it’s kind of amazing. But it’s also a giant pain in the ass.

I chew my lip and watch until the lights blink out and the surface goes still. When I’m sure everything will stay silent, I pull out my phone and open the contacts. My thumb hovers over Ethel’s number. She’s always been the one I’ve called when things have gone tits up. Admittedly, a car casket at the bottom of a lake might be a little beyond the usual definition of tits up, even if the timing wasn’t already making it impossible to ask for Ethel’s help.

With a sigh, I select the number just above hers instead.

Two rings and he picks up.

“Meadowlark,” my stepdad chimes on the other end. I roll my eyes and smile at his use of my childhood nickname.

My wary tone is his first indication that something might be amiss when I say, “Hi, Daddy.”

“What’s wrong, sweetheart? Is everything okay?”

“Sure …”

“Did someone puke on the carpet?” he asks. It’s safe to assume he’s had a few drinks at his own Halloween party if he hasn’t already clocked that there’s no thumping bass or raucous voices in the background from my end of the line. “I’ll have Margaret arrange some cleaners for you first thing. Don’t worry about it, honey.”

A final, damning bubble erupts from the lake like an exclamation point. “Umm, those aren’t really the cleaners that I need …”

The line goes silent.

I swallow. “Dad …? You still there?”

A door closes in the background on his end of the line, muffling the laughter and voices and music. My stepdad’s unsteady exhalation is the next thing I hear. I can almost picture the way he’s probably rubbing his fingers across his forehead in a futile attempt to channel some chill energy. “Lark, what the fuck? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m totally fine,” I say, as though this is just a minor inconvenience despite the balled-up, bloody T-shirt I press against my hairline where a deep gash throbs. My smile must be bordering on deranged. The Harley Quinn costume and twenty layers of makeup I’m wearing probably don’t help either, so I guess there’s more than one reason to be grateful that no one is around. “I can sort it out if you just give me the number.”

“Where are you? Did Sloane do something?”

“No, not at all,” I say, my voice firm, my smile instantly gone. Though I hate that he would jump to the conclusion that my best friend is at fault, I swallow my irritation rather than unleash it. “Sloane is probably holed up in her house with a smutty book and her demonic cat. I went away for the weekend. I’m not in Raleigh.”

“Then where are you?”

“Rhode Island.”

“Goddammit.”

I know what he’s thinking, that I’m too close to home for a fuck-up of this nature. “I’m sorry, truly. The car just …” I reach for the right words to explain, but only one surfaces. “… sank.”

“Your car?”

“No. Mine is …” I glance over my shoulder toward my Escalade, the smashed headlights glaring back at me. “Mine has seen brighter days.”

“Lark—”

“Dad, I can sort it out. I really just need the number for a cleaner. Ideally one with a tow truck. And maybe some scuba gear.”

His laugh is hollow. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“About what part?”

“All of it, hopefully.”

“Well,” I say as I lean over the rocky drop to peer down at the water, “we might be able to get away with someone who can snorkel. I don’t think it’s that deep.”

“Jesus Christ, Lark.” A long-suffering sigh permeates the line. I loathe the feeling of disappointment. It’s as though he’s standing right next to me with that look I’ve seen so many times before, the one that says he wishes I could do better but he just can’t bear to break my heart by saying it out loud. “Fine,” he finally says. “I’ll give you the number for a company called Leviathan. You’ll need to give them an account code. But do not give them your name. Not over the phone, not when they arrive. They might be professionals but they’re dangerous people, honey. I want you to send me a text every thirty minutes to let me know you’re okay until you get home, understand?”

“Of course.”

“And no names.”

“Got it. Thank you, Dad.”

A long silence stretches between us before he finally speaks again. Maybe he wants to say more, to call me out, ask some uncomfortable questions. But he doesn’t. “I love you, sweetheart. Be careful.”

“Love you too. And I will.”

As soon as we hang up, I receive a text from my stepdad with a phone number and a six-digit code. When I call, a polite, efficient woman answers and takes down my details. Her queries are direct and my answers are minimal. Are you injured? Not really. How many dead? One. Any special requests to facilitate cleanup? Scuba gear.

When she’s relayed all the terms and conditions and payment details, I hang up, then turn back to my Escalade where the cooling engine ticks beneath the crumpled hood. I could wait inside the vehicle, where it’s warm, but I don’t. This crash is going to take a toll on my already fucked-up sleep schedule, so it’s not like I need to sit in the wreckage and conjure more nightmares. Even still, it was worth the consequences to watch that piece-of-shit predator sink to the bottom of the reservoir.

Another locust exterminated.

When a friend from back home in Providence mentioned rumors of a pervy teacher at her little sister’s high school, it didn’t take long for said pervert to take the bait on my fake social media accounts. Before long, he was asking for photos and begging for a meetup with “Gemma,” my teenage alter ego. And I thought, Hell, why not? I can come home for a visit, party for Halloween, and get rid of some vermin. Technically, I guess I was successful, though I hadn’t really intended to run Mr. Jamie Merrick into the water. I was hoping to force him to the side of the road and shoot him in the face, find a worthy trophy to take, and then leave him there like the piece of trash he is. Unfortunately, he seemed to catch on that he was in trouble and nearly got away. I guess I gave him a big clue with my failed attempt to shoot out one of his tires when he refused to pull over. Cackling maniacally as I waved the gun out the window probably didn’t help either.

It might sound surprising, but it’s actually not that hard to get away with shooting someone on a deserted road and driving away. Problem is, it’s a little harder to cover your tracks when part of your car is imprinted on part of theirs.

On the plus side, ramming that asshole’s vehicle into the lake does have more theatrical flair.

“Everything will work out better in the end,” I whisper as I use a coin to loosen the screws from my rear license plate. The front plate is a crumpled sheet of metal—I already picked it up from the road. When I’m finished, I drag my coat out of the Escalade and pull on a pair of gray sweats over my tiny shorts and fishnet tights. With my gun safely holstered in my bag, I gather the paperwork from my glove compartment before I toss the strap over my shoulder and close the door.

For a moment, I just stand at the steep bank of boulders where Jamie’s car flipped and catapulted him into the afterlife. His face is so clear in my mind, illuminated by my headlights in the instant before the crash. Wide, panicked eyes. Curly blond hair. His mouth agape in a silent scream. He was terrified. He knew he was about to die and had no idea why.

Shouldn’t I feel bad about it?

Because I don’t. Not at all.

I blink away the determined fury that still lingers in my veins and grin at the watery grave ahead. “Sometimes karma needs a backup bitch, don’t you think, Mr. Merrick?”

With a satisfied sigh, I stride toward the rocky shore.

I text my stepdad to let him know I’m okay and set a timer for the next message. Then I climb the jagged rocks until I find a spot out of view from the road. With my hood tugged up over my pigtails and my body aching from the crash, I lie down on one of the granite boulders and stare up at the sky, a perfect place to wait.

And wait I do.

For almost three hours.

The occasional vehicle passes by during that time, though they can’t see me where I’m wedged in the shadows of the boulders. None of them stop to check the Escalade. I managed to park it next to the ditch perpendicular to the lake before it thoroughly died, and unless you’re on the lesser-used road and really looking, the damage is hard to see. So when a vintage car with a rumbling engine approaches slowly and rolls to a halt next to my SUV, I notice right away. My heart thunders beneath my bones as I remain crouched between the rocks to watch.

My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown sender.

Here.

“Short and to the point,” I say to myself before pushing to my feet. My head spins a little and my legs seem wobbly at first, but I manage to keep my shit together as I approach the car.

The engine cuts out. I hold my bag to my body with one hand inside, my fingertips resting on the cold handle of the gun.

When I hesitate in the center of the road, the door creaks open and a man steps out, his muscular body sheathed in a black wet suit. A mask covers his face so that only his eyes and mouth are visible. His build is powerful but every movement is graceful as he approaches.

My hand tightens around the gun.

“Code,” he growls.

I rub my head with my free hand as I try to remember the numerical sequence that I’ve repeated to myself several times since my stepfather gave it to me. With this strange guy staring me down, it takes a moment longer to remember than it probably should. “Four, nine, seven, zero, six, two.”

I can barely see the man’s eyes in the moonless night, but I can feel them as they slide from my face to my toes and back again.

“Injured,” he half-whispers, as though he’s purposely trying to make it sound as though he’s swallowed gravel.

“What …?”

He strides closer. I back away but I don’t make it more than three steps before he’s caught my wrist. Thoughts of my gun evaporate as his palm warms my cool skin, his touch unyielding yet gentle as he flicks a flashlight on and points it at my hairline.

“Stitches,” is all he says.

“Okay … well, those weren’t readily available,” I reply.

This earns me a grunt, as though it’s my problem that I haven’t stitched up my own head wound.

I give my arm a swift tug but he holds on. My attempt to twist free of his grip is futile too—he only holds my wrist tighter before he shines the light in my left eye, then my right, then back again.

“Unconscious?” he asks.

When I narrow my eyes and crinkle my nose in an unvoiced question, he taps me on the head with his flashlight.

“Ouch—”

“Unconscious?” he says again, his tone commanding even though it’s barely more than a whisper.

“You mean, did I pass out? No.”

“Nauseous?”

“A little.”

“Concussed,” he declares, his voice a gritty stamp of two syllables. He drops my wrist as though I’m contagious and then turns away, striding toward the intersection where I sped through a stop sign to T-bone Jamie Merrick’s car.

I wobble after the man as he keeps the light pointed to the asphalt. He doesn’t tell me what he seems to be looking for, but I assume it’s pieces of the vehicles left behind from the impact.

“I’ve never had a concussion before. Could I fall into a coma?” I ask as I catch up to him, following close on his heels.

“No.”

“Do you think I have a brain bleed?”

“No.”

“But how do you know for sure? Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“Oh good, because your bedside manner sucks.”

The man scoffs but doesn’t turn around. When he lurches to an abrupt stop, I nearly face-plant into his back. I’m so close that I can smell the lingering scent of the sea on his wet suit. It doesn’t take much effort to imagine the broad span of muscle hiding beneath the thin layer of synthetic rubber that separates us. Should I be wondering if he also surfs, or what he might look like peeling off the saturated fabric at the beach? Probably not. But I am.

I pull my imagination away from picturing his irritatingly athletic body and focus instead on the slow sweep of his flashlight as it pans across the road from one ditch to the other and back again.

He points the light toward his feet and goes still, as though he’s been snared by a thought that won’t let him go.

And the longer he stands there, the easier it is to remember that he’s kind of a dick.

My mind might be a little disjointed and slow right now, but all too soon I come back around to the facts—this guy is a single-word asshole who’s dropped some unqualified, grunted diagnosis on me as though it’s totally nothing to worry about.

Concussed, he’d said.

“What if—”

“Drunk?” he snarls as he whirls on me.

I blink at him. Rage kindles in my chest. “Excuse me?”

“Drunk?”

He leans forward. Our faces are inches from each other. My simmering fury becomes fucking pyroclastic when he sucks in a deep breath through his nose.

I shove him with both hands. Christ, it’s like trying to topple a marble statue. He leans back from my personal bubble but only because he wants to, not because I made him.

“No, I’m not drunk, you one-word asshole. I haven’t had any alcohol at all.”

He huffs.

“Well? Did you smell any when you were all up in my face sniffing my breath like a fucking psycho?”

That earns me a snort.

“Exactly. So thank you for your totally unnecessary judgments, Budget Batman,” I say as I flick a dismissive hand toward his neoprene unitard, “but I would never drink and drive. I’m not much of a drinker, actually.”

He rumbles what might just be a relieved growl. “Right.”

“And I’ll have you know that I’m an adorable drunk. Not an accident-inducing drunk.”

“Accident,” he grunts, and though it’s only one word, the sarcasm in his tone is undeniable. He gestures around us with the flashlight. “No skid marks.”

I snicker. “Wh … what marks …?”

A frustrated sigh spills from his lips. “Skid. Marks,” he snarls, and I clear my throat in a failed attempt to contain my amusement. “There should be skid marks from where you tried to stop.”

This time I can’t hold it in—I laugh out loud. And even though Budget Batman is wearing a mask, I can feel his flat glare on my skin.

“I know you’ve probably been living under a rock with all your other salamander kin, but it’s from a movie. Hot Fuzz. Skid marks. You know, the one with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost …? Timothy Dalton ends up impaled on the church spire in the miniature village? So funny.”

There’s a long beat of silence.

“Come on. The longest sentence you string together in your whisper-growl Budget Batman impression is about skid marks and you expect me not to laugh?”

“He’s not big on talking,” another voice calls out in the night.

There’s a flash of movement to my right. Before I can even turn, Batman’s arm wraps around my waist, pulling me behind him. My bag drops to the ground and my face smacks into the neoprene-coated brick wall that is Batman’s back.

“Motherfucker—”

“Put the gun down, bro. It’s just me,” the new voice says, interrupting the barrage of expletives I was about to unleash. New guy chuckles and Batman loosens his grip on me. Now that my head has stopped spinning, I make sense of what just happened. As though on instinct, he put himself between me and danger, keeping me out of sight.

I peer around Batman’s shoulder to see another masked man standing a few feet away. His hands are raised in surrender and his stance is nonchalant despite the gun my protector points at his chest.

My gun.Belonging to NôvelDrama.Org.

“You fucker, that’s mine. Give it back.”

Budget Batman scoffs when I tap his bicep as the gun lowers to his side.

“No,” he says, then walks away.

He leaves me in the dark as he approaches the new guy, my bag discarded at my feet, the contents of my unzipped makeup pouch strewn across the asphalt. The two men speak in hushed tones and I catch the occasional sentence as I gather my belongings in the dim light. Tow her vehicle … Body’s in the lake … Was probably on her phone. Just a dumb accident …

A dumb accident.

My cheeks heat beneath the cake of white makeup. The urge to snap back with the truth is so strong it chokes up my throat, but I swallow it down and drop to the ground to gather the contents of my spilled bag, shoving everything inside as I shoot glares toward the two men that they don’t see.

And would it really matter if I set them straight? These guys are professional cleaners. They fix messes for people much more creepy and dangerous than me. I’m sure they’ve seen it all, from legit accidents to torture to everything in between. What harm would it do if they knew the truth?

But it’s a confession I can’t risk getting back to my family. They might not be the squeakiest and cleanest of people, but I have a role to play, and while chaos agent might fit the bill, murderer definitely does not.

So I plaster on a sunshine smile, hoist my bag up my shoulder, and stride over to them.

“I’d hate to interrupt this little budget superhero whisper party, but we should probably get this show on the road, don’t you think? It’s four hours and twenty-two minutes to sunrise,” I say with a flick of my focus to my watch. When I look up, the new guy’s head tilts as though he’s surprised by my quick calculation. Probably justified, given the dubious first impression. When I shift my gaze to Batman, his eyes are a narrow slash behind his mask. But I square my shoulders and raise my chin beneath, armoring myself against his judgment. “Well? The sooner we fix this, the sooner we never see each other again.”

“Works for me, Blunder Barbie,” my wet-suited Dark Knight snaps. I catch the cadence of an accent despite his attempt to hide it, though I can’t place its origin.

“Don’t drown, Budget Batman. What would Rhode Island do without your exemplary customer service skills and your empathetic medical diagnoses?”

The new guy snorts as I cross my arms and engage in a staring contest with Batman that feels about six years long. He finally relents and shoves my holstered gun at his sidekick with strict instructions to not give it to me. Then he turns on his heel with a huff and stalks toward his car to retrieve his scuba gear.

The new guy and I watch in silence as our disgruntled companion checks his tanks, hauls the gear to the shore, exchanges boots for flippers, and descends into the black water.

“I’m Conor,” my new companion says, not taking his eyes from the lake as he extends a hand in my direction.

“Badass Barbie,” I reply, accepting the handshake. “Also known as Harley Quinn, here for one night only.”

“I figured. Cool makeup.”

“Thanks. Not sure your friend would agree. Is he always such a dick?”

“Most of the time. Yes.”

“Great.”

“Usually he’s more of a piss-taking, button-pushing kind of dick. Tonight he’s just more of a dick-dick.”

“Multifaceted in his ability to be a dick. Good to know.”

Conor snickers and passes me the gun, but he holds it until I meet his eyes. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Cross my heart.”

“And if anyone gives you trouble, shoot them,” Conor says. I nod and he relinquishes his hold on the weapon. I pull it from his grasp with a slow and careful hand. With a final, assessing look, he turns to stride away down the deserted road.

“What about if it’s your friend who gives me trouble?” I call after him.

“Definitely shoot him. Just aim for the kneecaps. The rest of him might still be useful.”

I smile and slip the gun into my bag before I turn my attention to the lake. I can see the soft glow from a waterproof flashlight beneath the rippling surface. It’s not long before the sound of an engine approaches and a tow truck pulls up to my Escalade. Conor works efficiently to get it hooked up, and as soon as he finishes, he heads to the shore to wait for his companion.

It’s only a few moments after that when a body rises to the surface, followed by my disgruntled Dark Knight.

My heart rate spikes as he spits out his regulator and folds an arm around the corpse to tow it to shore. I find myself fiddling with the strap of my bag as I watch his progress. In this brief meeting, the scrutiny in his eyes has been like a brand on my skin. Even now, though I can’t track his gaze from this distance in the night, I can still feel it carving me up, a slice from an unseen blade.

Why should I care how he looks at me? What he thinks? He knows nothing about me or what this is or why it had to be done. He doesn’t know about the promise I have to keep.

“He’s a fucking stranger,” I tell myself out loud when my thoughts just aren’t enough. “After tonight, you’ll never see him again.”

I take a few steps forward to watch as Conor helps to heave the body ashore while Batman climbs out of the water to ditch his gear on the rocks. When he’s done, they hoist Merrick’s corpse into their arms, Conor grabbing hold of the limp legs while Batman takes the arms. With a few grunts and minor stumbles, they make it to the road, dropping the body at my feet.

For a long moment, there’s only the sound of their panting breaths.

The two men watch me. I watch them back. A thick curtain of silence descends. It’s as though they’re waiting for me to break out in a song and dance routine, but I’ve forgotten all the lyrics. I can’t remember this choreography or what I’m supposed to do.

Conor’s head tilts, and the epiphany strikes me in the face.

I press a hand over my heart and gesture toward the body sprawled across the road.

“Oh … my God … that’s so horrible … what have I done …”

More silence. An owl hoots from the shadows of the forest.

“Such a tragedy …” I continue as I dab at my dry eyelashes. “So sad … I will never forgive myself.”

“Feckin’ Christ Jesus,” Batman whisper-growls. “Typical.”

“Excuse me?”

“Typical,” he says again, striding forward to stare down at me. “You’re somebody’s perfect little princess who gives literally no shits about some innocent guy who got caught in your path of destruction.”

The protest I start making about Merrick’s “innocence” is lost as Conor slides a hand across Batman’s chest in an attempt to diffuse him. “Hey man, come on—”

“Always depending on someone to come and clean up your feckin’ messes for you,” Batman continues, growling his way through Conor’s wary protests, his accent surfacing once again. “Sailing through life with barely a mark, no matter who gets in your way.”

I surge forward and eliminate the distance between us, stopping so close that I can smell the sweet mint of his breath above the scent of the lake water. My expression is nothing short of lethal as I glare into his masked face. “Would this be a good time to remind you that I am your client? Or later? This is your job, remember?”

“No, it’s not.”

“But I thought you were a fucking cleaner.”

“You thought wrong, Blunder Barbie.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I have no feckin’ choice.”

Batman gives me his back as he bends to pick up Jamie’s slack arm, hoisting the corpse onto his shoulder with a grunt. When he draws close to me with a glare, I don’t flinch, though my heart etches my bones with every hammered beat.

“You don’t know me,” I hiss.

His glare sears my skin. “And I don’t want to,” he says.

I watch him walk to the tow truck with the body slung across his shoulder. My eyes never stray from his form as it slips into shadow, not even when Conor stops at my side.

“I’m sorry about him,” Conor says, his voice low and quiet as he clutches the back of his neck with a gloved hand. “He’s just … yeah. It’s not been a good night for him. I know it’s probably hard to believe, but it’s nothing personal. And he’s just been doing this too long, I guess.”

I nod and peel my gaze away from the tow truck where Batman is busy wrapping the body in plastic and then a blanket. Though I hear his labored grunt as he hoists Merrick into the back of the vehicle, I keep my attention on the forest. The trees beckon me to find a quiet place where I can sit with my thoughts. Maybe I could find some peace, if the world fell silent, just for a little while—

“We’ll come back with the boom truck tomorrow night and get the car out of the lake. I’ll clean up anything left on the road tonight,” Conor says, interrupting my fleeting fantasy. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, but I don’t look his way. “Batman there … he can be rough around the edges, but he’s as solid as they come. We’ll get it done. We’ll make sure nothing links you to this place. No records. No evidence. Soon it will be like the whole accident never even happened.”

“Right,” I whisper, but my smile is fleeting. If it was supposed to reassure him that I’m totally fine, it failed. When I glance in Conor’s direction, I can see the concern flicker in his eyes, even though the rest of his features are obscured by his mask. I try a little harder with that smile of mine. “What accident, right?”

“That’s right,” he says with a laugh. He probably thinks it’s just a half-hearted, lame joke when he walks away to help the disgruntled Dark Knight fetch his scuba gear from the rocks and place it in the car. And though a faint trace of a smile lingers on my face, waiting for when they both pass by, I feel more alone than ever beneath it.

Budget Batman tosses the wet suit into the open trunk of his vintage Dodge Charger. He’s gotten changed into a pair of black jeans that hug his muscular thighs, a long-sleeved black shirt, and a fresh ski mask. He pulls on a fresh set of leather gloves and strides toward me as I resist the urge to clutch the gun that hides in the confines of my bag.

“Time to go,” he grits out as he draws close to where I plant my feet in the center of the road.

I cross my arms. “How about, ‘Time to go, please.’ Or, ‘Shall we depart? My Batmobile awaits, fair maiden.’”

There’s a steady rumble on the cool breeze. For a moment I think it’s a distant vehicle approaching. Maybe one with a shitty muffler.

But no.

It’s him. Growling.

I back away but he plows into me. In a nausea-inducing flash of movement, he tosses me over his shoulder and spins, and then my guts are bouncing against his bone and muscle as he stalks toward the vehicles. I catch my belongings before they fall, and the urge to shoot him in the ass is nearly as irresistible as the one to vomit down his back.

“Let me the fuck down.” My efforts to whack him are just as futile as everything else I try, from squirming to swearing to attempting to trip him with my giant bag.

“Sure thing, you feckin’ catastrophe.”

In one swift motion, I’m plopped down hard on my ass with my legs dangling out of the trunk of his car.

“Absolutely not,” I snarl. I try to shimmy out of the trunk but it feels like my brain has been sucked out of my head and replaced with soup. Everything sloshes. My thoughts. The world. The contents of my stomach. It takes too long to remember how to make my limbs work. By the time I do, Batman has me caged, his gloved hands braced against the base of the trunk on either side of my legs. The edges of his thumbs touch my thighs. He takes up all the space around me, and even though I close my eyes, his presence is everywhere. I smell him, mint and lake water. I feel the warmth of his breath on my face. When I meet his gaze his marine-blue eyes are the first thing I lock on to, their intensity amplified by the black ski mask that frames them.

A lump lodges in my throat. The tremor starts in my arms and creeps toward my hands. “Please, you don’t understand,” I say.

“In.”

“No.”

“Now.”

“Please,” I whisper. “Not in here. I’ll go with the tow truck.”

“No, you won’t. Not with the mountain of evidence my colleague will be taking out of here. And I’m not going to risk you being seen sitting up front,” Batman grits out.

“That sounds extreme and more like you just don’t want to sit next to me.”

Batman shrugs and leans an inch closer. There’s barely a thread of space between us. His eyes drop to my lips, which are smeared with thick makeup, painted crimson and black. “I guess you’ll never know,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “But there is no other option.”

My nose stings but I refuse the sudden temptation of frustrated tears. I’m not going to cry, not in front of this asshole. If he feels my knees shaking, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He just leans closer, his eyes hooked to mine. I know he won’t back down. And he can see it too, the moment the realization truly settles in my veins.

My shoulders drop. “I’m begging you,” I whisper.

“You’re not doing a very good job of it, I’m afraid.”

“You really are a dick.”

“And you want to get out of here as much as I do. This is your only ride out, so you’d better keep quiet,” he says, and then his hand is on my head, pushing me down with gentle pressure as the other guides the lid down behind me, forcing me into darkness until I squeeze my eyes shut. “When we get to Providence, I’ll let you out and you can cause havoc on your own time. Until then, try to behave yourself.”

The trunk clicks closed. My eyes open to the total darkness. My heartbeat thunders in my ears. The tears I hid from him come full force now as I curl my body into a tight ball and hug my bag to my chest, Batman’s discarded wet suit damp against the top of my head. I pull the arm of it down to rest across my forehead where a film of congealed blood and white makeup and sweat begs to be scraped from my skin.

You’re okay. You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay. You know what to do.

I repeat my mantra until my panicking breaths slow just enough to pick up the sound of the muffled words exchanged between Batman and Conor. It’s a clipped and pragmatic conversation. My hope that Conor will talk some sense into his friend is a fleeting one, because a moment later the driver’s door creaks open and slams shut. The engine starts with a growl, and then we’re rolling away.

I need a new plan.

I harness my fury to stay focused as we maneuver around a couple of gentle turns and settle into a steady speed. When I’m sure Batman must feel confident that I’ll behave myself, I bang my fist on the roof of the trunk in a riot of flesh against metal.

“Not sure if you’ve heard this before, but you’re a total asshole,” I yell, tears still leaking from my eyes. My banging becomes a percussion to punctuate my chant. “Ass-hole, ass-hole, ass-hole.”

“Pipe down,” he snarls before applying more pressure on the accelerator.

“Come make me, I fucking dare you.” I bang again, and he finally turns the music up to drown me out. The moment it’s on, I soften my blows and protests, and then I let them fade away.

When I’m satisfied he thinks he’s won this round, I turn on my phone’s flashlight and rummage in my bag.

My maniacal cackle is drowned out by the engine and music as I pull out the screw-in whammy bar for my Jackson guitar with my sweaty, shaking hand. I may have been born a Montague, which comes with its own set of batshit-crazy history, but I’m a Covaci too, and my stepdad taught me all kinds of useful tricks, like how to break free of cable ties. How to tie a hangman’s knot. How to load a gun.

And how to escape the trunk of a vehicle.

The vintage latch is a little tricky, but on the plus side there’s probably no warning light on the mechanical dashboard to tip my crusty chauffeur off when I manage to pop it free on the third try. I hold on to the mechanism to keep the trunk’s lid open just enough that I can watch the road fall away behind us. We’re still in the middle of nowhere—no traffic, no pedestrians, hardly any houses. It’s just the forest. Me and the dark and the red taillights that bleed into the black night.

The car slows. The driveshaft disengages as Batman shifts gears and brakes. The taillights brighten. One blinks, signaling a right-hand turn.

I pop the lid just enough to slip free of the trunk before we’ve rolled to a stop. It’s not a graceful dismount. I smash a knee on the asphalt and tear a hole in my sweats. The exhaust fumes spill across my face when I kneel behind the bumper. I gently hold the lid down so that he won’t notice it in the rearview. The old hinges are stiff enough that it doesn’t spring open when I lessen the pressure. I can’t close it completely, but if Batman doesn’t spot me as he turns, I might have enough time to disappear.

The lights dim as he takes his foot off the brake. With a growl and a puff of gray smoke, the engine revs. The car coasts around the turn and rolls away.

I linger for just a breath of time, crouched on the empty road. And then I rise, wipe the cooling tears off my face, and walk away in the opposite direction.

You don’t know me, I think when I cast a final glance to the car before it disappears around a bend.

And he’s right.

He doesn’t want to.