.2.
Picked Up
Just before sunrise, clouds lumbered off to the northwest. I shivered in my damp clothing and stepped onto the glistening onyx ribbon of road to consider my options: one, follow it to civilization and risk running into Ted or his crew, or two, risk a slow death by turning from the road into the dehydrating desert.
I couldn’t tell how far I was from where I had started, and didn’t want to risk meeting anyone along the road once the sun had fully risen, but before I had made a conscious choice, I heard the gravelly clicking roar of jake breaks as an 18-wheeler slowed and stopped in the twilight behind me. Someone dropped from its cab to the pavement – a vague dark silhouette against the smudgy horizon. My foot took a sliding step away.
“What’re you doing out here? Car die?” He stood in a ring of light that beamed from the open door onto the concrete. The diesel engine waited, purring like a monstrous content feline. “You alright?”
I turned and sprinted from the road, but in my haste, tripped. Letting out a shrill cry, I curled onto my side, cradling my elbow. I could hear the truck driver calling after me, could hear his rushed footsteps nearing. I strangled a moan and tried to get back up, but by then he was close enough that I could make out his facial features. The concern that etched his brow gave me pause so I stilled.
He pulled up beside me, bent at the waist, his hands on his knees, hanging his head while he panted. Putting out a hand, he said, “Wait. There’s nothing but desert that way.” His breathing calmed some. He straightened, humor crinkling at the outsides of his eyes. “I don’t move as fast as I used to,” he said and patted his stomach. “Come now, where’re ya goin’?”
I didn’t want to cause this man grief. If Ted found me, this man would not be spared, but as my eyes scanned my sparse surroundings, I didn’t see a better option.
“You hurt?” He knelt and reached for my arm but his fingers stilled at the sight of blood and my angry red skin. “Oh – wow. Might need to get that looked at.”
Panic again surged through me. I couldn’t go to a hospital – I’d had enough medical procedures to last four lifetimes. They’d never understand. I’d become a circus act or something they kept in a cage, studied in the name of science and then curiously dissected after they got bored with my silence.
When I cringed at his attempt to help me up, the man straightened and held out his arm as if to show the way back to his truck. “I don’t like doctors much either. I’ve a first aid kit in the cab.”
“I’m fine. You should go.”
He stilled. “Miss? Miss, you don’t look fine and when the sun really gets ta shining, you won’t be fine out here.”
I studied the lemon light of dawn then settled on him. Wide strong shoulders that made him look shorter than he likely was, youngish, big hands and a face not unpleasant but not handsome. A few days beard growth on caramel colored skin. A tad on the heavy side. I cut my eyes at him.
He must’ve been considering what I was seeing because he smoothed his wayward hair and offered me a smile.
“I’m not a safe companion.” I grimaced, hearing how I’d been unable to keep a tremor from my voice.
“But you need help. Don’t make me leave you here. I can call someone for you.” A soft look in his eyes made me almost trust him. “I’m not accustomed to leaving damsels out in the desert. It goes against my grain.”
“Really – I’m fine.” I got up, dusted my seat off but took a quick step from him when he neared.
He lifted empty palms. “Wait – don’t run.”
“You don’t understand. I may get you killed. Leave me here. I’ll manage.”
His forward movement stalled and he tilted his head at me. “I’m for sure not leaving you now. Come on. At least let me help with that gash.”
He eyed me for a second longer then nodded as though making a decision and turned from me. He took a few slow steps towards the noisy truck. As if he believed me a flight risk, he half turned to assure himself I was following like he would have with a hungry puppy that is fighting between its instincts and the gnawing pain in its stomach.
While the wound still seeped through my fingers, I followed, but at a distance like that distrustful puppy, a lightheaded feeling ballooning my caution.
Disappearing into the truck cab, he reappeared only moments later with a red plastic first aid kit in a large hand. When he dropped to the ground from the high step, his eyes moved about and found me sitting on a little flat rock about fifty feet from the truck. When he placed the kit beside me on the rock, he snapped it open while he said, “I’m Nate, by the way.”
I stared at his tanned hands as they began pulling out what would be needed. The fingers stilled. I lifted my eyes to his face to see his widen. I looked behind me and seeing blurry figures there, I lurched to my feet. Black spots crowded out my vision and in a stomach-flipping moment, I realized I was falling.
•
Oranges. The smell brightened my face. My oldest sister had hidden a basket of them in a little beach house. For my coming of age day, she snuck me onto shore and into that cute little place. Dad had churned the sea more than once in response to Daniella’s rebellious spirit but she was my idol – exactly who I wanted to be. While Dad searched for us, we were in that cozy place with sticky goodness dripping from our chins while we giggled and talked. My mind drifted and then sharpened. Where was I?
The smell permeated my nostrils but was mixed with a myriad of others, not all recognizable. The noises weren’t familiar either. My eyes opened.
Light pierced into the small space past a dark curtain to reveal neatly stacked goods resting on shelves behind netting above faux wood cabinets. I sat up. Pushing away the striped comforter, I put feet to the vibrating floor.
A low tinny voice crackled, saying something about a parking-lot ahead. Then I heard someone drinking and a painful thirst pushed me to the edge of the curtain.
With only momentary hesitation, I slipped through the opening. A vaguely familiar man occupied the seat before a massive wheel. He glanced quickly aside at me, smiled a greeting and said, “Afternoon.” He gestured towards the passenger seat then his attention returned to the road. When I sat, he said, “Glad to see you awake. Wasn’t sure if I should start getting worried.”
My swollen fingers managed with the seat belt.
One of his hands left the wheel and opened a yellow cooler that rested on the floor. Foggy wisps like dry ice escaped when he pulled out a large bottle of water and offered it to me. “How’s the arm?”
Thirst scratched my throat, but I clutched the water with both hands and turned my eyes to the road. “Fine. Thank you.” The bottle beaded with condensation that dripped onto my raw skin. I jerked when it burned me and it jumped from my hands onto the floorboards.
“You alright?”
I retrieved it from the floor with my sleeve. “Yes.” But I felt rising panic. Who was this man? Did he save me from my captor or had those figures been someone else?
The CB sputtered in what sounded like a foreign language and I stared at it.
He noticed my bewilderment, reached up and twisted a knob, effectively silencing the voices. He glanced to the bottle I hadn’t opened then to my face before returning his attention to traffic. “Want something else? I’ve got orange soda or some blue sports drink if you’d prefer.” His hand waved to indicate the cooler. “Help yourself.”
“Do you have any salt?”
“Salt?” His brow wrinkled then he shrugged. “I think so. It’d be in the pantry.” He jerked a thumb back across a shoulder. “Second cabinet on the left.”
I slipped back through the curtain with the precious bottle of water. Finding a small container of salt behind other spices in the cabinet, I sighed with relief. Pouring half of it into the water, I returned it to the pantry. I would’ve liked to put more in, but didn’t want to use all he had if I had just traded a stationary prison for a moving one.
Re-capping the water, I shook it, hoping the salt would dissolve fast, and returned to the seat. Peering at him from the corner of an eye to be sure he wasn’t watching and clinching my teeth in anticipation of pain, I stuck my pinky finger into the liquid before trusting it enough to my tender lips. My shoulders relaxed when it didn’t sting. In a quick impatient movement, I lifted the bottle and took great gulps of the life-giving saltwater.
“Gracious girl! Slow down. How long’s it been since you had anythin’ to drink?”
Ignoring the question, I continued pulling at the bottle until the last drop. Rejuvenating power pulsed through my body. Waves of warmth soothed my singed skin, knit the wound on my arm.
“Dang!”
I could feel him staring, but closed my eyes until the waves of healing lessened.
The truck went over a rumble strip and then again as it returned to the road.
“Uh, what just happened?”
I wasn’t sure how much to say. How much did he need to know and how much would put him at risk? As a species we had been among humans for thousands of years, but we generally kept a low profile. Turning an appraising look on him, I knew I didn’t want to put him in danger if I didn’t have to, but he might need to know what he was likely to come up against. He’d been kind to me and wouldn’t deserve the sort of cruelty that my captor would bring upon him if it was found out.
“What do you mean?”
Scoffing, he said, “Yeah, right – like you didn’t… Um, ok.” He pressed himself back in his seat and stared out at the road.
For at least a half hour afterwards, only engine and road sounds filled the truck cab while it barreled down the flat highway. With relief, I could feel the pull of the tide a bit stronger than before and it helped to settle some nerves knowing we were moving towards the coast.
I felt him glance aside at me a few times and then his shoulders relaxed and he chuckled. “We’re about to come to a rest station. You want to call someone to come pick you up? I’m on a schedule, but can drop you somewhere if you want. Might could ride by a police station if you’re in some kind of trouble.”
My hands knotted in my lap. “Where are you going?”
“Gotta drop my load at the port and bobtail back before Thursday.”
With arms wrapped around myself, I considered options: ride with this man to the coast and perhaps into the waiting arms of Ted, who surely knew I’d go straight to the water as quickly as I could – or stop at the rest station and start walking again. The later would be safer for Nate but…
“Back where?”
He sent me a quick side glance then said, “Alexandria.”
An exit sign blurred past; engine breaks vibrated the seat. I squeezed my fingers tighter together while he deftly navigated the exit ramp and parked. Without turning the rig off, he opened his door but before slipping from his seat, he paused to look over at me. “It’s a long haul back to Louisiana, but you could ride along if you want.”
When I nodded, he offered me a smile then dropped out of the cab. His disembodied voice drifted above the engine and highway noises. “You comin’?”
When I didn’t answer right away, I felt the cab rock as he gained the step so he could see me over the driver’s seat. It had been years since I’d been around anything remotely like a crowd and I could see people everywhere. Was Ted among them?
“I won’t be able to stop for a restroom again for several hours.”
My hands strangled the seatbelt while I watched a man with sandy hair and darkly tanned skin walk across the decorative gravel near the building.
Nate glanced at the stucco building then back at me. “Ok. I get it. Can I grab you anything? They have snack machines and probably hot coffee, though I can’t vouch for the quality of that.”
I closed my eyes and took a calming breath. “Coffee sounds nice. Um, do you have a hat and maybe a jacket I could use?”
He climbed one more step and pointed. “Sure. Back there. No jacket, but there might be a long sleeve in the duffel. Hat’s probably hangin’ up somewhere.”
I found the shirt quickly and slipped it on. The hat I found poking out from under a stack of books with titles like Indoor Gardening and A History of Ancient Egypt. The black ball cap had a yellow fleur de lis on it and sweat stains around the brim, but I shoved my hair into it and twisted it down onto my head. A tight fit with all of my hair in there – maybe I should’ve let it hang out the back, but this would work.
“Good?” he called.
I emerged from the back. “I think so. Thank you.” I got out and squared my shoulders. I can do this. They probably won’t even notice me. An arid breeze tickled my neck with stray hairs that refused to hide while I tentatively followed Nate. No one seemed the least bit interested in me but I kept my eyes averted all the same.
He stopped abruptly once we were in the shaded walkway on the side of the building. In a low voice he said, “Sweetie, women’s is that way.” He lifted a subtle finger. “Meet me back at the truck in a bit?”
That’s when I realized I’d been about to follow him into the men’s room. Nodding, I backed a few steps then looked around. Women loitered with kids, friends, men. Two little boys and a toddler were running through the decorative gravel area near a raised flower bed that sported some prickly pear and other such plants. Someone put change into a vending machine. No one seemed nervous. Surely I was over reacting. Ted wouldn’t have stopped here. He would know my desire to get home as fast as I could. To get to my father. No. He’d be waiting for me at the coast but he couldn’t know where I would try to get into the water.
Avoiding as many people as I could, I hurried in and out of the restroom, and then seeing Nate entering the main building, I went back to the truck. The shade was nice on the passenger side of the truck but I felt like I was smothering in the heat so I took off Nate’s shirt and carefully hung it on the top most lug nut of the tall front wheel. The cap pressed against my already aching head so I pulled that off too and let my tangled hair fall wild down my back.
“Excuse me?”
I looked around. Was someone talking to me?
“Young lady?” A smiling gray-haired woman waved a hand at me from beside a blue mini-van.
Stiffly, I lifted my palm.
“Would you help me? This is so embarrassing but I’ve dropped my phone somewhere in here and I can’t find it.”
I swallowed trepidation and walked across the blazing pavement.
“I had it in a pocket earlier so I’m hoping it’s somewhere around my seat and not at the last convenience station we stopped at.”
Looking where she indicated, I moved aside a few books and a tube of lipstick. After several minutes, I found it embedded between the seatbelt reservoir and the side of the seat. It was tight, but my hand just fit into the space.
When I drew it out, the woman clasped her hands together in a kind of relieved happiness. “Thank you! Oh, thank you.”
She accepted the phone from me but when I turned to go back to Nate’s truck, she whispered, “Are you in some kind of trouble?”
My breathing hitched and my eyes riveted to her face.
“If you need some help, me and my husband are going to Los Angeles but can take you somewhere safe if you need a ride.”
“Thank you, but I am alright.”
“Sweetie, you look terrified of something. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”
I took a step back. “Really. I’m fine.”
“I saw him coax you out of that truck earlier. I want you to know that I won’t judge you if you’re in a tight spot. I’ve seen my share of those in my life and have done things I’m not proud of too.” She closed the space between us and grasped my hand. “How about I at least give you something to eat?”
She pulled me around to the back of her van and lifted the hatch. “We’ve got lots of snacks.” She laughed at herself. “My husband says I always pack too much, but doesn’t complain while he’s eating his Little Debbies.”
Although I was hungry, I wasn’t sure if I could eat with nerves constantly turning my stomach, but her kindness warmed me so I thanked her and accepted a bottle of water and a bag of salty chips.
“Wait. One more thing,” she said, reaching into a pocket. “My number is on the back of this. If you change your mind, please call.”
I accepted the glossy pamphlet, folded it and pressed it into a pocket, and was about to say something when the woman’s face lit up and she called out, “Ted. Ted, this sweet young woman helped me find my phone!”
My heart dropped. Twirling around, I saw an unfamiliar man nearing us and though I knew he wasn’t the person who had imprisoned me for so long, my chest squeezed. My foot slid back, almost without me telling it to. I sprinted to Nate’s truck and clambered up the steps. My fingers slipped on the door handle and I nearly fell but balanced, opened the door, and got into the cab all the while trying not to hyperventilate. Once the door was closed and I was inside the purring monster of a truck, I started to calm a little, but then the cab rocked and the other door opened. I hopped up and pressed myself against the far side of the cab.
“So, the coffee isn’t all that great. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s at least two days…” Nate’s comments trailed off as his head appeared above the drivers seat. “Are you ok? What happened?”
Panic still pulsed through my veins and spots crowded my vision. Was I ok? No. Not ok. Never ok again.
Nate’s door was still open and I heard the woman’s concerned voice behind him. His attention momentarily turned to her and I heard him say something but I couldn’t process the syllables enough to understand.
He placed a coffee cup onto the dash and then leaned out of the cab returning with his cap and shirt, the bag of chips and the bottle of water. Nate thanked her and after a few other exchanges he closed his door. Placing everything aside, he looked at me for a few quiet moments before asking, “What can I do?”
My shaky knees dropped me back into the seat and I covered my face, still trying to slow my breathing. How did I think I could do this? Home. I had to get home. My family would protect me and after they found out how Ted had treated me they’d banish him and I’d truly be safe again. Or they’d banish me for going with him in the first place.
I closed my eyes, focused, and breathed out for as long as I could, held it and then let air rush into my lungs. I did this three more times and then calm started to come back. When I finally dropped my hands, I found Nate turned towards me in his seat, his forearms on his thighs, his hands clasped, his head bowed.
“I’m sorry.”
His head bobbed up. “For what?”
“I…”
“It’s ok. I know you’re having a rough time. I just don’t know how to help.”
“You’re doing it.”
He smiled at me and I felt myself half-mirror it.
After a beat, he took a deep breath and said, “Well, that was a nice lady.”
I agreed while we strapped in and he began to move the rig again. He didn’t speak while he navigated the long merge lane but once he had maneuvered into traffic and brought the truck up to speed, he casually said, “So, wanna share those chips?”
So - are you still with me? What do you think about the story so far? Are you wanting to continue reading?
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