Up in Smoke

  I’ve got to make a run into town for supplies, and I have to run an errand and check up on something too important to risk using the phone.

  I sure as shit am not taking Frankie with me, but I also don’t trust that she won’t gnaw her hand off to free herself from the cuffs while I’m gone.

  I go as far as to reach for my phone. This time it’s Morgan’s number I begin to dial.

  Shit.

  Without a shit-ton of other options, and not being too far from Logan’s Beach, I clear the screen and dial a different number.

  The greeting is exactly what I expect considering who it is I’m calling.

  “Yo yo yo! County morgue. You grill ‘em, we chill ‘em. You’ve reached Preppy. How may I service you today?”

  Even though I roll my eyes it’s good to hear a familiar voice. “Prep, it’s Smoke.”

  “Smokey! What the fuck, dude? I’ve been searching for you ever since you saved my ass in that hospital. Where the fuck you been? I thought you mighta got sucked into that mega sinkhole that swallowed up half of Highway 28.”

  “Still above ground. For now, anyways.”

  “You know, I’ve missed these really detailed conversations of ours,” Preppy says with an exaggerated sigh.

  “We can sing by the campfire and braid each other’s hair another time. Right now, I need a favor. I’m in the middle of a job. Need a babysitter for some cargo I’m toting.”

  “How big is this cargo?” he asks, jumping into business mode.

  I look back to the house. “In weight or attitude?”

  “Ah, it’s like that.”

  “Weight wise she can’t be more than a buck twenty, tops. And let’s just say she wouldn’t make it through a truck stop weigh in with the size of her fucking attitude.”

  “Noted. When do you need someone?”

  “ASAP, brother.”

  “Alright man. You got it. I’d come out myself except Taylor and Miley have been up nights and I’m on duty so Dre can get some sleep.” I hear a baby cooing in the background followed by another baby crying. There’s a crash. “Bo, what did I tell you about the kitchen knives!” Preppy shouts away from the phone.

  “Who can you spare?” I ask. There’s a shuffling on the phone. Another crash in the background. “Bo, if you’re making another fucking pipe bomb your mom is going to be really, really fucking mad. Like no TV for a week mad.”

  “Sowwy,” I hear a little sad voice sing.

  “It’s okay. Go play in the backyard, and I’ll bring your sisters out in a minute.” Preppy comes back to the phone. “Kids, you can’t live without them and you can’t leave them alone with household items they can create explosives from.”

  “Is that what the saying is?”

  “How the shit would I know,” Preppy says. “Text me the location, Smoke, and I’ll have someone out there tomorrow. I might have to dip into Bear’s bitches, but someone will be there for you, bro. It’ll be someone you can trust. I swear to that on a stack of motherfucking pancakes.”

  “Appreciate it, Prep.”

  “You know, I owe you more than sending someone out to help babysit even if you may or may not have allegedly abducted this someone. I owe you everything, man. You saved my goddamned life.”

  I shake my head. “I was just in the right place at the right time,” I say.

  “Yeah, whatever lets you sleep at night,” Preppy says, “Shit, I gotta go.” The phone sounds like it’s tossed down, but the line doesn’t go dead. “Bo, do not run that lawn mower over your…” his voice trails off.

  I hang up, tap out the location of the prison and send it over to Preppy. I dig into my pocket and pull out my smokes. I light one and take a long slow drag.

  I may not get close to people, not anymore and never fucking again, but you can’t make it in this world of ours, this life we chose, if you don’t trust someone every now and again.

  And just now, I’ve chosen to trust someone who named his daughters after fucking pop stars and whose son is the youngest on record to be on the FBI watch list.

  There ain’t many people out there who have my respect. Respect needs to be earned. Preppy’s got mine. The man might have a case of verbal diarrhea there ain’t no cure for, but he’s been through hell and back. He’s been tortured and brutalized the likes of which most folks can’t begin to imagine. Most men, the strongest of men, in both body and spirit, would’ve caved after that.

  Not Preppy.

  Not Samuel Motherfucking Clearwater.

  I take another drag of my smoke.

  Anytime I’ve ever worked with Preppy, he could get me to laugh about the stupidest shit, but right now, I feel like I haven’t really laughed in fucking years.

  I’m tired. Worn the fuck out. Revenge is fucking exhausting.

  I feel older than my thirty-five years.

  I pause because something about that doesn’t seem right. I double check the year on my phone and roll my eyes.

  Probably because I’m thirty fucking six.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I’ve been goingabout this all wrong. Escape isn’t a long-term solution. Not for me anyway. It’s impossible. I’m trapped inside a prison, after all. Human workers are long gone, but overgrown brush and mangled fences now stand guard watching over a single prisoner.

  Me.

  All I need is time. A few hours. Just long enough to get to a computer before I’m found out.

  Consequences be damned.

  Smoke’s on the phone on the front porch. He’s left me uncuffed so I can shower and change. I’ve only got a few minutes. I’m dressed in a pair of short black athletic shorts and a fitted, white, Beatles t-shirt from the storage container. I take an extra thirty seconds to rip the collar off the shirt so it hangs off my one shoulder just like my favorite Veruca Salt shirt.

  A shirt I’ll probably never see again.

  I look out the bedroom window. All I see are weeds. I climb up on the dresser and stand, craning my neck to see what might lie beyond the tangled green and brown mess. I see something off in the distance just beyond the prison fence, and unless I’m seeing things, I’m pretty sure it’s a roof top.

  Now, if I can just find a way out of this damn house.

  I shove my feet into my chucks and peek my head out the door down the hallway. I spot Smoke through the open front door. He’s still on the phone, puffing away on a cigarette.

  I creep toward the back door. It’s locked and, just as Smoke had warned, it’s also bolted shut.

  There’s got to be some other way out.

  There’s a potted plant in the corner. A plastic twin palm in a gigantic clay bowl. It’s not the tree that interests me so much, but what I see that’s hiding behind it.

  A plastic doggy door.

  No bolts.

  I use all the power in my legs and ignore the pain shooting down my spine as I dig my toes into the carpet and push the plant from the wall until there’s just enough room for me to shimmy behind it and crawl through.

  I have no time to celebrate my short-lived freedom because there’s an entire field of brush and debris to navigate.

  I make a run for it.

  Smoke

  The house is quiet. Too fucking quiet.

  I run to the bedroom, but I already know it’s empty. I dart back out and spot the plant and the doggy door, the plastic panel in the center flopping in the breeze.

  I’m calm as I grab my gun and walk out the front door. I’m whistling as I round the house and spot her stumbling across the prison yard.

  Game on, Hellion.

  I’m a product of sin and violence. I was born with rage sizzling through my heated blood. With every crack of my knuckles, it consumes me until it is me.

  I can’t be the good guy, and I don’t wanna be. Frankie Helburn is the only thing standing between me and Frank Helburn and I won’t let it all go because of pussy.

  I’m the arrow. Frankie’s my target.

  I never fucking miss.

&n
bsp; Chapter Twenty-Three

  Beadsof sweat fall into my eyes. I wipe them away with an even sweatier palm. My limbs shake as I lift my knees as high as I can, navigating my way over the tangled vines. I stumble a few times, scraping my hands on short spikey thorns.

  I cannot fail.

  I will notfail.

  I step over the downed sign for Broward County Correctional Facility where the ground is smooth. My breaths are labored. My chest burns.

  I make a beeline for the house, running and tripping over a hose. I growl at my own clumsiness and leap up the rickety porch steps.

  I hear something inside and I hold in a scream of relief.

  Footsteps!

  I bang on the door loudly and wildly, checking over my shoulder every few seconds. “Come on. Come on. Open the door,” I chant to myself, shaking out my hands and jumping from foot to foot.

  “What’s the trouble, my dear?” A woman comes to the door, wiping her hands on her apron. She’s older, maybe in her late seventies or early eighties. I’m just about to tell her everything when I stop.

  If I tell her too much or the wrong thing, I could be putting her life in danger too.

  Shit.

  “Uhhh…no troubles exactly. I’m just lost and a little winded from walking over all the twisted weeds,” I tell her. “I’m staying with my…boyfriend in a cottage around here, but I went for a walk, and now I can’t find my way back.”

  “Oh my. Well, come on in, dear. I’m Zelda, it’s very nice to meet you.” She stands aside to usher me in.

  “Thank you,” I say, entering the house. It’s just as small as the warden’s house, but it’s much cozier. Everything is yellow. Curtains, wallpaper, placemats on the table. Every wall has a high plant shelf running across the length of that wall and connecting to the next. Except there aren’t plants on the shelves, instead they’re lined with wooden statues. Mostly of animals, and most of those animals are some variation of dog. Some are crude little things that look as if a child made them with a dull knife and some are so smooth it’s obvious they were sculpted by the hand of a skilled artist.

  “Lovely, aren’t they?” Zelda asks pointing up to the wooden statues on the shelves.

  “Yes, very,” I respond.

  “Are you staying at the warden’s cottage?” she asks, taking me off guard.

  I don’t want to lie and the truth might get her in trouble so I do what I think is the next best thing. “Is that what it’s called?”

  “It’s the only house around here besides this one. No one’s been there in quite a bit.” Zelda says, shuffling her feet into the kitchen.

  “We’re just visiting. We won’t be staying long,” I explain. I’m trying not to jump to my point and worry her. It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to ransack the house in search of a computer.

  “Have a seat, my dear.” Zelda points to a yellow chair at an equally yellow kitchen. “Do you need to use the phone?” she asks.

  “I’d actually like to use your computer if you have one. I dropped my phone and don’t have my boyfriend’s number memorized so I’d like to send him a message online that I’m alright before I try and head back.” I glance out the corner of my eye toward the window. A chill runs up my spine, and it’s as if I can feel his anger from across the field.

  I don’t have much time.

  Zelda nods. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Sure, I’d love some.” I twiddle my thumbs on my lap and tap the toe of my shoe against the table leg.

  Zelda puts an old yellow kettle on the burner. “I got one of them fancy lap-stops,” she says, speaking slower and slower as the moments pass. “Friend of mine gave it to me for Christmas. He set up the internets and all, but I have no idea how to use it. Grandkids use the WeeFee when they visit, but they bring their own lap-stops. Let me just go fetch it for you.”

  Zelda pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose and slowly shuffles from the kitchen. When she comes back, she’s holding a laptop, but it’s at least four inches thick and dark blue in color.

  It wasn’t a laptop, it was the firstlaptop.

  “You got this for Christmas, you said?” I open the ancient computer praying to every god I can think of that the internet connections works. My fingers fly over the keyboard. I ask Zelda for a password, but only to be polite. I’ve already hacked the connection.

  I’m on.

  “Password is Christmas1993.” Zelda says proudly, setting a cup of tea next to me.

  “Is that the year you got the computer?” I ask.

  “Yup! That’s the one!” she holds up her own teacup and takes a sip.

  “Thank you so much,” I say, taking a quick sip. I set the teacup down and go back to the computer.

  “You’re awfully banged up. You get in a fight with some livestock and lose?”

  “Oh, this,” I say, touching my fingers to the corner of my lip. I forgot about my bruises and scabs. “Car accident.”

  Zelda twists her lips. She’s not buying it.

  “With a truck,” I add. “I uh. I mean, a truck hit my car.” Shit.

  Zelda nods, but I can tell she’s not sold on the story, and I don’t blame her.

  I wouldn’t believe me either.

  I’m in the deep web. Here, I’m not a clumsy young woman who’s never experienced even a fraction of what life has to offer. No, here I’m at home. I’m comfortable navigating barriers and obstacles put in place to keep people like me out with practiced ease.

  I could use my time to put out an SOS call instead of locating the file that needs to be transferred, but I decide not to. Not just because I can’t spare the time, but because I can’t put Zelda at risk. Lord knows what he’d do to her if he thought she aided my escape in some way.

  After a long series of replacing bank code with my own, the money is there and the transfer is finally happening.

  It’s sloppy and not my best work, there are some other channels I would’ve liked to delete along the way, some ends I would’ve liked to tie up to cover my tracks, but there’s no time for painting scenery today. This is abstract art. A few splashes on paint on the canvas, and I’m done. I’m so tempted to send an SOS message. It would only take a few minutes more. I look to Zelda.

  There just isn’t enough time, and it’s too much of a risk.

  I sigh in both relief and disappointment, then wipe Zelda’s computer, making sure any trace I was ever here is erased from the memory before shutting it down and sliding it across the table.