Let Me Burn by Elodie Colt
Ella
If I can’t move to Sierra Leone, I can at least get out of the city for once. Have a change of scenery and take a break from everyday life, if only for a few hours.
I’ve already left the Pennsylvanian border behind me, now cruising through the wide-open country. My bike runs hot on the asphalt as I whiz past stunted trees and old shacks rotting in the fields. The smell of gasoline, road tar, and flowering weeds calms my senses, and I rev the engine after hitting the next curve, eager to feel the wind whipping through my hair.
I’ve avoided Zoya and Holly whenever I could, pretending to be asleep when they called me for breakfast and touring with my bike when they came home from work. I needed solitude. The freedom to cry when I break, to punch when I explode, and to do nothing when I just want to do fucking nothing. Putting on a happy face just for the sake of others contradicts my morals. And after weeks of feeling so hollow inside the emptiness has started to gnaw at me, plastering smiles on my face that don’t come naturally is just painfully exhausting.
A gurgle coming from underneath me makes me look down at the gas gauge. The red needle is trembling a fraction of an inch above zero.
“No, no, no,” I mumble as my bike loses speed.
The engine chokes before it gives out completely, and my bike rolls to a stand-still on the pebbled curb.
“Great. Just freaking great…”
I push myself off the seat, kick the stand, and yank the helmet over my head, hanging it onto the handlebar. Jamming my fists into my hips, I scowl down at my scratched vehicle. I’d checked the gas earlier when I hit the interstate, but it seems I lost track of time. And track of my gas tank, unfortunately.
Huffing, I spin my head up and down the desolated road. There are no road signs, but I know I’ve landed on some country road before Red Rock.
“Why don’t you ask your phone?” I mutter to myself and pull out said object. I wipe a finger over the screen to unlock it, but the display stays black. Frowning, I try again, randomly hitting all buttons, but not one single light flashes. “No fucking way…”
My phone died. That damn new, fancy thing sucks battery like a Tesla. I’m not used to charging it every night and probably forgot to turn off the hundreds of apps always running in the background.
No gas. No battery. No idea where I am. Jesus Christ, this is like a scene in one of those cheesy Sunday rom-com movies. Or a horror flick, I think with a grimace as the sun sets behind the horizon, dropping the temperature a few degrees.
Biting my lip, I swerve my gaze over the landscape. Funny, if Luka was here now, he could give me a ride. Or I could shoot him with my gun and take his car to drive back myself. But there’s no soul in sight, not even an animal save for the crickets whirring in the grass.
Throwing my hands up in the air, I trudge off and start my hike down the seemingly endless country road. Without my phone, I can’t even check how far I am from the next gas station or motel or any kind of human civilization. My only hope is to find something before nightfall because I’m not hot on having an encounter with a coyote—or worse, a black bear.
I shove my hands into the pockets of my jacket, my biker boots scuffing on the gravel the only sound as I wander through the fallow land of Pennsylvania. The last thing I wanted was time to think. When I’m on my bike and speeding over the ground, it reboots my brain, making me forget about all problems and bad decisions. I don’t worry about my past or my future or anything in between.
But force me to take a walk, and everything comes boomeranging into me. Like the fact that Zoya is losing hope. I’ve seen it in her eyes. She’s giving up on me. She knows I’m a lost cause. I can’t blame her, and I’m not particularly crushed, either. She’s been trying so hard to glue my shattered parts together, they’ve started to cut her. There was only ever one person who could handle my shards, who picked them up with care and endured thousands of stings and pricks to fix me…
Ross.
Thinking of him is pure misery. As soon as a memory of him pops up in my mind—something he said to me in his alluring voice, or something he did to me with his skilled hands—a heavy lump sinks into my stomach, overtaking me to the point I almost throw up. Holly said it would get better with time, but for what it’s worth, things are only getting worse. These memories of him, bitter-sweet in the beginning, have become sour and harsh and astringent like sulfuric acid. Whenever I swallow, my throat closes up with a big, poisonous chunk worming its way down my esophagus, and when it hits my belly, it stays there, wobbling inside me for the next couple of hours.
Until the next memory hits me, and it starts all over again.
I stomp my boots into the gravel, swiping at a tear that is too thick for the wind to dry. Red Rock looks like I feel inside. Scruffy bush growing along the curb, stunted trees swallowed by the dry grass, and faded mileage posts lost in the weeds. Pretty but lackluster and dreary. Lifeless, almost.
It’s my fault, really. I killed any love that could have bloomed inside me. Ross, Zoya, Bex, even Kate… I shut them out of my heart, grew apart from everyone, and cut off all the roots until my soul started to decompose.
I look up at the sky, letting my head wobble on my neck as I drag my feet over the ground. The sun has completely set now, making thousands of stars glow in the distance. The wind has turned into a soft breeze, feathering through my hair. No idea how much time has passed since I’ve started my hike, but I’m more swaying than walking, and my eyelids are getting heavy.
“I’m tired, Mom,” I mumble into the night sky. “So, so tired…”
Letting my head roll forward again, I pull my Glock from my waistband to spin it around my finger. I could end it right here. Send a bullet up my head and join Mom in Heaven. Call me theatrical, but I’m sick of pushing everyone away just because Luka is always too close. It’s an endless battle I can’t win.
Unless I remove myself from the equation.
I weigh the gun in my hand. My eyes have adjusted to the darkness enough for me to make out its contour. Slowly, I move my finger to unlock the safety. Right at that moment, something buzzes around my head only to land on my hand.
I halt, stunned. Thin body, long tail, four wings—a dragonfly.
I’m ninety-nine percent sure it’s a prince baskettail judging from the dark spots dotting its wings. Dragonflies are usually diurnal. When they are active at night, they mostly follow the lights, but I’ve never seen one around this time of day, let alone in complete darkness.
I glance up at the sky. “You don’t want me to give up, huh?” I say to Mom, vainly waiting for her response. “Fine…”
Grumbling, I shove the gun back into my waistband just as the rumble of an engine reaches my ears. I whirl around as a pair of headlights appear in the distance, and my heart makes an erratic jump. By the time I’ve concluded that flagging down a stranger goes completely against my nature, a Ford truck with heavy bumpers skates to a halt next to me, throwing up plumes of dust.
The passenger side window slides down, and the dome light goes on, illuminating a forty-something guy behind the wheel. A sandy-brown cowboy hat sits on top of his long, dirty-blond hair hanging in shaggy strands down to his shoulders. His short, boxed beard moves as he munches on a piece of chewing gum. He props his right arm onto the backrest of the passenger seat, quickly giving me the once over with narrowed eyes.
“That bike I saw a few miles down there yours?”
His heavy but smooth Pennsylvanian drawl is hard to miss—the complete opposite of my serrated Russian accent when I reply, “Yeah. I ran out of gas. Can I bum a ride to the next gas station?”
He tilts his head a little, scrutinizing me with steel-blue eyes. The guy is hard to assess. He’s got that air around him that makes me wary, but he doesn’t scream serial killer, either.
“I could,” he says cryptically when he’s done checking me out. “What do I get in return?”
I narrow my eyes at him, sizing him up just the same. His suggestive question should trigger my fight-or-flight reflex, but for some reason, I counter with a sassy, “Are we talking about money or sex?”
Uttering a throaty chuckle that doesn’t sound particularly unsexy, he looks out the windshield as he shakes his head. I keep my face blank as his eyes flicker back to mine, glinting with humor.
“Wouldn’t say no to a blowie.”
I bite the inside of my cheek. A jolt of adrenaline shoots through my system, flushing my skin. It’s the thrill of the unknown, the itch to take a leap in the dark I haven’t felt since I’d last stepped into the Room. Do I dare?
My stare is challenging as I prop my elbows onto the window. “Deal. But first, you’ll get me to the gas station.”
A crooked smile builds on his tanned face. “Get in, stranded girl.”
I open the door and plop down in the scuffed seat, sighing in contentment when I roll my sore ankles. The biting scent of hay, dog, smoke, and too many quickies wafts up my nose, but fresh air steams inside from the open windows when we hit the road.
I pull out my phone, bouncing my knee to the country song blaring from the radio. “Do you have a charging cable? My phone died.”
He chuckles. “Sorry, no mobile.”
I flash him a glance. “You don’t have a phone?”
“Good, old landline at home does the job.”
His voice is creamy like soft butter with lots of nasal consonants for extra sex appeal. I peer at him from under my lashes. He’s quite attractive. Not like a Calvin Klein model, but more in a sinister, bad-boy kind of way. Maybe a little old for my taste, but he’s got that lazy-crazy Jack Sparrow allure with bleached, ripped jeans, a faded black shirt, and eyes with such thick lashes at the bottom, they look like a stripe of black eyeliner. Pirate meets country style, I think with a smirk.
“You got a name?” he asks after a few minutes of cruising through the pitch-black landscape.
I level a glance at him. “Mary.”
He grins, not removing his eyes from the road to dodge the occasional roadkill. “Mary… Then I’m Jack.”
I grin, too. “Nice to meet you, Jack.”
We both know the names are bullshit, but who cares? Come tomorrow morning, I’ll be nothing more than a fading dent in his scrubbed passenger seat.
“How far is it to the next gas station?” I ask.
“About six miles.”
I groan. Of. Course.
“Why, you bored already?” He chuckles, leaning over and opening the glove box to pull out a blunt from underneath stacks of crumpled papers, lighters, and—surprise—condoms. He doesn’t seem disturbed when one of the square plastic packages drops to the floor in between my legs.
“No. The number six and I are on bad terms, is all.”
“Yeah? But six is a good number.”
I fidget in my seat, shooing away the memory of when I’d said the same to a certain man some time ago.
“In Tarot, six is the card of the lover,” Jack goes on, wriggling a pair of bushy eyebrows at me.
I grunt. “Six is also associated with the devil.”
“True.” He shoves the crooked blunt into his mouth, fetches a lighter from underneath the dashboard, and sparks off the end. “I like your accent. Are you from Russia?”
I twist the zipper on my jacket just to keep my hands busy. “Yep.”
“You on vacation in Pennsylvania, or what?”
“No. I moved to the states some time ago.”
“Huh.” He blows out a cloud of smoke and hands me the blunt.
Shrugging, I take it. I can feel his probing gaze on me when I inhale the sharp flavors, ignoring the sting as tears well up in my eyes.
“I’ve never met a Russian chick.”
I puff out the smoke. A wave of relaxation washes over me instantly. “What you wanted to say was, you’ve never screwed a Russian chick, right?”
“Busted.” He slaps the steering wheel. “You wanna be my first, by any chance?”
I press the blunt between my lips once more, stalling. He reeks of sweat, dust, weed, and a sweet distraction I’m not averse to tasting. Jack might just be the fix I need to forget how lost I am in this world. Also, he’s rocking that I-know-how-to-make-you-feel-good vibe that makes me hot every time his smoldering eyes flicker to me.
I exhale the smoke slowly, popping my jaw a few times to blow some O’s. “Quite blunt, are we?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t like it.”
I utter a low chuckle. We spend the rest of the ride with easy banter and ambiguous jokes until we pass the first ‘gas station’ sign. He pulls over and halts on the sidelines of the small building, away from the light beams.
The air gets thick as soon as he kills the engine, and he takes the blunt from me to flick the stub out of the window. Dolly Parton complains about working nine to five in the background when Jack stretches out his arm to lean it on my backrest. His fingers find the nape of my neck, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. The longer I feel his analyzing gaze on me, the faster my heart pumps against my rib cage.
Three fingers find my chin, applying a little pressure to make me look at him. His gaze dips down to my lips which he traces with his rough thumb.
“You’re quite a beauty, Mary,” he drawls before he leans in to fuse his mouth with mine.
His lips are soft, quite plush for a male, and I let my eyes slide closed as he frames my cheek with his large hand. My forehead bumps against his hat, and he yanks it down, tossing it onto the backseat. His hair flips forward, tickling my cheek. He smells like a long workday on the farm, and I try to imagine someone else’s stubble scraping my jaw.
Soon, he deepens the kiss, his tongue worming its way into my mouth. I like that he takes his time, unhurriedly exploring my taste until he feels confident enough to grab my hand and guide it to his groin. His dick already tents his jeans, and it jerks when I give it a squeeze. I still can’t bring myself to go further, though, so he takes matters into his own hands and opens his belt.
The snap of the buckle flicks a switch inside my brain, one that triggers the only memory that has the power to suffocate me.
‘I love you.’
Ross’ voice hollers inside my head, and I rip my lips from Jack’s with a gasp. He stills when I put my hand on his chest. Fuck.
“I can’t…”
“Seriously?”
“I’m sorry.”
Huffing, he drops his head against the headrest. “Let me guess… There’s another guy in the picture?”
I avert my gaze, pulling my hands back into my lap. “I can give you money.”
He utters a derisive chuckle before he leans over me to open my door. Without looking at me, he starts the engine. “Get out.”
I pout, close to calling him a few names, but then figure it wouldn’t be fair to him. After all, I didn’t stick to our bargain, so I mumble a sheepish thanks and hop out. As soon as I shut the door behind me, he shoots off with screeching wheels.
My shoulders droop as I watch him disappear into the night. The prick left me stranded in the middle of nowhere just because I refused to suck his dick.
Downcast, I slouch off toward the station. The bored dude behind the counter informs me that the next motel is about a mile farther down the road. Seeing as I’m too exhausted to walk back six miles again, I decide to get some sleep and ride back tomorrow.
I’ve been walking for about three minutes, dragging my feet over the curb with a full gas can dangling from my hand, when a truck comes my way only to make a U-turn in the middle of the street. My heart pummels into my stomach. I’m already about to bolt for fear of being hijacked or something when I recognize the vehicle. It’s Jack.
He leans over the passenger seat and opens the door. He doesn’t say anything, just jerks his head, gesturing for me to get in.
“Where you heading?” he asks gruffly when I hop inside and switches gears.
“To the next motel.”
He gets the truck into motion. We don’t exchange words for the rest of the ride and soon, he pulls over at the next motel coming into view. He glides the car into a parking spot and puts on the handbrake, leaving the engine running.
“That boyfriend of yours know where you’re staying tonight?” His gaze is on the motel’s neon sign buzzing in front of the entrance, his mouth moving as he munches on his chewing gum. “You might want to give him a call.”
I smack my lips. “There’s no boyfriend.”
His head swivels to me in response, a frown contorting his handsome features.
“It’s complicated,” I add to answer the question he hasn’t asked yet.
He chuckles, shaking his head. “You’ve got baggage, I get it.”
Now, it’s my time to frown. “What would you know about my baggage?”
Smirking, he sends me a bitch-please look. “Girl, you don’t want to tell me your name and carry a Glock underneath your waistband with an extra magazine hanging on your hip.”
I purse my lips, tearing my gaze away, but I can see him tilting his head in my periphery, analyzing me.
“Are you in danger?” he asks softly.
My silence gives him all the answer he needs.
His eyes flicker between mine before he nods to where my gun is hidden at the small of my back. “Do you know how to handle that thing?”
I scratch my nose. “Theoretically, yes.”
“So, you’ve never shot a single bullet.” A statement, not a question, but he’s still waiting for my confirmation.
Pinching my lips, I shake my head.
He sighs, fetches a pen from the center console, and grabs my hand. “You want to eighty-six somebody, you need to know what you’re doing.” He jots down a phone number on the back of my hand. “My father owns a shooting range not far from here. Give me a call.”
I drag my lip through my teeth, casting him a furtive glance. “You haven’t asked who my target is…”
He regards me for a moment before he lifts his hand and traces a finger down my jaw.
“No, but I want you to catch it before it catches up to you,” he mumbles, erasing the distance between us and placing a brief kiss onto my lips. “And I’m going to make sure you hit dead center.”