I could tell he thought it wasn’t such a bad idea, considering we had begun thinking about staying put somewhere for a while to save money.

We drank a couple more beers and danced some more before we decided to head back to our motel. The more buzzed Elias got, the more he wanted to take me somewhere and strip off my clothes. But he stopped before he got so buzzed that he wouldn’t be able to drive us back.

We gave up the idea of joining Anthony and Cristina and never went looking for them. But we found them anyway, by accident, lingering outside the nightclub in the parking lot.

“Hello again! John and Julia, right?” Anthony said, walking toward us.

Oh, that was the fake name I couldn’t remember.

We met him halfway. Cristina was sitting down on the blacktop with her back and head pressed against the side of a car tire. I could see straight up her skirt; she was too drunk to notice she was on display to anyone who happened to walk by. Both of her knees were drawn up against her chest.

“Hey, man,” Elias said with a half smile. “We thought you had already left.”

“Yeah, well, that was our intention,” Anthony said. “But I lost my damn car keys.”

“No shit?” Elias said.

“Maybe someone turned them in inside,” I said, looking back at the club briefly.

“Already checked. I had a guy out here about ten minutes ago with a wire hanger, but we couldn’t get it unlocked. Looks like I’ll be calling either a locksmith or a cab.”

Elias looked over at me. I knew what he was thinking, because I was thinking the same thing.

“Well, we could give you a ride back to your place,” Elias offered.

I smiled at them both, glad to see that things with this whole beach house idea were starting to go my way.

“Help me up,” Cristina whined, reaching out her hand.

I went over and helped her up instead, regretting it a little once I realized how heavy she actually was as she leaned against my shoulder.

“Nah, man, thanks but I don’t want to put you out,” Anthony said.

“We don’t mind,” Elias countered. “We’re staying in a motel nearby and we’re not in too much of a hurry to go back there.”

“Well, you two can crash at my place tonight if you want,” Anthony offered.

Elias thought about it for a moment and glanced over at me again, wondering how I felt about all of this.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said and gripped Cristina around her waist.

I wished Anthony would take over. I didn’t sign up for this. Or maybe I did, in a way…

“Then I guess it’s settled,” Anthony said as if he were making an announcement, both arms raised out at his sides. “Where’s your car?”

“End of this row,” Elias said.

Anthony finally noticed the struggle on my face and relieved me of drunken-Cristina duty. They followed us to Elias’s car, parked at the very end of the lot.

“I just thought of something,” Elias said after opening his door and pressing the master lock on the inside. “We’re only paid up in our room until tomorrow. Somehow I doubt we’ll be awake before checkout.”

“Just swing by and get your stuff then,” Anthony suggested. “As long as you don’t need a U-Haul to move it, you can keep it at my place.”

Elias laughed. “That won’t be necessary,” he said. “It’ll all fit in my trunk.”

We left the club parking lot and rode back to the motel first, which was on the way to Anthony’s beach house. Since our new guests were going to be riding in the backseat, we stuffed our bags with everything we owned in the trunk. I made it a point to stash my purse back there, too, just in case either of them were the type to help themselves to my belongings.

Cristina was seconds away from passing out next to Anthony. He guided Elias back onto the main highway and we rode for quite a while, longer than I had expected since Anthony had mentioned before that the beach house wasn’t far from the club. And he didn’t talk as much after about ten minutes. The highway became darker and less traveled as it got later.

I started getting nervous, though I wasn’t sure why.

Gut feelings are a bitch.

Chapter Twelve

Elias

Anthony leaned forward between my and Bray’s seats. He reached out and touched the bracelets on Bray’s left wrist. I didn’t like that much.

“Did you make those?” he asked. He peered in closer and tried to finger the bracelets individually, but she snapped her hand away.

“Ummm, no I bought them,” she answered.

I could sense the nervousness in her voice. He had made her uncomfortable. Not. Fucking. Cool.

With my hands still on the wheel, I turned my head slightly to look over at him. I thought I was going to have to tell him to back off, but he saw the look in my eyes and fell back against the seat before I could say anything.

“Hey, sorry,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Whatever. By now, I wasn’t feelin’ it anymore, hanging out at his place. It wasn’t just that he touched her bracelets, it was something else, a vibe, the way Anthony seemed to go from helpful, smiling party guy to creepy backseat hitchhiker in such a short time.

“How much farther is it?” I asked, glancing at him in the rearview mirror.

“Just a few more minutes,” he said.

A few minutes came and went. I thought we would probably be getting off at the next exit, but when he didn’t say anything about it ahead of time, I flipped on my blinker anyway and planned to take it, if not for any reason other than to drop them off at the nearest convenience store.

“Where are you going?” Anthony asked. “We don’t get off here.”

“Well we’re getting off here anyway,” I said and proceeded to veer onto the exit ramp.

The sound of a gun cocking at the back of Bray’s head and the shiny black glint of the barrel in the corner of my eye caused my heart to jump into my throat.

“Don’t take that fucking exit,” Anthony demanded with a threatening edge in his voice. “Stay on the freeway.”

At the last second, I remained in the same lane and watched helplessly as the exit ramp flew past my car.

“Elias?” Bray said from the passenger’s seat, her voice filled with fear.

“Elias, huh?” Anthony probed. I saw him push the gun against her head harder. She closed her eyes momentarily. I was white-knuckling the steering wheel. “Thought your name was John.”

“What does it matter?” I asked. “What the hell is this?”

“What the fuck do you think it is?” Anthony said, laughing.

Cristina was still passed out against her door.

“Look, man, I know how this goes,” I said, but I could hardly look at him. I was far too preoccupied with the gun against Bray’s head. “I’ve got cash on me. Whatever you want. Just please don’t hurt her.”

Bray’s lips were trembling, the only part of her stiff body that was moving. I wanted to pummel this motherfucker to death.

“Pull over up there,” Anthony demanded with the nod of his head, indicating the side of the road.

“All right. All right.” I tried to keep calm. It took everything in me, but I had to keep my head clear. Hopefully he planned to rob us and run off into the woods. But if I even for a moment got the feeling that he was going to shoot us down, I would make a last, desperate attempt. I wasn’t about to let this fucking lowlife shoot Bray without at least trying to stop him.

The car came to a stop and I put it into Park. And I waited.

I was hopeful when I saw headlights blazing toward us from behind, but the lone semi drove right past us, pushing wind against the car.

“Empty your pockets. Wallet. Anything you have on you. Put it on the dashboard.”

“I take it you don’t have a beach house?” I said sarcastically as I did what he told me to do.

“Fuck no,” he said and laughed. “And that car in the parking lot wasn’t mine, either.” He barely looked away from me long enough to say to Bray, “You too. Whatever you have put it on the dashboard.”

I thought about using that split second he looked away from me to grab for the gun, but I couldn’t risk it. It likely would’ve gone off and killed her right there next to me.

There was no saliva left in my mouth. My whole body was stiff and sweating. Aside from getting that gun away from Bray’s head, all I could think about was beating the fuck out of this guy. All I could see was red. I wanted so badly for him to slip up and give me the opportunity to take him down and cave his face in with my fists.

“Now get out,” he demanded, looking right at me.

My heart dropped into my feet then. Was he going to take off in the car with her in it?

“Take the fucking car,” I said, raising my hands up in front of me. “Just let her out.”

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.” He moved the gun to the back of my head now.

I only felt slightly better about that. At least it wasn’t on Bray anymore.

I placed my hand on the door handle carefully, popped it open and stepped out, keeping my hands raised up, my fingers level with the top of my head.

From my peripheral vision, I noticed another set of bright headlights coming toward us off in the distance. My eyes darted to and from it, then to Bray, still sitting in the front seat. Cars sped by on the other side of the freeway, but it was too dark for anyone in them to see what was going on.

“Let her out,” I said as I stepped around to the grass on the side of the road. “Please just fucking let her out.”

Cristina’s red-blonde head raised up from being pressed against the window. She rubbed her eyes and dragged the palms of her hands over her face and head like she was trying to wake herself up.

Then she noticed Anthony getting out of the backseat with the gun in his hand, pointed right at me.

“What—Anthony? What the hell are you doing?” Her voice began to rise with alarm as realization set in. “What the fuck! Anthony, no!”

“Shut up!” he yelled at her from outside the car, his eyes still on me as well as the gun. “Now get your girlfriend out. I don’t need more than one bitch flapping her fucking jaws at me the whole ride.”

Without a thought, I swung Bray’s car door open and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out faster than she could get out herself. The car coming toward us was so close. I pulled Bray against me and then pushed her around behind me. I looked up as the car neared.

“Don’t even think about it,” Anthony said, pointing the gun at me through the side window.

And just like with the last exit ramp, I watched as our last hope for help sped by at seventy miles per hour. Bray was shaking behind me, her fingers digging into my ribs.

“Thanks for the ride, man!” Anthony said just before he jumped behind the wheel and sped away with Cristina screaming curses at him from the backseat.

I watched until what were once my brake lights became tiny red dots in the distance and then blinked out.

“Son of a fucking bitch!” I punched at the air in front of me, wishing it was more than air. Then I turned to Bray. “Oh shit!”

She stood there trembling with her face buried in her hands.

I dropped the anger and became the comfort she needed. “Baby, come here.” I tried to pull her toward me.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” she roared, her hands falling straight down at her sides. She took several steps back farther into the grass. I followed. Tears shot from her eyes. “Just… just leave me alone.”

I knew she wasn’t mad at me. She just needed a moment. She’d just had a goddamn gun pointed at the back of her head.

She sat down on the grass, her hands shaking as if she were freezing. I crouched in front of her and rested my hands on the tops of her knees.

“What the fuck are we doing, Elias?” She looked up into my eyes, tears glistened on her cheeks in the bluish dark. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

I sat down fully and held her hands. “We can go home if that’s what you want, Bray, all you have to do is say the word.”

She shook her head no. She wasn’t sure of anything, just as I wasn’t. She asked me what we were doing here, but it was only a moment of realization. She knew that things were so much worse than getting robbed and left on the side of a freeway hundreds of miles away from home. I knew Anthony had little to do with what was going through her mind at that moment. He was just the messenger, a small and insignificant piece of a much larger picture that we were lucky enough to have forgotten all about for just a little while. This situation only brought back to reality the gravity of the bigger situation surrounding it.