The big man’s big head swivels toward the blond man, and he says, “That geek’s gonna be a billionaire.” A cigarette hangs on his lip. “Maybe we oughta ransom this little cherry. Bet he’d pay a million bucks to get her back.”
“I wouldn’t take no amount of money for her,” the blond man says. “We was meant to be together.”
The big man shakes his head and exhales a cloud of smoke. “Just ’cause you wanna be with her don’t mean she wants to be with you. You think about that?”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” the blond man says. “She’ll learn to love me.”
“And what gal wouldn’t? Funny thing about women, though, sometimes they’re real stubborn about learning to love a man what kidnaps ’em.”
The blond man gives the big man a look. “It happened before.”
The big man nods. “So it has. All I’m saying is you ain’t had no experience with women-whores at Rusty’s don’t count. And I’m telling you, boy, an unhappy woman… damn. Only two things you can do with an unhappy woman: make her happy or kill her. Take it from me, it’s a helluva lot easier to kill her.”
That tickles him.
The engine is making strange noises. And it smells awful. She sees the tops of other cars and eighteen-wheelers passing them. They’re on the highway. The sun is shining in the right side of the car. Which means they’re heading north. Which must be why she now catches a slight chill, particularly when Without moving her head, Gracie checks herself over. Her white soccer shoe is on her left foot, but her right shoe is missing; she’s still wearing the blue knee socks and shin guards. She feels around inside the blanket and-her uniform is gone! Her jersey, her shorts-all she’s wearing is her Under Armour! Why did they take her uniform? And the answer comes to her: Oh my God, they raped me! She bites her tongue to silence her feelings and squeezes her eyes tightly to hold back the tears. But one tear escapes and rolls down her cheek, lands on the seat, and disappears into a crease in the cracked vinyl.
Gracie wasn’t entirely sure of everything that being raped included, but she knew it meant some male person sticking his penis into a girl down between her legs without permission (although she could not imagine ever giving a boy permission to do that). Mother never talked to her about sex or any of that stuff yet; she learned what she knew from Ms. Boyd in health class. Ms. Boyd told the girls that when a boy makes unwelcome physical advances, they should point their finger at him and firmly say, “No! And no means no!” The girls and boys attended separate sex ed classes; the girls giggled at the drawings of penises in the book. The only real live penises she had seen were Sam’s, which was really little and couldn’t hurt a girl her age, and Dad’s, one time when she walked in on him in his bathroom. He got totally embarrassed and covered up real fast, but she got a good look at it. Dad’s penis was big enough to hurt a girl her age.
But she doesn’t hurt down there. She doesn’t feel different at all. Maybe the two men have little penises like Sam’s and that’s why she doesn’t hurt. Or maybe they didn’t rape her.
Or maybe… she closes her eyes and sleeps again…
… Until she is awakened by a door slamming.
She cracks her eyelids. The blond man is gone. The big man turns toward her; she quickly shuts her eyes tight. She feels his gross hand over the blanket, shaking her leg not so gently.
“Wake up,” he says.
She pretends to be asleep, but she hears his heavy breath as he exhales, and she knows cigarette smoke is coming her way. She holds her breath, but the toxic fumes find their way into her nose. She coughs. She can’t pretend to be asleep now. She opens her eyes. The big man is looking at her and not like he wants to be friends.
He is way past ugly.
His nose is broad and flat, like he had run face first into a brick wall. A long scar zigzags down the left side of his face. One eye doesn’t look right. His whiskers look like Coach Wally’s hair when his burr cut starts to grow back in. The skin on his face is blotchy and leathery and filled with little pockmarks like that guy at BriceWare. (Dad said the guy had bad acne as a child.) A cigarette is clamped between his teeth and smoke comes out with each breath. He’s the biggest human being she has ever seen, and he looks really mean. Gracie realizes she is trembling, she is so afraid. But her mother’s advice plays in her ears like a song on her iPod: Men are like dogs. They can smell fear on a woman. Never let them smell your fear. Never let them see you cry. Always act tough even when you don’t feel tough. So Gracie acts tough.
“You wanna put that thing out?” she says. “Passive smoke is dangerous to a child’s health.”
The big man snorts like a bull and a stream of smoke comes out both nostrils. “Not as dangerous as me, pissed off as I get when I don’t smoke.”
He has a point, Gracie figures.
He flips a Twinkie back to her; it lands on the green blanket. Yuk, it isn’t even individually wrapped! It’s probably covered with cooties.
Still, she is hungry.
She pushes herself up, careful to keep the blanket wrapped around her, even though the Under Armour shorts and tee shirt cover her up. Her head feels heavy. She’s in a sports utility vehicle, a real POS: no plush leather seats or cherrywood trim, no Harmon Kardon stereo system or color-coordinated carpet, no TV built into the dash like Dad’s new Range Rover, and no CD player. This SUV is old and has bench seats instead of buckets, and crushed beer cans and cigarette butts and wadded-up fast food bags on the bare metal floorboards, the head liner is drooping in several places, and it sure as heck doesn’t have a heater that works.
She looks outside. They’re in a Wal-Mart parking lot, a long way from home. She recognizes the yellow license plates on the other cars, just like the ones on Ben’s Jeep.
They’re in New Mexico.
Gracie picks up the Twinkie and realizes she is not tied up. Her arms and legs are free. She scarfs down the Twinkie in three big bites.
“Um, you got another one of those?” she asks the big man before she’s swallowed the last bite.
He turns back in his seat and leans over. Gracie jumps to the door and yanks frantically on the handle. Nothing. To the other door. Nothing. The big man turns back and flips another Twinkie at her.
“Don’t bother, honey. Doors don’t open from inside. We ain’t stupid.”
Gracie considers debating that point with him, but she decides against it. She checks out the nearby cars. Maybe she can get someone’s attention, bang on the window and scream for help. But there is no one… except the blond man carrying a brown bag and walking toward his POS SUV with the kidnapped girl in it.
He doesn’t look much older than the boys on the high school football team. Dad took her and Sam to the big homecoming game last season; the blond man is cute enough to be the homecoming king, except he’s wearing a plaid shirt that looks like Dad’s pajamas. Homecoming kings don’t wear plaid.
He walks to the front of the SUV and lifts the hood. Smoke billows out. He steps back and waves his hand at the smoke like Dad when he tries to barbecue, then he ducks back under. After a minute, he slams the hood down and flings a yellow container aside. Wow, he doesn’t even recycle.
The blond man wipes his hands on his shirt, gets in the car with the bag, and says, “Ten goddamn quarts and we ain’t even halfway home.” He tosses a carton of cigarettes to the big man, who immediately tears into them like Dad into a new bag of Oreos. He then hands the bag back to Gracie. One of his fingers is just a nub. She empties the bag: pink sweats.
She sighs. “Well, kidnapping me is bad enough, but now my mom’s really going to be PO’d at you.”
“Why’s that?” the blond man asks.
“Making me wear clothes from Wal-Mart.”
The blond man chuckles as he puts the car into gear and drives out of the parking lot and back onto Highway 666 North, the sign says.