Page 67 of All the Ways You Save Me
The boss eyes me with a crooked smile on his face, as if he’s finding this whole situation entertaining. “Was that clear enough for you?”
I stumble backward. “I’ll get you the money by tomorrow. I promise.”
For a moment, his eyebrows knit together like he’s a parent who’s disappointed in me. “I always liked you, kid. I thought you had a lot of potential. You could have had a future here.” He hitches his chin at the red-haired guy. “Like Anthony.”
My eyes focus on the man who punched me. Though he stands confidently, with his hand still clenched in a fist, his face looks pale and uncertain. If he does this job long enough, will he turn hardened against this violence? Would this have eventually been my fate?
“You can go now,” the boss says. “But I wouldn’t advise you to try to run. You might not have family, but I know where to find those friends of yours. I make sure my guys keep an eye on all my employees.” His voice deepens. “And all their loved ones.”
The nausea that rolls over me has nothing to do with the fact that I was just sucker-punched. I turn and run, but I’m still unsteady on my feet, and I only make it about a dozen steps before my lungs seem to fold in on themselves. I skid to a stop in the hallway, bending over to gasp for a breath.
The boss’s voice drifts out of the office behind me. “If that kid isn’t here with my money by this time tomorrow night, I want you to take care of him.”
“Take care of him?” Anthony asks with a slight waver in his voice.
“Get rid of him,” the boss barks. “Set an example.”
I stand up and run again, barely making it out of the building before I throw up. I finally make it to my car and peel out of the parking lot, but I have no idea where to go from here. If I run, they’ll come after Jason and Madeline. And if I don’t run, they’ll kill me. I would die before I let them hurt Madeline. So, is that what has to happen?
I drive aimlessly through town before steering onto the road that follows the river, unconsciously taking the route where I drove Madeline on our first date. That day was sunny, cloudless, but today, a cold rain slaps against my windshield and the roads are slick with ice. My phone buzzes, and I see Jason’s name pop up on the screen, but I toss the phone on the seat beside me and keep driving. The Bronco’s tires slip on a patch of sleet, and for a second, the car banks to the right, dangerously close to the gravel edge that hovers over the river below. I yank the steering wheel just in time, and easing my foot off the gas, I pull the car over.
And that’s when it comes to me. Adam Nathanson has to die. It’s the only way those guys will be satisfied, and the only way to keep the people I love safe. I’ll lose everything, but somewhere deep, I knew none of it would last anyway. Guys like me don’t get to change their circumstances. They don’t get to be like Jason and his perfect family. Guys like me don’t get to be with girls like Madeline. She deserves someone who will give her a good, stable life. Someone who has more prospects than trafficking cocaine.
It takes me a minute to realize that I’ve stopped on the overlook where Madeline and I had our first kiss.Across the river, the winter wind has stripped the trees of the last of their leaves, and I squint, hoping for a glimpse of my family’s old trailer nestled somewhere in the woods. The wildflower fields will be dormant now, and I won’t be here to see them bloom this spring.
I press my hands to my face as if somehow that will hold the pain inside, but it comes pouring out anyway. I want to cry, and rage, and scream. I want to tear this car to shreds, punch the window, pound on the steering wheel. But I can’t. Not now.
Right now, I need to hold it together because that’s the only way Madeline and Jason are going to come out of this unscathed. I have twenty-four hours before it’s too late. But someday, if I make it through this alive, I’ll face this agony burning in my veins. I’ll face the fact that I’ll never see the love of my life again.
I pick up the phone and call Jason.
“How did it go?” he asks.
I hesitate. Here it is, the moment when everything changes forever. The moment my life as I knew it, imagined it, is over. “Jason, listen to me. I need you to pick up Madeline and take her to Tom Burke’s party tomorrow night. Tell her I had to work, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Dude, what happened?” His voice comes out higher than usual, trembling slightly at the end. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m going to take care of everything.”
I’d say I can’t believe it’s come to this, but maybe all along, I knew.
THIRTY-EIGHT
PRESENT DAY
Madeline
I stare at Garrett—Adam—I don’t even know what to call him—and try to wrap my mind around everything he’s told me. “It all sounds like it happened in a movie.”
“That’s what I kept thinking while it was happening to me.”
“The night after you talked to your boss, your car went over the cliff. He tried to have you killed.” A shiver runs through me. If they tried to kill Adam, he couldn’t let anyone know he survived, or they’d come back and try again. It makes sense that he wouldn’t be able to contact me, that he’d fear for my safety. But while it’s a relief to know he didn’t want to leave me, my lungs seize at the incredible horror of it all. “How did you ever survive that cold water?”
“I didn’t.”
“You didn’t survive?” I repeat. “I thought I’d seen a ghost, and you’re telling me it’s true.”
“No.” He breathes out a half-laugh, and after all this talk of danger and death, hearing that familiar throaty chucklecomforts me. “I didn’t survive the cold water because I never went in. I got out of the car long before it went over the cliff.”
