Page 12 of Liar Byrd
Jeremiah’s laugh rings out, high and sweet. Angelic. I panic. Feels like I’m drowning. My skin is cold. My teeth chatter. Can’t breathe. I suck in more air than I should need, but it’s not enough. I can’tbreathe.
Someone else laughs, breaking my weird trance.
I drop the bread and whirl around, giving in to the desperation squeezing my heart.
I have to get away. Even if it’s a trap. Even if they come after me to bring me back. I’ll drive that truck into a tree and pray I go through the windshield and snap my neck.
I smack into the side of the dusty burgundy red Ford; I’m running that fast. I rip the door open, throw myself inside the leather seat, baked hot from the sun beaming down on it.
Twisting the key, it starts straight away. A loud purr fills the car, and I cast a frantic glance behind me. Everyone is still inside the dining room. Good.
I haven’t driven since I was sixteen.
Driving isn’t hard.
Stamping on the gas means I gofast.
I stamp, my spine hugging the seat as gravity pulls me back.
The iron fence that surrounds the compound means nothing to the truck I’m driving. I tear a hole right through it.
I’ve been driving for five minutes, too afraid to peer into the rearview mirror, when it hits me that I don’t have my seatbelt on, and I’m on a fast track to dying in a wreck. The hypocrisy of killing myself just when I got myself free makes me smile bitterly.
Fumbling with the seatbelt, I yank and snap it on. Then I grip the wheel with both hands, my eyes focused on the dusty, sun-baked horizon.
Ten minutes later, my face is wet with tears. I scrub my damp cheeks, sniff, and use my sleeve to wipe my leaky nose. It’s disgusting. If I were back in the compound, I’d pay for it with at least an hour of prayer on my knees.
I do it again.
My sobs start without warning. A hitch and a prickle behind my left eye, and suddenly I’m sobbing so hard I can barely breathe when a gas station comes into view.
Jeremiah’s burgundy Ford is a beacon that will lead him right to me. It’s old, so I don’t know if it has a tracker. Probably not.
All Jeremiah would need to do is report it stolen, and cops would arrest me. And he has a cell phone for emergencies. He won’t even need to leave the compound to catch me. Maybe the cops don’t know about Jeremiah marrying a seventeen-year-old girl. Maybe they don’t care.
I slow down the truck and pull into the gas station. There are only three other vehicles: an old, seemingly abandoned sedan; a man sitting in his Honda, head down, probably texting; and a man in red and black flannel filling up his dusty black truck.
They glance at me, their eyes lingering on my long linen skirt when I cut the engine and climb out. The heat of their gaze burns through my back as I hurry into the ladies' restroom to wash my face and blow my nose.
It’s disgusting, with piss on the seats, a ripe smell that makes me want to leave as soon as I step in, but it’s still a thousand times better than Jeremiah’s compound.
I stay in the restroom for five minutes, buying time.
When I peek out of the restroom, the man in the Honda has gone, along with the man who was filling up his black truck. Only the sedan remains, and I think someone dumped it there, or maybe it belongs to the owner of the gas station.
My eyes flick past Jeremiah’s burgundy truck which I climbed out of minutes ago.
Slipping out of the restroom, I tuck myself in a spot beside the gas station, and I wait.
I watch the next truck pull up like a hawk, hoping the driver needs to use the bathroom or grab a snack.
He refuels, takes his credit card from the slot, gets back into the car, and drives off.
My shoulders slump.
In the distance, the sun is setting, and it won’t be long before Jeremiah’s acolytes come after me. They’d have to guess which direction I took when I left the compound, though I have no clue whether it was east, north, or west. I hit the gas, and away was good enough for me.
A matte black truck with big wheels blasts bass-heavy rock as it pulls up. My eyes linger on a truck bed covered with atarpaulin. The driver cuts the engine; the rock comes to an end, and the driver’s door swings open.
