Page 37 of Just in Time
That left me and Jolene alone on the porch for a good few minutes.
“I know this is going to turn out alright in the end,” she said slowly. “But I don’t like that I have to lose my boy for thirty-one years to do it.”
I wanted to ask how she knew that. How she knew me. How she could possibly have known any of this.
But, before I could, Jolene grabbed the keys and started walking out to the truck. “I take it y’all need a ride over to Dawesbury?” she asked.
Instead of asking her anything, I just nodded. “We do. And I’m sorry.”
She scoffed. “It’s a beautiful night for a drive over county lines.”
“I meant, I’m sorry about us taking your son for—”
She shook her head, silencing me on the subject just as Arlo ran out the door, bounding over to the cab and swinging his lanky body inside.
“You three can hunker down in the back until we get out of Abernathy proper,” she said, nodding to the bed of the truck.
I tossed my bag inside and climbed up, no stranger to truck beds. I was surprised to find quite a few bags already packed and stuffed back here. Two sleeping bags too.
I looked up through the back window, catching Jolene’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Me and Arlo… we might have found a nice little place for rent in Dawesbury yesterday. Put a deposit down on it… we can move in whenever…” She glanced up at the house they were leaving behind. “That place… it’s full of bad memories. So’s this town. I’m glad to be rid of it.”
Brody and Indy came running out of the house, saw me in the bed of the truck and hopped in just as Jolene revved the engine.
We laid flat in the back of the truck until the sky was dark and there were no more street lights to light the way.
The roads were pretty clear. With the odd set of headlights passing us heading in the opposite direction. We were lulled into a sense of safety. With the wind whipping through our hair as the truck made its way to Dawesbury.
It was almost too quiet. Too serene.
Which was why the set of headlights that pulled out onto the road behind us didn’t blip on my radar at first.
Not until they were bearing down on us, bumpers bumping against ours, a mean and nasty dog hanging out the window and barking up something fierce.
I felt Brody’s body stiffen up at the sight of the dog.
Indy’s too.
I didn’t have to ask who it was.
I swallowed thickly, reaching for Brody’s hand as Jolene laid on the horn.
“C’mon, Sally,” an older man called out the window, his voice all but lost in the air whipping around us. “Pull over!”
I doubted she could hear him, but she signaled anyway, putting on the brakes and pulling over to the side of the road. My heart leapt into my throat as what looked like a half dozen dogs piled out of the truck with the man who was driving.
“Dammit, Ivan…” Sally/Jolene swung the door to the truck open and climbed out. “Call your damn mutts back, or I’ll use this.”
I heard the metallic sound of a shotgun cocking as Sally/Jolene walked towards the bed of the truck.
“Stay back, Sal,” Ivan called, his face illuminated by the headlights. “We got business with the shifters in your truck bed.”
“You ain’t got no business with ‘em,” she countered, turning and glancing back at the cab of the truck. Arlo was slowly moving over to the driver’s seat. I hoped he wasn’t planning what I thought he was planning.
Jolene climbed up in the back of the truck, placing herself between us and the snarling pack of wild looking dogs.
“We do if they’re in our county. I’m the pack leader here in Abernathy, and that makes me the authority for all the shifters who mosey into our county.”
“That a fact?” she asked, dropping down to her knees to push the butt of her gun against the probing nose of one of the dogs. It growled out a warning and she let out a loud whistle.
