The Girls I've Been(75)

I stare at the thumb drive and then press Escape, pulling it out and tucking it into my pocket. I put the big drives in the lunch box.

The burner phone buzzes. My sister’s outside. This is it.

I don’t know how I get to the door. I don’t realize how bad I must look until I open the door and see her face.

“You’ve got blood all over,” she says, reaching toward me.

I back away. I can’t be touched. Not now. Not ever? I don’t know anymore. “It’s not mine.” Not most of it.

Her face changes again, so fast it’d have me reeling, but I’m numb, I’m so numb. I did the job. I got the drives. And now I’m fading. I’m not me. I’m not Ashley.

Who am I now?

What am I?

Ashley. I’m Ashley. I’m supposed to be Ashley.

A perfect daughter wouldn’t have shot her stepfather. A perfect daughter wouldn’t have reached for that knife, wouldn’t have known how. A perfect daughter would’ve given him what he needed; she would’ve just let him kill her.

“What happened? Where is she? Where is he?”

“She’s upstairs. He’s . . . he’s . . .” The world’s spinning. Lock your knees.

“Look at me.” My chin’s between her fingers, my gaze forced to meet hers. The spinning stops. I breathe. Little puffs right into her face. I wonder if my breath smells. “What did you do?”

I can answer that. I know what I did. “I shot him. I had to. He pulled a gun on her. So I got him away and I shot him.”

“Focus.” She snaps her fingers in front of my face. I’m swaying again. “Where is he?”

Good. Another question I know the answer to. I like those. “I dragged him under the dock.”

“Is he dead?”

I shake my head. “I got him in the leg.”

Her entire body changes, the angles of her shoulders sharpen, alert and on edge. “Where’s the gun?”

I hold up the box.

She nods. “We’re going,” she says. “Now. You’re not coming back.”

I don’t protest. I don’t try to grab my things. I don’t try to say goodbye. And I don’t ask if we can take Mom with us.

I just follow her. Like it’s easy.

And it is. Because what’s waiting behind me? It’s nothing good. And what’s waiting in front of me? Is everything I want.

She presses her hand between my shoulders, and I move, one step, then two, three, four. I lose track after that. Then we’re in her car, and then we’re driving down the street, away, and the beach is fading and her hands are tight around the steering wheel, and mine are tight around the box.

“Are you okay?” she asks, finally, after long pulls of silence.

“I got the drives,” I say, instead of answering. “All four of them.”

Something purrs approval under my skin as I lie. The secret thumb drive in my pocket burns. My leverage. My new just-in-case box.

I love my sister and I trust her. But only so far. And this life has taught me that only so far ends eventually.

My sister’s lips press together. “Good job,” she says, and the words, she has no idea what they mean to me. Someday I might try to tell her.

But I just stare out the window, my eyes blurring, the stained and sandy clothes on my back the only things I own, and the freedom on my tongue tastes like blood and salt.





— 61 —


12:36 p.m. (204 minutes captive)

2 safe-deposit keys

Plan #6: Don’t die.



“You’re definitely going in the trunk,” Duane tells me, stepping off the last ladder rung with a little groan to his breath I can’t miss.

“Scared I’ll stab you again?” As I struggle to straighten, my body would very much like me to stop, but I ignore it. Gotta keep going until I can’t anymore. Otherwise I end up in the trunk.

I step back, toward the barn doors, and he makes a noise, pulling the gun out of his waistband.

“Remember, I’m worth a lot more alive than dead.”

“Now that I’ve met you, I have a feeling your stepfather wouldn’t mind if I brought you back dead. He’d probably sympathize with me once I told him what trouble you were.”

“You don’t know him like I do. That’s definitely not what he wants.”

I’m so focused on him and any way to escape, I almost don’t catch it, the movement up in the hayloft. I think it’s wishful thinking, because there’s really no way out here, but then my thinking’s not wishful, because Iris Moulton is creeping across that hayloft, her giant-ass petticoat stripped from underneath her skirt and clutched in her hand like a weapon. My entire stomach flips like I’ve been double-bounced on a trampoline because holy shit, I am the damsel in distress and I might just be getting saved. She’s got her lighter in her other hand, and I understand instantly what she’s got planned. It’s perfect. She’s perfect, and I can’t even savor how much I love her in that moment because of that asshole and the danger.

“Are you going to be quiet now?” he asks me, and his voice trembles. It doesn’t shake. I’ve snotted off to him and outwitted him and stabbed him, and he is finally where I want him to be: at the end of his rope.