We Told Six Lies(46)

I walked until your back pressed into the trunk of a tree. You grabbed me tighter, kissed me deeper, and I wondered if I’d stepped out of that train’s path too late after all. If this were death I’d stepped into instead. If it was, I thought, I’d take it.

I trailed kisses down your neck and lightly bit your shoulder.

“I love you, Molly,” I breathed into your hair.

“I know,” you said, and kissed each of my eyes in turn, and then my ears, too. There was a difference in the way you touched me that day. Instead of passion and urgency, it was tenderness. And honesty.

“I’m going to get the money to get us away from here,” I said. “We’ll go to the beach. Or the mountains. Texas or Nevada. Whatever.”

You unlocked your legs and slid down my body until those yellow rain boots touched the ground. Your arms stayed locked around my middle, and you looked up at me with a question in your eyes.

“I’m going to steal it,” I said, nodding. “I’m going to steal the money from Duane when he goes to make a deposit.”





MOLLY


Blue came for Molly two days after he’d taken her outside.

Moonlight invaded her small bathroom, telling her it was story time. Story time happened before bed but after dinner. She would sit at the foot of her bed and recount stories she’d read. She’d change words here and there to make them interesting.

Jack and the Giant Octopus

Cinderella vs. The Stepmother: A Battle of Wits & Magic

Three Sleeping Bears and A Little Girl Devoured by Envy

She wasn’t very good at telling stories, but that’s why she enjoyed doing it. It passed the time. And the time—those empty hours spent trapped between four barren walls—rattled her more than he did.

She was in the middle of a romance—a story about a prince who stood upon train tracks and declared his love as a dragon barreled toward him—when her door was unlocked.

Blue came toward her, and she noticed he had changed. His jeans were darker, his black boots polished. He wore the same jacket, but beneath it peeked a plum-colored shirt.

He strode toward her with a knife, and her heart lurched, though she should know better by now. Blue cut the restraints around her wrists, and she rubbed the skin there, though it wasn’t sore. He was always careful, she noticed, to not secure them too tightly.

He motioned toward the box at the foot of her bed, which still held the red dress he’d brought days earlier.

“Want me to wear it?” she asked.

He stared at her until she pulled the material from the box and went into the bathroom. She hid behind the wall, since there was no door, and slipped the dirtied white dress up over her shoulders. The red one took its place.

When she reappeared, Blue looked at her for longer than he had in the other dresses. Then he flicked his blade toward the stairs. She walked in front of him, ready to slide the next piece of her plan into place. She had shown him that she wasn’t going to run away at the first opportunity. She’d shown affection when he expected hostility. Now was the time to reveal the ace she held in her palm.

She came to the top of the stairs, and he reached past her and pointed to the right, toward the kitchen. She allowed her eyes to flick once in the opposite direction where the front door remained locked. Then she forced herself to go to the kitchen table. There lay two plates, two plastic cups, and two polished spoons.

She waited for him to tell her where to sit. He slapped his hand twice against one of the chairs, and she pulled it out, folded the dress beneath her, and sat down. She thought, as he moved toward the kitchen, of Cobain.

If her evenings were for stories and moonlight and the sweet relief of sleep, then the daylight was for thinking of him. Of what she had almost done to him. She remembered his lips on her throat, his gentle hands in her hair.

She remembered his hands losing their gentleness after she told him she didn’t love him.

She had to squeeze her eyes shut against the memory. She had to still her heart that beat wildly for him. Once again, Molly found herself watching the way Blue moved. Trying to recall the wonderfully decadent details that made Cobain the first boy she ever truly…

No.

She had to stop, or she’d drown in despair.

Blue positioned himself behind the counter and started slicing carrots with his knife.

Her eyes glued themselves to that blade. She licked her lips. Was there anything she’d ever wanted more than to have that weapon in her hands?

Blue’s eyes flicked up at her. Slowly, he retrieved the black device on the counter and raised it to his lips.

“Talk.”

She startled at the sound of his distorted voice. It was the first time he’d spoken in days.

Molly glanced around the kitchen, trying to conjure some kind of conversation with her kidnapper. “I like the fireplace,” she said. “I’ve always loved them.”

He kept his gaze directed toward the carrots, and the steel pot boiling on the stove. He’d lowered the device, and she knew he wouldn’t chance speaking without it, so she tried again.

“My parents took me to this campsite once. We stayed at this cabin that made us feel like pioneers. It was a lot like this. Odd, because it was so different from what I was used to. But charming, too.” She smiled at a memory she’d suppressed. She rarely allowed herself to think of the quiet moments with her father. But even though she knew he was a criminal, while she was growing up, he had also been her dad.