Before I could collect myself he let go and was at the back door of the convenience store with a flat lockpick set that he'd pulled out of his wallet. Within a minute, the door swung wide and Remy was gone. I tried to go in after him but the door closed, locked itself before I could reach it.
That was a lot to digest. I went back to the bike and got on, all I could do was wait for him to come out. What was my place in his world? Would I just slow him down? A weakness given form, that he had to lug around from one dangerous situation to the next? I held my own against Rio though. Because of Remy, I've found an inner strength I didn't know I was capable of. I would prove to him that I was worth the extra weight on the back of his bike. I was useful and despite the horror, was resilient enough. Maybe I could find my own place in the dark lifestyle. I refused to let him abandon me.
It didn't take Remy long to walk out the front door with a plastic bag full of money and another with snacks. The snacks looked way more appealing. I was famished. He tossed me a few protein bars and a bottle of water. It was funny, I never realized how hungry I was until I had a soft moment to breathe.
There was something off-putting about him when he came out of the store. His features were set with this look of determination. He had made some sort of decision and that made me a little nervous.
We ate in silence. I was trying to feel him out, discern what that look meant, to no avail.
“Do you smell that?” The dim whiff of smoke. I thought it was Remy at first, smoking a cigarette, but he was still eating a bag of chips.
“The store is on fire.” Remy dropped the bag and drained a bottle of water.
Holy shit! The building
was
on fire! “What the fuck, Remy! Why is the store on fire?”
“Localized surveillance cameras. There could've been secondary back ups in another part of the store. I didn't have time to search. This way I know they're destroyed. Get off, your staying here.” He started the bike casually. Sirens screamed down the street toward us.
“Wha—” I continued, but he grabbed me again. This time it hurt! His hands were steel traps, devoid of even a fraction of the tenderness from earlier.
“For fuck's sake, bitch. Get this through that thick skull of yours. You are are not coming with me. I warned you in the hall at Muse's. I will never be the man you want me to be. I only wanted to fuck you. I have. I don't want you anymore.”
I was mortified. The sirens got louder. I couldn't find the strength to move. I hoped this was just some twisted joke. “Gotcha!” he would say, completely out of character, and we would ride off and evade the police. That wasn't the case.
“I can be helpful, worth my weight...” I stumbled horribly through my empowering thoughts from earlier.
“You are nothing to me, you understand? I kept you alive out of pity. Now get the fuck away from me. Don't force me to hurt you.” The approaching blue and red lights reflected off the store's windows, casting Remy's face in chilling, hellish shades. It made him look truly monstrous.
“Remy.” He wouldn't stop. I felt so small but for some reason I still couldn't force myself off the bike. Even now, I didn't want to lose him.
“Bitch, I will fucking end you! Get off of me!” Remy yelled as the police cruiser and fire truck pulled in. Although he was definitely addressing me, it felt like his yelling wasn't actually for me. He looked past me and yelled far too loudly for someone just a foot away. I've seen Remy mad. His tone didn't get louder, only... sharper. I don't know if I was just fooling myself but all of this felt disingenuous. Maybe I was wrong, though. Maybe he realized that he really did make a mistake choosing me over his real family.
He ripped the plastic bag with the money, causing some to scatter across the pavement, then he shoved me. He pushed me right off the bike. I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, I couldn't take my eyes off him. He didn't look at me after that.
“Freeze!” Remy disregarded the officers' cries and sped off. One of them squeezed a few rounds but Remy was too quick. They'd never catch him and they knew it.
I laid there crying on the cold pavement, watched him disappear like a waking dream.
“Stay where you are, don't move! What happened here?” The flashlights made it so I couldn't make out which officer was questioning me. I guess it really didn't matter.
I started noticing the heat emanating from the front door. God, this building went up so fast! Errant spray from the fire truck's hoses sprinkled me. The officers kept saying things at me but I was closed. Impermeable. My senses shut down. Too much was happening. Everything was surreal.
“Your name, miss. Tell us your name. I think she's in shock. Looks like there was a struggle.” When they flipped me onto my stomach and I felt the pinching chill of handcuffs, I gasped for air. I surfaced after what felt like a lifetime under water. The daze started lifting.
“What's going on?” Although I knew what was happening, the words came out automatically anyways, like it was something I was just supposed to ask in situations like these.
“You're being arrested.”
“My name is Star Keller!”
“Keller... that name—”
“Oh shit, that's the girl that was abducted in Guymon, Oklahoma. Get those fucking things off of her!”
They had an ambulance show up. The EMT cleared me and I was taken to the station. The ride, the questioning, the paperwork... I ate something at some point, I think. Honestly, by then I was so mentally, physically and emotionally exhausted that it all became a blur. I just didn't care. Remy's last words ran laps in my head. I tried to make sense of it all but there was nothing to make sense of. There was no normal to compare it to anymore. What was left of me?
They asked me what happened. I told them I was kidnapped by bikers. They asked if I knew which club took me. I told them no. They asked me if could identify the man on the bike that took off. Again, I said no.
I don't know why I was protecting the MC or even Remy at that point. Some part of me knew I wasn't protecting the Steel Veins from the police, but that I was protecting me from the Steel Veins. I think it was seeing how easily the officers at Muse's place were dispatched that made me keep quiet.
I wanted to trust them, I really did. I wanted to tell them everything down to the shape of Top's bent dick, but I kept learning the hard way what happened when you trusted freely. Professor Jackson back home, Muse, and now Remy... Maybe my parents were right after all. Somehow, I always found the worst people in life and orbited around them like a moon. Scorched in the light and frozen in the darkness.
The officers were all very nice. I'm sure some of it was a nagging worry over the potential of a PR shit-storm. “Abducted girl rescued from brutal biker gang only to be treated harshly by local police!” That would probably make for an embarrassing headline.
They told me I could call my parents but I declined. It was too late for that. Not that I thought they wouldn't answer, just that I wasn't prepared for what was going to be a very long, emotional call.
The sky had lightened. Beautiful hues of the seldom seen sunrise glowed over the horizon and through the police station windows. My head and eyelids felt full of wet cement. I was on the verge of falling asleep in one of their office chairs.
They set me up on a couch in the coffee area just outside the grid of over-worked, near-empty desks. They would have given me a cell but none were empty and they sure as hell weren't going to have me share. I was given a blanket and pillow. My first night in jail. It wasn't so bad, really. Granted, I'm sure that was only because I wasn't there as a prisoner.
When I laid down my body gave out. I was exhausted to the point of near immobility. My mind kicked back on with a vengeance.
My heart was so full with hurt that there was barely enough room for it to beat. Why would he save me just to abandon me? I'd finally woken from an awful, violent nightmare and was now able to go home. I would get to step back into the worn, familiar shoes of my old life like nothing ever happened. The tears came in force.
Why did it hurt so much? I was so angry at Remy yet burned for him at the same time. He was unbridled adrenaline. I felt like I was so much
more
just by being near him. It was intoxicating. I was drunk off Remy like I was off Thomas, but this time it was real, not just a dirty student crush.
I should be elated to even be alive but being in this cell, knowing New Hampshire was my next stop, I felt like the part of me that was truly happy was starting to die off. Mercifully, the calm of sleep finally took me.
In my freedom I was poisoned.
* * * * *
I
awoke to a biblical-level of commotion in the mid morning. The station was filled with people running around and yelling on the phone. For such a small town I couldn't believe that this amount of activity was normal. Something big must've happened.
I got up as fast as I could but my ass and arms were still sore from where Remy pushed me off the bike. The officers were strapping on thick bulletproof vests and divvying out larger weapons: shotguns, assault rifles. It looked like war came to sleepy Las Vegas, New Mexico. It was kind of thrilling being so close to this side of it.
“What's going on?” I rubbed the stubborn weariness out of my eyes.
“Police business, ma'am. Nothing to worry about.” The older blond lady at the desk across from me had just hung up the phone. She had cropped, short hair and carried herself with the same hard demeanor as the other men and woman gearing up. When I saw the handles of the wheelchair behind her I understood why she wasn't getting ready as well.“It's Ms. Keller, right?”
“
Star
is fine. Is everything OK?”
“Nothing we can't handle.” She was probably still tough as nails, if not out-right tougher than she was before whatever had crippled her. I tried not to feel pity for her, but I couldn't help it. “You're not being charged with anything, so you should go call your parents.”
My parents? I had already forgotten about them. I was so swept up in all the excitement that I kept catching myself looking around for Remy even though it wouldn't make sense for him to be here. At least not on this side of the bars. I guess I've just come to associate Remy with action and despite myself, it made my heart race a little.
“Yeah.” I deflated. “I should call them.”
“You can use that desk on the corner.”
“Thanks.” I gave the officers a wide berth. The room was wider than it was long. Drop ceilings, carpets, it looked like countless other office buildings I'd seen before. I walked slowly to absorb as much as I could. It was so loud and layered that once I got to the desk, I closed my eyes to focus better on the details.
“Shots fired at the Super 8. Emergency Resp—” “—Martine is down!” “—ave SWAT en route. Eta in—” “—like it's Los Lobos—” “essir, it might be connected to the fire at the Pick and Pay. Both have connections to Lob—”
What was I doing? My eyes opened. I needed to let it go. As the officers filed out the front door I picked up the phone and dialed my mom's cell. I was surprised I actually remembered her number. I had grown so accustomed to just calling peoples faces or names that it was easy to forget the actual digits.
“—rival motorcycle gang. Best guess? The Steel Veins out of Oklahoma. Put me thro—” the officer in the wheelchair was one of the very few that remained.
“Hello?” My mother's voice. I reached over and mashed my fingers on the switch hook, killing the call. Shit. Stop being fucking crazy, Star! Yes, if the Steel Veins were there then so was Remy, probably. So what? He abandoned me, it was obvious that he didn't want me.
Was it? He pulled me out of danger so often, I couldn’t believe it was for nothing. If it was just for the sex why bring me to New Mexico? He could have easily just given me to Tee and the other biker. Then there was the convenience store. He was so different when he came out, like he made up his mind and that was that. He left me there knowing I'd get picked up by the police.
That sonofabitch
saved
me again.
Well fuck him! I didn't want to be saved this time. No. People had been making decisions for me my whole fucking life. I didn't want to get sent to the asshole of the Midwest for some bullshit degree. I didn't want to be taken by bikers and almost gang-raped to death.
And I didn't ask to be
saved
from Remy Daniels.
I rooted around the desk until I found a set of car keys. I knocked over a small picture frame of the man's family in the process. The frame held a Christmas scene. A pregnant wife, a little boy and even the dog all wearing ugly sweaters. It was sweet. I hesitated. Some of my righteousness dissipated. This wasn’t a victimless crime.
Still, I wasn't hurting anyone. Not really. I promised myself that I'd take good care of the car and abandon it the first chance I had. Then I'd leave an anonymous tip where it could be found. I'm sorry, Vasquez family, but I really needed this right now. I had made up my mind.
The blond officer was on the phone with someone important and was apologizing like crazy. I used the distraction to walk down to the entrance unnoticed. Right by the front door was a rack with the town's brochures. I grabbed the Super 8 pamphlet and slipped outside.
Luckily the car had an electric key. I walked around the parking lot, clicking the button until a tan, mid two-thousands Nissan Altima winked its headlights back at me. The car door opened and I was in. Easily the craziest thing I'd ever done! I mean, I did shoot a guy but I that was barely a choice and I wasn't the one to kill him.
This, though. This was all me. My hands were shaking as I opened the brochure. On the back was a small map that showed the area surrounding the motel. I scanned through the car windows and found a street sign, then I found it on the map and plotted a course. The motel was actually really close, I would be there in no time.
The car started right up and that thrill surged within me.
I'm stealing a fucking cop car!
I pulled out of the parking lot and was on my way. This was my decision. If I got arrested or killed, it's because of the choice that I made. Right or wrong, I was no longer just along for the fucking ride in my own life.