Deadgirl

My bravado evaporated. As soon as I passed the doors I hunkered down next to a line of hedges and stared across the parking lot. Just little spots of yellow light and old cars.

I checked my gut. Nothing. No animal-panic, no sense of urgency. I stayed low, trying to work my way over to where I thought I’d stashed my bike. I stayed behind hedges, next to cars. If I had a machine gun and a whole lot of camo, I could have passed for Special Forces. You know, in the Barbie Dream Army.

I was still wearing pink sneakers. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity.

Behind one hedge, I tugged out my phone and set it to vibrate. There was no way in heck some random phone call by Morgan or Daphne was going to be responsible for my ultimate doom. I’d seen too many horror movies, or maybe just enough, because there was no way I was being so lame. I would have turned the phone off completely, but the last two text messages had saved my life, and I didn’t want to cut off the pipeline to my mysterious stranger/savior just yet.

I saw the handlebars to my bike sticking out of a hedge, next to a Ford Ranger just across the way. I’d have to pass over a large open patch of ground to get it, though.

Ah hell with it.

I flew across the blacktop on my pink sneakers, abandoning all attempts at stealth. There were only two noises as I sprinted with everything I had—my shoes scraping asphalt, and my breath coming fast and sharp.

Halfway across the stretch, another sound joined it. An engine roaring to life. The engine of a white Lincoln Town Car with green tinted windows, as a matter of fact. It pulled out of a parking spot at the end of the row and whipped toward me. The headlights came to life, bathing me in their yellowed glow. I didn’t deer-it—I never stopped running.

I leaped across the last hedge, tripped, and rolled across the asphalt on the other side. I felt my hand, my back, and my shoulder scrape hard against the ground. My hand shot into the bushes and I yanked the bike out as hard as I could. Twigs snapped, and I had to throw my whole body weight to pull the rest of it out. I collapsed back on the ground again, but got the bike up within seconds.

The Lincoln squealed and long peels of smoke scooted out from its tires. The fear hit me, filled my mouth with saliva and bubbles and screams, but I jumped onto the bike and raced across the parking lot. I pulled myself up and rode between a little blue sedan and a black van just as the Lincoln roared past behind me. I heard its brakes shriek, but by then I was on the other side of the lane.

I shot between two more cars into another lane, then another, cutting across the parking lot in a way no car could compete with. I could hear the Lincoln far behind me on the other side of the lot, trying to navigate the twisting lanes at speed while at the same time trying to figure out which lane I was in.

I cut across the rest of the parking lot and rode down the driveway. The handlebars jumped in my hand as I came off the curb, and the front wheel tried to twist and buck me. I yanked one way, then the other, just barely maintaining my balance and only just preserving my skull from a high-speed fracture.

Hey, Ma, look at me. Regular BMX superstar.

I cut across every lane of traffic and flew up the driveway of a closed-down strip mall. The street was only lightly busy—a car every ten to twenty seconds, and I didn’t need any hair-raising, death defying stunts to get across. Which I was glad for, because any stunts of mine on a bike would only shortly thereafter be followed by epic failure and death.

I raced around the strip mall through back alleys and other places way too small for any car, much less a Lincoln. Had my would-be-murderer been rolling in a Smart Car, I might have had some work on my hands.

The man-in-white’s face floated through my mind, twisted and screaming and pouring smoke out of his eye, while I stashed the bike away in my dad’s shed and marched up the steps of the back door. I was hot, sweaty, and my hair probably looked equal-parts wind-blown and greasy. I went to the kitchen sink first to wash my hands and splash some water on my face.

When I turned around, Dad was walking into the kitchen. I glanced up at the clock—9:30. Oh crap.

“Lucy,” Dad said, and leaned against the wall. His white dress shirt was half-in half-out of his slacks, and he looked exhausted.

“Hey, Dad,” I said, trying to sound perky. It wasn’t hard with the adrenaline cranking my heart up to a thousand beats a minute. “Rough day?”

Dad smirked. “Why, thank you. You look pretty put-together yourself.”

I curtsied.

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. He was small-talking, it was obvious. He’d work his way somewhere soon though, I knew. “Just really behind. Damn internet shouldn’t even be connected to my work computer.”

“I dig that,” I said. “My Journalism class is the same way.”

Dad nodded. He’d been working from home for a good ten years now, and he knew the dangers inherent with it very well. Not being at work, having access to the fridge, the internet, video games, DVDs, books, and movies made actually working painfully difficult. Still, he provided for most of the income with his essays and his articles, so it was hard to be mad at him.

The other danger from working at home was more insidious, we’d all come to realize. When you liked your job, it was hard to keep the line between work time and home time less-than-blurry. Sometimes Dad would work late into the night because he enjoyed it, but that left us without what you might call quality time.

And he looked like he’d been working overtime.

“You missed dinner again.”

He didn’t look happy to bring it up. My dad could be a hard ass, but if he was exhausted, getting mad was too much of an effort.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just had a great ride.”

“Dinner?” he asked.

I sighed.

“Sorry, Dad.”

He made a face. “No, I meant, want to get dinner? I missed it, too.”

A wide grin spread across my face—I couldn’t help it.

“Is that why you’re being so lenient? Cause Mom busted you?”

“Your mother and I are a unit,” he said. “We come to agreements as one entity, and aren’t subject to petty squabbles.”

“You must really be in trouble,” I said and set my hands on my hips.

Dad’s lips twisted, and he nodded. He ran both hands through his ruffled hair in a failed attempt to smooth it back into its Ronald Reagan shape. He glanced at the hallway mirror, sighed, and yanked the bottom of his shirt completely out of his pants. It made him look less dressed up, but it also made him less disheveled. It… sheveled him? Hmm. Something to think about.

“Chinese?”

Dad nodded. “Perfect.”

I ran to my bedroom while Dad went to start the car. We were just heading out to grab a quick bite, but I had to do something about my appearance. Rat’s nest hair, beet-red face, hands shaking from extreme adrenalin poisoning. I looked like the bride of Dracula.

My sweatshirt came off right away—I was burning. I dabbed my face with a towel, trying to take off some of the sheen both my bike ride and the warmth had caused. If ladies don’t sweat, then I was doing a pretty damn good impression of whatever did.

I tried to run a brush through my hair, which ended in tugging painfully at a number of thick snarls until my eyes watered. I growled, grabbed an old blue baseball cap, and shoved it over my head. I pulled the rest of my hair through the hole in the back of the hat, trying to look intentionally sporty. It wasn’t half-bad.

I glanced in the mirror on my way out of my room. I didn’t look like hell anymore, but I didn’t look great. I’d fit alongside my exhausted dad. Besides, anyone who looks great at a take-out Chinese food joint at ten o’clock at night isn’t a good person anyway.

My dad’s car idled in the driveway—I ran across the grass and hopped into the open door. I slammed it shut behind me, snapped the belt buckle, and slumped in the seat. Only when I got outside, into the cold night, did I