Silver Stilettos

EPILOGUE | I will always love you [2]

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MAYURI'S POV

February (4 Months Later)

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"Life is a Highway" was playing on the radio when Caroline turned to me and said, "You could at least have some fun. It's not every day that you get to miss four months of class and blow off the SATs." Instead of watching the road, she let go of the steering wheel, and wrapped one arm around the back of my seat. "Right?" she asked, addressing Reed, Gia, and Ethan. She said in the way that implied a thank-you from me wouldn't go amiss.

The radio rattled. Chunk, chunk, chunk. Like pennies shaken in an Altoid tin. Gia mumbled agreement, yawning like she hadn't just woken up from a five hour nap. She and her boyfriend were on something. I could tell by the way Gia laughed, shrill and maniacal, at things that weren't even funny, and the way Ethan leered at me when he saw me looking in the side mirror.

He would stick his tongue into his cheek and push against it in quick thrusts before his nose began to run and he had to use his grimy sleeve to wipe it. Sometimes Gia would kiss him before he had a chance, but she never recoiled, almost as if she was used to the taste.

I didn't care much for Gia, and even less for Ethan, but at least it wasn't Reed's face staring back at me. In the last four months, I'd see the Norcross siblings every day, and in the last two, they'd adopted a hitchhiking couple who had never left.

We were always on the move. We never stayed in one place for more than a few days, not since I'd made the mistake of trying to pass a message along to the family of four in the next room of our Motel 8.

When I didn't reply, Caroline slapped my shoulder. Not lightly, the way I used to do to Kiran when he had his headphones in and I wanted to get his attention, but hard, like she wished she could swat me out of the car. "Hey," she said. Then, "How are you feeling?"

It was hard to tell. I let my head rest against the cool window and watched the bare trees with their trembling, outstretched limbs. If Caroline was normal, I would think her question came from concern. But as with everything she said and did, her ulterior motives were never that altruistic.

We'd made it all the way to California on the back of money Reed had stolen from his mother and things Caroline had sold along the way. The trunk of the car held a lot of treasures: old cameras, a watch, a strand of pearls, the PlayStation Reed could no longer play because she'd already sold the games, and a laptop that overheated faster than it connected to wifi. Presumably Caroline had kept enough stuff for us to get to wherever we were going next.

"Something wrong with her?" I saw Ethan move, saw his hand reach out and rub my bare arm up and down.

I was wearing a flowy peach tank top, something Caroline had flung at me that morning the way she'd been flinging her clothing cast-offs since we'd left Indiana, and I was too tired to object when Ethan dug his finger under the strap. He looped his thick finger around my bra strap and gently pulled it down so my shoulder was bare.

"You stressed, sweetheart?" he asked as he ran his questing fingers up my neck, behind my ear, and then back down my arm again.

"Leave her alone," said Reed.

From Gia's silence, I assumed she'd gone to sleep again, drooping her head against Ethan.

Ethan laughed. "Yeah, sorry, man. Mea culpa."

"We need gas," said Caroline. Her fingers flexed. "And we're running low on cash," she added under her breath, too low for anyone but me to hear. She steered with her left hand and bent her right wrist back and forth until there was an audible crack. "Finally," she said in a whoosh of breath.