Alone

Chapter 2

Riley

The Suburban rocks as the man climbs in, slamming the door. I try to breathe and go over my options in my head. There aren't many. The girl across the seat is gasping for breath like a fish out of water, and I can't see her helping much. The grating in front of us and the missing door handles prevent any escape to the front or sides, and rear doors don't usually open from the inside. We burn rubber out of the parking lot, speeding toward the nearby highway. Moments blur into hours after we get on the interstate, and the girl falls asleep, leaning against the door. I breathe through my mouth and stare out the window. I see the Tennessee state line go past sometime in the middle of the afternoon, and we are halfway through Oklahoma by 9:00. The man takes a sharp turn onto a dirt road without hardly slowing down. Several miles down, the dirt changes into pavement and buildings start to appear along the sides. We park in the lot of an old, worn out motel, and I silently shake the other girl awake.

Chloe

The other girl steadies me as we climb out of the car and the man herds us toward one of the doors. It is icy cold outside the car, and my eyes sting in the sudden wind. The door opens in front of us, and the shadowy figure of a man holds it as we file through. As soon as the man behind us is through, the other man shuts the door and flips the light on. The room is a typical cheap motel room, two queen beds with matching spreads and a cheap wood dresser to one side. As both of us girls stand looking around, the bathroom door opens and another man comes out. To my surprise, this one is a teenager, no older than us. At the sight of us, he swallows and goes pale before his eyes slide behind us. I glance at the other girl, and I can see by her eyes that she feels the strain in the room as well. I almost laugh at the idea, noticing tension in a room full of kidnappers.

Riley

I am hoping that we stay here for a while, because there are more ways I can see to help our situation, but as soon as the room is cleaned up and packed, we are herded back out into the parking lot. Icy cold air forces itself into my lungs, and I cough and wheeze as the men push us forward. Instead of going back to the Suburban, the man who actually kidnapped us points us to a Bronco with visible grating on the back windows and behind the seat. Even though the darkness hides us from view, one of the men stands guard as the other opens the back doors and points us in. I scramble in first, then lend a hand to the other girl before going to sit with my back against the grating behind the bench seat. As the men climb in the seats, the boy scrambles up in the back with us, and I pull my outstretched legs in to avoid kicking him as the door closes behind him. We drive silently far into the night, trepidation fading to exhaustion as the miles go by. By the time we finally pull over to the side of the road to sleep, everyone but the driver and I are dozing. Within ten minutes, I am the only one awake, but pretty soon the other girl jumps and wakes up. I'm busy trying to figure out a way out of the car until she speaks. "I'm Chloe. I don't think I know your name." I look at her a minute, seeing the same fear and exhaustion in her eyes that I'm feeling. "Riley." The brief exchange loosens the tightness in my chest a little, and after a minute, Chloe settles back and closes her eyes again. A shaft of moonlight falls across the boy's face, and as I look back at the doors, I see that his eyes are open, and he is not sleeping as I thought. I stare at him for a minute, until he turns his head to look at me, then I narrow my eyes and glare. I'm not sure that he can see me in the dark, because he keeps looking and finally asks, "Why you?" I forget to glare for a minute in my confusion. "What?" He levers himself up on one hand to look up at the front seat as he answers. "Why did he take you? Is your family rich or something?" I narrow my eyes again, trying to figure out if he is trying to find out for himself or the other men. "No. My dad's a roustabout. We don't have any money." He settles back against the door and gestures at Chloe. "What about her? Is her family rich?" I shrug, sort of lying, because I think that they are. He is quiet for a minute, then blurts, "My dad is the one that took you. I didn't want to. I'm Peter, by the way." I extend my hand across the cramped space. "I'm Riley. So your dad's the mastermind?" He snorts softly, and even in the dim moonlight I can see him roll his eyes. "He's not much of a mastermind of anything, but don't tell him I said that. You said your dad is a roustabout? What is that?" I shift to a more comfortable position, not really wanting to talk about Dad. "A roustabout is basically a handyman on the oilfield. Low pay and lots of hours." He's quiet for a minute before snorting again. "Better than kidnapping two girls for money." I grin into the darkness, starting to like him, in spite of the circumstances. Silence falls as soft snoring from the front permeates the Bronco.

Chloe

I sit quietly, listening to the conversation between Riley and Peter, breathing a little easier when Riley doesn't tell Peter who I am, although maybe she just doesn't know. I didn't know her dad worked on the oilfield, either. I stay awake even after Riley finally closes her eyes, for the first time I've seen. Even as her breath evens out into sleep, her shoulders stay tense and high. Peter opens his eyes a minute after Riley closes hers, and turns as if to continue his conversation with her. I shift and he jerks around to look at me. "Peter? Is that what you said your name is?" He hesitates, then nods. "Yeah. You're Chloe, right?" I nod and he continues, jerking his head toward Riley. "She said she didn't have any money, so it must be you, right?" I frown, searching for an answer that will make them let me go. "Sort of, but you know, there's money in the oilfields too." Guilt tightens my chest, making it hard to breathe, and I look cautiously over at Riley to make sure she isn't hearing this. Her breathing continues, even and quiet, and I look back at Peter. "So, maybe it wasn't me. Why are you going around kidnapping people, anyway?" He leans forward enough to see into the front seats before he answers. "I'm not a kidnapper. Dad thinks that the money is important."

Riley

I am pretending to sleep, trying not to hold it against Chloe that she wants to get away, but kind of wishing that she knew that I'd lied for her. I think I can survive better than she can, so maybe I should have lied and said that I was the rich one. She probably actually wants to go home. I'm not particularly enjoying being kidnapped, but I'd almost rather this than a whipping, which is what is probably waiting at home. After a moment of silence, Chloe asks softly, "Do the doors open from in here?" I open my eyes just a crack, enough to look at Peter as he opens his mouth to respond, indecision written all over his face. The sudden rocking of the Bronco answers for him, and the man in the passenger seat twists around to look back. I pretend to wake up as he growls, loud enough to wake up the other man, "Peter, do we need to have another talk?" I can tell by the way he says "talk" and the look on Peter's face that the discussion would be familiar to me. Peter says, "No, sir." and turns to look out the window. The men climb out and swap seats, and we are off again, keeping to the highway except when we detour around a town. Peter stays turned away from us, and Chloe quickly falls asleep again. The countryside sliding by outside the grated windows gradually becomes barren and dry. Hours slip by as I lay my head back and doze. Every so often the driver stops at some small, almost deserted gas station for fuel and the restroom, but Chloe and I are only allowed to go if the restroom is outside, so that one of the men can stand guard outside. Eventually, pure exhaustion overwhelms me and I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. When I wake up again, we are moving slowly along a rutted dirt road through thick trees. Everyone else is awake, looking out the windows. Peter has finally turned around, staring ahead through the windshield as though expecting something. Chloe and I exchange a fearful look just before the Bronco bounces over a waterbar and around a sharp curve, revealing a bedraggled cabin resting in a small clearing.