The stretch of highway between South Bend and Chicago was arid and flat, dotted by farms and distant houses. Small towns sprouted up like crops, littered near central lanes, gas stations, downtown shopping districts, and defunct drive-in movies theaters.
I tried to imagine growing up in a place like this instead of upstate New York in my father’s palatial house. People had experienced real loss—of jobs, of family, of industry, of future. I could see myself as a teenager, desperate to leave, just like I was desperate to escape my father’s house.
And I wondered if what happened to me then would’ve happened to me here. If my mom would’ve slipped back into drug abuse. If my father would’ve been a softer man.
If the truth of that night would’ve been enough to make him believe me and step outside of the tiny comfortable world he’d created.
Tragedy had no place in my father’s house. It didn’t matter what kind of tragedy—whether it was his wife’s drug abuse, or an assault on his daughter.
He couldn’t accept it. Not in his perfect life. Those things happened to other people.
Trying to tell him otherwise branded you a liar and a mouthy little bitch.
It took me weeks to work up the courage to tell him what happened. Weeks of worry and self-hatred, of wondering if I was overreacting, if maybe it wasn’t that bad—but it was, it was, it was that bad.
Then the look on his face after I got it all out, let the story spill from my lips, every embarrassing detail, every nightmare second.
His expression was blank. No, worse. His expression was disappointed.
I was so angry when he told me to let it go, that it was in the past, that we couldn’t do anything about it.
I screamed at him. For the first time in my life, I raised my voice in anger, even though I knew it would cost me dearly.
You mouthy little bitch, he shouted as he slapped me across the face.
All for telling him the truth.
For telling him something he didn’t want to hear.
I was fourteen, four years after my mother left. I started planning that night.
And in another four years, I escaped.
Darren wanted that story from me. He wanted a glimpse at what made me the way I was.
And I was tempted to give him the ugly truth, because I was afraid he’d react like my father—with anger and denial.
If that happened, any lingering desire for him would vanish, and I’d be free of this stupid, jarring, physical need.
I looked at him, watched his face as he watched the landscape. I wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, just to see how he’d react. I could do it—he was inches away. It wouldn’t be hard.
The first explosion sent me sideways against the door so hard I thought my shoulder might pop free from its socket.
10
Winter
My ears rang and someone grabbed my wrist. I groaned, tried to push them away. Everything spun. I smelled gasoline.
“You have to get up.”
Another hard tug. I blinked rapidly and the world came into focus.
Darren’s face. Blood trickled down his forehead. The front window was smashed and the driver lay slumped over the steering wheel. More explosions went off, smaller explosions.
Gunshots everywhere.
Darren shoved my door open. I tumbled backward but he wrapped an arm around my waist and caught me. He shimmied out, supporting my weight as he crouched down next to the car.
We were in the middle of the highway. Debris was scattered all over—car parts, a bumper, red-colored glass, several human fingers. I stared at the fingers: where did they come from?
I was in shock. I knew it, was distantly aware of it.
“Stay down.” Darren’s voice was hot against my neck. He crouched low and peered over the back bumper. His gun flared to life several times.
On the opposite side of the road, cars sped away. Some were stopped a few miles ahead, and more were stopped a few miles behind. The corn rustled in the wind, and a large white house stood surrounded by a tractor and trucks, a speck in the distance.
The lead car was toast. It’d taken the brunt of the explosion. Its body was ripped in half, and blood was splattered all over the ground. It looked like ketchup or paint. I tried to rationalize what was happening and failed.
I choked down several breaths and kept myself pressed against the side of the car.
Bullets ripped through the air. My ears were on fire from all the shots. Darren cursed, reloaded, kept shooting. His men were crouched all along the line of cars, several of them firing heavy rifles, the stocks bucking against their shoulders.
I risked a look through the back windows.
Across the street, in the cornfield, men were crouched down low. I knew they were there from the flashes of their muzzles. They were like small flickering flames, like lightning bugs in the plants. Darren’s men tore through the stalks, their weapons mowing the corn down, killing everyone hidden away in that field one after the other.