“By taking down the other dog with its teeth and claws, injuring it until it can’t get up and fight anymore. Sometimes by killing it.”
“And . . . and people bet on it? Watch it?” she asked, her bewilderment and dawning distaste obvious.
“Yeah. They root on their dog. The one they bet on.”
She didn’t say anything for several seconds while Jake steeped in his foulness. His dirtiness. She had no knowledge of the things he’d seen, of the brutality he’d witnessed and taken part in, even if unwillingly.
“Why’d you kill her?” He winced at the word “kill” coming out of her mouth.
“Because my uncle made her fight, and she got hurt real bad. I was trying to doctor her, but she wasn’t getting better. She was in a lot of pain. Suffering. Since I was leaving with you, I didn’t have any choice.”
“How’d you do it?” she whispered.
“I gave her a lethal dose of the sedative. She’ll just have gone to sleep.” He sniffed and swiped at his cheeks. They were wet. He hated that she witnessed how weak he was. He clamped his eyes shut and took a deep, uneven breath. “It’s done, now. I guess she’s not suffering anymore.”
“You did the right thing. You absolutely did the right thing. I’m just sorry you had to do it. And I’m sorry that you lost your dog.” He looked around, startled at how fierce she’d sounded. She put her arm around his shoulders. Her face was close. Her kindness—and her touch—had almost crowded his grief and fear clear out of his brain.
“Do you think he’ll find us?” she asked quietly after a moment. Jake blinked, jerking his awareness off the sensation of her rubbing her fingers soothingly over his upper arm. He wasn’t used to being touched kindly. Grandma Rose used to hug him sometimes before she’d gotten sick and taken to her bed. That’d been nice and comforting, he recalled. But Harper’s half hug wasn’t the same . . . in fact, it was a world of difference.
“He doesn’t know where this cave is,” he repeated. He’d told her of the whole plan once they’d reached the safety of his cave. By leaving a false trail in the direction of the nearest town, Poplar Gorge, Jake hoped Emmitt would draw the conclusion he’d taken Harper south. In truth, they’d hole up in the cave until it was likely that Emmitt was hot on the false trail, then cross the river and head in the direction of Barterton.
Barterton was farther away than Poplar Gorge, and for all Emmitt knew, Jake had never been there. Jake had traveled there twice now, however, on his own and in secret. He liked the hot dog stand downtown—soft-serve ice cream for a quarter. Once, he’d camped out on the outskirts of town and snuck into the back of the local drive-in and watched a comedy on the big screen. Both trips had been undertaken while Emmitt was in Charleston for extended weekends, supposedly for “business,” but probably mostly just for whoring and drinking. Jake had bargained with a kid who lived down the river, Stevie Long, to come over and feed the dogs while he made his little trips in Emmitt’s absence. In return, Jake had promised to do Stevie’s math homework for six months. Looking back on it, Jake thought he’d struck a good deal with Stevie. His knowledge of the landscape in the direction of Barterton would help their escape.
“Emmitt won’t imagine I’d take you to Barterton,” Jake told her.
“Why not?”
He stilled his shrug with his shoulders elevated, suddenly aware he might throw off Harper’s embrace. Her touch had sent him into a trance. His gaze shot sideways, but he didn’t dare to move his head. As if she’d sensed his sudden tension and awkwardness, her hand slid down his back and off of him. He tried to contain his sharp disappointment.
“Emmitt doesn’t think much of me, one way or another. He wouldn’t think I’d come up with a plan that wasn’t the obvious.”
“He doesn’t get how smart you are,” she stated rather than asked. “That’s an advantage to us.”
He looked at her, his mouth hanging open. It was the best compliment he’d ever gotten.
“You didn’t kill Mrs. Roundabout.”
“What?” he asked, amazed not only by her firm proclamation, but her blazing stare. She might be a menace in the woods, and a city girl to boot, but Harper McFadden was no weakling.
“You didn’t kill Mrs. Roundabout. You set her free, just as surely as you freed me. He killed her.”
Jake swallowed
thickly and nodded, pulling his gaze off her mouth. He still saw it in his head as he stared unseeingly at the trickling water. He shouldn’t be thinking about Harper’s lips, given the circumstances they were in.
Maybe she was right about Emmitt being responsible for Mrs. Roundabout’s death. Something else was a certainty. Emmitt’d kill Jake the second he found them.
He didn’t want to think about what his uncle might do to Harper afterward.
4
make me
DESPERATE
sixteen
Present Day