On my knees, I had an opportunity to look back at Charlotte. She had stopped picking up trash to watch us. Hoping she stayed silent, I turned back to Sid’s boots.
“Hurt me all you want,” I growled. “I don’t have anything to tell you. Killing me will just put more innocent blood on your hands.”
Sid stopped laughing, then sighed. “I was afraid of that. You’re a stubborn fucker, you know that, Jayce? You don’t even care about your own miserable life. So I’m gonna have to take something youdocare about.”
He walked past me. I got up to follow him but one of the other Copperheads stood and grabbed my arms, holding them behind my back.Brick,I recognized him from the grunt he gave as I tried to pull away. He used to be one of my friends, in another life. He was one of the good ones.
“What are you doing?” I called.
Sid twirled his crowbar in his fingers while strutting down the road. There was a skip in his step, now. “Helping you understand what happens to people who lie to their family.”
Family. The way he kept saying that word was a hammer to my skull. Taunting me with what he’d already taken.
Take something you do care about,he had said.
That’s when I realized he was walking toward Charlotte.
She stood on the other side of my truck, still picking at trash while glancing up at the scene every few seconds. She’d done exactly what I had told her, remaining silent the entire time. And it wasn’t going to matter.
“Sid…” I began.
He raised his voice but he didn’t slow down, and didn’t look back. “You got something to tell me, Jayce? Speak up!” The skull on the back of his jacket, peeking through his dreadlocks, sneered its toothy smile. It looked like it was laughing at me.
“Sid, please…”
Brick anticipated that I was about to resist, and shifted one arm to put me in a headlock. “Give him what he wants,” Brick said in a deep voice. “Come on, man. Make it easier on yourself. On all of us.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I gritted out.
Sid paused next to my truck. Charlotte had just returned a full bag of trash and was getting a new bag ready. Sid wasn’t looking at her, but she was within reach of his crowbar swing.Run, I wanted to scream at her, though it wouldn’t have changed anything.Run, Peaches, and don’t stop until you’re out of this fucking town.
Sid cocked his head at me from across the distance. “Sounds like I’m rubbing up against a nerve. Seems there’s still something in your life you’re afraid of losing. Last chance. Tell me.Where is my money?”
I stared at Charlotte and hoped she was looking back.I’m sorry.
Sid turned, and swung the crowbar.
I winced. Waiting for the horrible cracking noise I knew would follow. For Charlotte to scream and fall to the ground. If it happened, if she uttered any noise at all, I knew I would cave and give Sid whatever he wanted.
But she wasn’t the target.
The crowbar smashed through the side window of my truck, throwing shards of glass across the pavement. He pulled back and swung three times into the windshield, sending spiderweb cracks across the surface. He swung the crowbar low into the rubber of my truck tire, then lifted his boot and kicked the curve of the iron. There was abangand a whoosh of air as the tire burst, causing the front-left part of the truck to sag.
Sid thought he was damaging something I cared about, but all I felt was relief. Immense, overwhelming relief. He was only hurting my truck. Nother.
The leader of the Copperheads panted with effort, then rested the crowbar against his shoulder like a baseball bat. “Hope you got a spare.” He turned toward Charlotte, and for a brief instant all the terror came pouring back, but he was only grabbing my half-eaten sandwich off the truck bed. He took a bite, then tossed the rest into the ditch.
“I’m hungry. Let’s get a burger at Flop’s.”
Brick let go of me. The pain in my arm where the crowbar had struck suddenly flared back up, and I cradled it with my other hand. Sid sauntered up to me on the way back to his bike.
“Next time?” He tapped the crowbar gently against my skull. “It won’t be your truck I smash.”
I kept my head high as I walked back to my truck.
13
Charlotte