Page 34 of Sinner’s Torment

Tiffany’s eyes narrowed slightly, her brow furrowing. But she didn’t stop me. She didn’t call out for the others. She didn’t drag me back inside.

She just stood there, her hand on my arm, studying my face like she was trying to decide what to do. Like she was weighing her loyalty to the club against whatever sympathy she felt for me in that moment.

“Brandy,” she said quietly, and there was something almost sad in her voice. “You sure about this? Because once you leave like this, in the middle of the night... you know what that means. You know how it’ll look.”

“Yeah,” I lied, my voice barely above a whisper, the word catching in my throat. “Yeah, I’m sure.” I’d never been less sure of anything in my life, but I couldn’t stay. Not another day. Not another hour.

She held my gaze for another long moment, her eyes searching mine for something—the truth, maybe, or some sign that I knew what I was doing. Then slowly, deliberately, she released my arm. Her hand fell away, and I felt both relief and terror wash over me.

“Be careful,” she said, and those two words held more weight than any threat could have. She knew. She knew I was running, and she was letting me go anyway. “I’ll miss you.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak again, and threw my bag into the backseat. The bag landed with a soft thud against the worn upholstery. I climbed into the driver’s seat, the familiar smell of old coffee and cheap air freshener filling my nostrils. My hands shook so badly I could barely get the key into the ignition.

I started the engine. The car sputtered, coughed, the engine turning over once, twice, and for a horrible second, I thought it was going to die. Then it roared to life with a sound that was way too loud in the quiet night, the muffler rattling and the engine knocking like it always did.

I didn’t look back as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the main road. I couldn’t look back. If I did, I might lose my nerve. I might see Tiffany still standing there watching me. I might see lights coming on in the clubhouse windows.

I didn’t let myself think about what I was doing. I didn’t let myself think about what would happen when King discovered I was gone. I didn’t let myself think about the consequences, about the danger, about the fact that leaving like this might be the stupidest thing I’d ever done.

I just drove, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, my eyes fixed on the road ahead as the clubhouse disappeared in my rearview mirror.

The drive from Nebraska to Connecticut was over seventeen hundred miles of highway, and I knew it would take me days to get there. Days of driving, days of running, days of trying to outpace the fear that clawed at my chest with every mile.

The first night, I drove east through the flat Nebraska plains, the landscape stretching out endlessly on either side of me. There was nothing but darkness and the occasional farmhouse light in the distance, pinpricks of civilization in an ocean of black. The highway was straight and monotonous, hypnotic in its sameness. My piece-of-shit car rattled and groaned with every mile, the engine making sounds that didn’t inspire confidence. Strange clicking noises. A persistent whine that grew louder when I accelerated past sixty. The check engine light had been on for months, glowing like a tiny amber eye of judgment on the dashboard.

Every breath felt shallow, insufficient. Every thought spiraled into another reason why this was a terrible idea, why I should turn around, why I was making the biggest mistake of my life.

But I kept driving.

The air conditioning didn’t work, so I drove with the windows down despite the cold night air, letting the wind whip through the car and tangle my hair into knots. The radio only picked up static out here, occasionally breaking through with fragments of country songs or late-night talk radio before dissolving back into white noise.

I crossed into Iowa sometime around seven in the morning, though I barely noticed the state line. The landscape remained flat, agricultural, endless. Fields of corn and soybeans stretched out on either side of the highway, dark and dormant in the autumn night.

I stopped for gas at a truck stop just outside Chicago as the sun was starting to peak midday. One of those fluorescent-lit places that smelled like diesel fuel and burnt coffee and the exhaustion of people who’d been driving too long. I filled up the tank, then bought a bottle of water and a bag of chips I couldn’t stomach eating, my appetite completely gone, replaced by a knot of anxiety that sat heavy in my gut. The clerk barely looked at me. I was just another nobody passing through.

I used the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and stared at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell. Dark circles under my eyes. Hair a tangled mess. Skin pale and drawn.

I looked like someone running away.

Because that was exactly what I was.

I got back into the car and kept driving.

By the second day, the landscape had started to change.

Illinois gave way to Indiana, and the flat plains began to roll slightly, the terrain becoming more varied. I passed through small towns with names I’d never heard of and would never remember. I drove through the outskirts of Toledo, the skyline visible in the distance, a cluster of buildings reaching toward the sky. I didn’t stop. I just kept moving, merging onto I-80 East, following the signs toward Pennsylvania, toward the East Coast that felt impossibly far away.

My back ached from sitting in the same position for so long, a dull throb that ran from my lower spine up to my shoulders. My hands cramped from gripping the steering wheel too hard. My eyes burned with exhaustion, gritty and dry from staring at the road for too many hours straight.

I thought about turning back a hundred times. Maybe more. Every exit was a potential escape route, a chance to change my mind, to admit this was insane and head back to Diamond Creek where at least I knew what I was dealing with.

I thought about calling Grace, calling King, calling Torment and telling him I was sorry, I was scared, I didn’t know what I was doing. My phone sat in the cup holder next to me, dark and silent. I could imagine their voices, their reactions. Grace would be worried, would try to talk me through it with her calm, steady voice. King would be confused, maybe hurt that I’d left without saying goodbye properly. And Torment... I didn’t even want to think about what Torment would say. What he’d think. Whether he’d even care.

But I didn’t call anyone.

I just kept driving, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on my stomach where a tiny cluster of cells was growing into something that would change everything.

I stopped for the night at a cheap motel somewhere in Pennsylvania, one of those places with peeling paint and a flickering neon sign that advertised hourly rates. I paid cash, dragged myself to the room, and collapsed on the bed without even taking off my shoes. I was asleep within minutes, too exhausted to dream, too exhausted to think.