Page 35 of Hellbent

She came around the passenger side, got in, slammed the door. “Yeah,” she said. “You did.”

15

Just Geometry

The neon sign announcing the motel in Cornelius had lost its M and L, blaring a woeful orange OTE into the night. The place was rickety despite being single-story, tucked beneath a freeway ramp, the pitted check-in desk manned by a woman who smacked watermelon gum vigorously to cover the scent of schnapps.

It was perfect.

Evan checked in solo, prepaid in cash, and didn’t have to produce any details of the alias he had at the ready. Not the kind of establishment that made inquiries of its patrons. The woman never looked him in the face, her attention captured by a hangnail she was working to limited success with her front teeth. The security camera was a fake, a dusty plastic decoy drilled into the wall for show.

He signed the book “Pierre Picaud,” took the key that was inexplicably attached to a duct-taped water bottle, and trudged like a road-weary salesman to Room 6.

As he opened the door, Joey materialized from the shadows and slipped inside with him.

She dumped her rucksack on the ratty carpet, regarded a crooked watercolor of hummingbirds at play. “Look,” she said. “Art.”

“Really spruces up the place.”

She gestured to a corner. “I can sleep there.”

“I’ll take the floor.”

“I’m younger. The bed looks shitty anyways.”

“I want to be right by the door,” Evan said.

She shrugged. “Fine.” She fell back stiffly onto the mattress, a trust fall with no one there to catch her. There was a great creaking of coils. “I think you got the better deal.”

“That bad?”

“It feels like lying on a bag of wrenches. No—not quite that bad. Maybe, like, rubber-handled wrenches.”

“Well, then.”

“And I’m used to some shitty places,” she said.

“That’s the biggest thing the Program has on foster-home kids,” he said. “We think wherever we’re going isn’t as bad as where we’ve been.”

She lifted her head, putting chin to chest, the diffuse neon glow of the sign turning her eyes feral. “Yeah, well, foster homes are different for girls.”

“Like how?”

“Like none of your fucking business.”

“Okay.”

“I never talk about it. Never.”

“Okay.”

She let her head fall back again. Evan followed her gaze. The water-stained ceiling looked like a topographical map. He wondered if anyone ever knew what went on inside the mind of a teenage girl.

“Do you have a legend?” Evan asked her.

“Jack was getting me a passport, driver’s license. It was still in process when…”

“Airport’s out in that case. That’s okay. They’re expecting it anyway.”