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“You should wash up,” he repeated. His voice was so strange, seeping into her brain and battling the logical part of her that resisted.You should listen,a part of her urged.It’s fine. Go with him…
“F-forgot my key,” she lied again.
He cocked his head. Then he returned to his patrol car, still holding her backpack hostage. “Get in. My place isn’t far from here. You can wash up there, and I’ll have you at school before the bell rings.”
Loren tried to keep the panic from her voice—she was all out of lies. “R-Really, I’m fine.”
“I insist.” His tone left no room for argument. “Get in.”
Like a puppet on a string, she lurched forward. Step by tortured step, she approached his vehicle.
“You can sit up front,” McGoven suggested. Already, he had climbed into the driver’s seat and leaned over to push the passenger-side door open.
Aware of her filthy appearance, Loren perched herself on the seat’s very edge.
“Sorry,” she whispered in anticipation of causing a stain on the spotless upholstery. “I…I can clean it.”
Officer McGoven didn’t say a word—but Loren didn’t miss just how tightly he gripped the steering wheel.
He’s going to turn you in,a part of her insisted.They’ll see the bruises. They’ll call Youth Services.
Or, no, they wouldn’t. She was already eighteen, aged out of the system. If they thought that her father wasn’t a fit guardian, they’d place her in a shelter. Or out on the street. Alone.
The thought spurred her to keep talking, desperate to find an excuse that would stick. Most people never tried this hard—her silence always scared them off.
“I’m fine, honestly. I don’t know what happened. Please, I’ll apologize to Naomi. I don’t mind walking, either. It’s not that far.”
Officer McGoven said nothing, purely focused on driving.
In defeat, she stared fearfully from the window, bracing for the moment they would pull up to the police station. Instead, he abruptly turned down a dirt road that led into a swath of country surrounding the town like an insulating blanket.
He headed north, leaving the town proper, and Loren’s pulse quickened. She knew these wide-open fields only a stone’s throw from her father’s backyard. She also knew the area was quiet and mostly deserted. A “no one around to hear you scream” type of wilderness. Warily, she eyed Officer McGoven with a different perspective.
What if he wasn’t as honorable and upstanding a citizen as she thought?
“I can’t let you go to school looking like that,” he explained as if sensing her fear. His tone was sufficiently gentle, nothing like the coarse bellow he used before. “And I would be entertaining truancy if I allowed you to skip. Let me do my good deed for the day, just this once.”
Is that all you want to do?Loren might have asked that if she were the brave, bold sort of person used to questioning police officers. Someone who might be terrified of the fate that could await her out in the middle of nowhere, with only the wind to snatch away her screams.
As it was, she just felt…
Tired. Dodging her father’s fists took most of her energy these days. The threat of being murdered didn’t even faze her anymore. At least she wouldn’t have to go home and hide her soiled clothes.
It might have helped if he resembled the monsters she was used to. Dejectedly, she observed him more closely, convinced the honorable spiel was just an act. What secrets lurked behind those gray eyes?
Or, perhaps, in plain sight—he had a tattoo on his neck, barely visible from beneath a fringe of black hair and the collar of his jacket. Tendrils of indigo ink were all she could make out. A harmless design?
Or something nefarious?
The interior of his car didn’t allude to any ulterior motives he might have. Every inch was spotless, devoid of even an air freshener as decoration.
She was so lost in her observations she barely noticed when the squad car came to a stop before a pale blue farmhouse.
A house she knew all too well.
“This…t-this is the old Baker farm,” she croaked, bolting upright. The property was directly behind her father’s house, past the woods and a shallow stream. All in all, a ten-minute walk with time to spare if she ran the whole way.
The white barn near the west field was where she spent the most time these days. Achingly aware of the loss of the apple and carrots, she felt her hands clench at the air.
