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For someone who doesn’t have anything to hide from me, she sure does project an aura of defiance. She’s in no position to string me along just for the sake of it, and doing as I say will only bring her closer to her goal.
“Fine,” she hisses, arms crossed over the words on her university hoodie.
“Why were you at the fair tonight?” I ask.
Her eyes narrow as she glances over at me, assessing whether there are layers to my question.
“Why is that interesting to you? Aren’t you trying to get me to confess to something?”
“I’m trying to get to know you just a little better. You know, psychologists say that humanizing yourself is the best way to avoid being the victim of a robbery or murder,” I say, wishing I could take back the second part.
It sounded more convincing in my head.
“I was at the fair with a group of my friends. They lost me when the sun went down, which I assume now was intentional. They stole my phone before running off, and that’s when I found you.”
She hasn’t been looking for an opportunity to call anyone, so her story about the phone feels authentic. If she had one, I’m certain she would have tried slipping it down to her right side and alerting the police by now.
Under the circumstances, it feels like a waste of time to analyze why she might have gotten left behind by her friends. She’s being difficult with me, but to her credit, I’ve put her in a situation that she likely hasn’t encountered with her friends.
Fortunately for me, we’ve arrived at the old barn.
Now it’s time for the real interrogation.
7
Vera
“Istill don’t understand why you’d ask me that,” I continue, feeling defensive and slightly embarrassed. “It’s not like my friends had anything to do with the shooting. They’re stupid and selfish, but they wouldn’t do something like that.
Now that we’ve reachedhispreferred location, I doubt he cares about anything I have to say. He’s regained all the power he was lacking before, which is something he’s obviously used to wielding over others.
He parks the car at the base of a small hill leading up to the sliding doors of the barn. There’s no house in sight, which means that this barn was likely abandoned when the owners demolished the house.
So, now I know he’s a fake businessman and a bottom feeder who hides his contraband in stolen property.
What the hell have I gotten into? I was just trying to find Eric and now I’m getting ready to fight for my life.
“Get out of the car and follow me up to the building. If you try to run, I won’t shoot you, but youwillwish that I had after you’re surrounded by hungry coyotes,” he states without any emotion or inflection at all.
I want to lash out and call him a liar, but I know he’s right. I’ve been warned plenty of times not to venture out into the country alone at night, and for good reason. A girl from my school was found dead in a ravine a few days after she left her dorm for a hike.
If the animals don’t get me, the elements will.
I’m as safe as I can be, given the situation.
He watches as I stumble out of the car, my concussion continuing to pound against my skull. This is the most pain I’ve ever been in, which I’m sure puts me at a huge disadvantage against him.
He looks like the type of person who would kick trees every morning to get better at kickboxing.
Without another word, he leads me up to the sliding doors. I can hear the coyotes howling in the distance, their shrieks filling me with primal dread as I follow him into the building.
The interior of the barn is impossible to see in the notorious blackness of the night. I’ve never lived out in the country before, but I’ve gone camping enough times to know that the darkness will envelop you without warning.
I reach for my phone as a light source, only to feel my heart sink when I realize once again that it’s gone. People joke that my generation can’t live without their phones, but this time it might actually be true.
“Just give me a second,” my regretfully good-looking captor says as he reaches for his own phone. He shines the flashlight directly at me before illuminating the haunting, rotted shell of the barn.
At this point, I wish I couldn’t see.
