Page 94 of Savage Surrender

I kept my mouth shut while Weller told her we’d all decide on next steps in the morning. Then I waited for her breathing to deepen before I left the bed.

I didn’t kiss her goodbye because I was too scared to wake her. It’s too late to play the what if game now, but the thought of never feeling her lips on mine again keeps my hand at the back of my neck.

Our first transfer leaves us outside a twenty-four-hour store with forty-three minutes before the next bus. The enormous blue sign turns the mostly empty parking lot the color of a swimming pool, and the automatic doors open on air-conditioning cold enough to raise goose bumps over my arms.

The clothing department is quiet. Owen throws dark sweatpants, hoodies, work gloves, and two black face coverings into the cart with no interest in whether anything fits beyond being big enough.

Halfway to the register, I stop beside a rack of women’s clothes.

Mom was wearing a white nightgown in the photograph Mason sent. No shoes that we could see. I put a soft cotton set she’d like in the cart, a pack of thick socks, and a pair of slip-on shoes.

We pay cash at the self-checkout and stuff everything into a cheap backpack. After that, the trip becomes bus stops. We wait beneath fluorescent lights in one town and outside a closed laundromat in another. Somewhere after three, Owen sleeps for thirty minutes with his head tipped back. I don’t sleep at all.

Every connection takes us closer to Mom and farther from Bianca. By the time the final bus leaves us beside an empty dark road, the sky has begun to pale behind the trees.

We walk the rest of the way.

Owen carries the backpack on his good shoulder until his stride changes. I take it without asking and ignore the look he gives me. The road narrows as the houses spread farther apart, each one hidden behind walls or hedges that tower over us. We change quickly behind one of the looming hedges.

I pull the hood up over my head and look at Owen.

“Dressed like a burglar and you still look friendly, Freddie. How is that possible?”

Usually I’d have an answer. This morning, I tug the mask higher and keep walking.

“You nervous?”

“About saving my mom or facing Bianca?”

Owen scans the road behind us.

I pull the mask away from my mouth. “Fuck yeah. To both.”

I hate this. I hate going against her wishes. I hate the thought of her already awake, realizing we left her. That I left her. Disappointed her.

My father’s crash pad sits behind a stone wall and a black metal gate, larger than it looked in Mason’s photographs. In the quiet, the box beside the road gives off a faint electrical buzz. And somewhere inside this place, my mother.

We could be walking into a trap. But I can’t let him sell my mother’s body to strangers on the internet. I couldn’t live with myself.

I’ve managed his properties for years. The girlfriends never surprised me. This did.

Owen touches my arm. “We get your mom. We get out of here and go home to our omega.”

The words pull me away from the upstairs window. The curtain is closed now. Every window is dark.

His hand remains on me until I look at him. Whatever he finds must be enough, because he releases my arm and checks the road again.

We wait behind the wall while night drains out of the sky. Ten minutes pass, then twenty. I keep my attention on the gate and try not to imagine Bianca awake, Mom upstairs, or my father touching either of them. The camera turns a few degrees, pauses, and turns back. Owen tracks the rhythm against the schedule on the burner.

Headlights flare against the drive.

The gate begins to open, and a dark vehicle rolls toward the road, wide enough to block the camera’s view of the far pillar for a few seconds.

Owen moves first. I follow him out of the trees and across the damp pavement, keeping the vehicle between us and the lens as it turns onto the road. The gate is already closing when we reach it. Owen catches the edge with his good hand, and I squeeze through the narrowing space before taking the weight from him.

The gate seals behind us.

Bianca