A.J. Rivers
The Girl In Cabin 13
Prologue
I slide to the edge of the couch cushion and lean forward. My elbows resting on my thighs, I clasp my hands and force myself to maintain eye contact with the crystal blue gaze in front of me. Those shouldn’t be the eyes of the man sitting in the stiff-backed chair. He’s less than two feet across from the sagging brown and beige plaid couch where I’m perched. Less than two feet and dingy green shag carpeting separate me from hands I know in my gut are soaked in blood. Clear, wide blue eyes like that shouldn’t have seen the things this man has done.
It’s a struggle not to let my expression give away any of the thoughts or emotions swirling in my brain. I can’t let on anything. The men on either side of me are calm and collected; their faces almost blank. They’re hearing the same things I am, but it’s not having the same effect. The words hit me like bullets, searing through my skin, and burning the edges of my mind until I only see red. It’s only worse that I know they’re lies. At the very least, he’s not telling the whole truth.
“Cut the bullshit,” I snap.
Some part of me is aware the man beside me is talking, but I don’t hear what he’s saying before cutting him off. He shoots me a glare through the corner of his eye, his shoulders tightening.
“What do you mean?” the man in front of me says.
His name is Jeffrey, but we’ve been referring to him as Snake. The sheer cliché value of it makes me shudder. No one with that astounding of a lack of creativity should be responsible for the atrocities he’s confessing to. And should have even less to do with the ones he’s keeping tucked close to the vest. Those are what we really need to hear. I don’t want to hear them. I know it will make me sicker. But if he doesn’t, everything else he’s already said won’t matter.
“Give it up. That’s all the same shit you’ve been spouting since the day we scraped your sorry ass off the asphalt,” I say.
“Brittany,” the man to my side, Tank, says. The hint of warning in his voice goes completely ignored. At this point, I don’t care.
“I’m telling you everything,” Snake insists. Again.
“The fuck you are. Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think I’m stupid? I told you, my connections can get you off on some of these petty charges and get you a shorter sentence in a good pen for the bigger ones. But you have to be straight up with us. I’m not going to put my skin on the line for someone who’s too chicken shit to man up to what he did. You’re the one who did it. I’m not going to pretend you didn’t, and neither are the cops. They will rope you up and drag your ass without a second thought. You think they care for a minute what you have to say?”
“Brittany,” Gage, the man to my other side, hisses.
“No. I don’t care. This guy is pissing me off. Where would you be right now without us? If we hadn’t found you and took you in, you think you’d have even half a chance? If you do, you’re fucking fooling yourself. By now, you’d have been passed around the cell block for a phone call home and three packets of ramen. And where do you think you’ll be without us when you get yanked up on these charges? You think you’re smart enough to wriggle your way out of them? Without our help, you don’t have a chance. People like you have a really good habit of ending up as scum at the bottom of the shower drain. So, unless you want the last thing you see to be a pair of hairy legs and mildewed tile, you’re going to cut the shit, stop flapping your jaws, and tell us the truth.”
“I did,” Snake argues.
“You told us about some convenience store clerk you shot, the drugs you stole, and the cop you ran over. You think any of those things mean anything to us? You think we’re impressed?” My throat aches with the tension of the words slicing through it, and my temples throb. “I’ve heard all that before. That’s stuff I pulled off before high school. Tell me about the little girls.”
Gage shifts beside me, his knuckle’s digging painfully into the small of my back. He’s trying to shut me up, but the words have already started tumbling out, and there’s no stopping them. It’s taken everything out of me to make this man part of my life. Befriending him and earning his trust has been harder than anything else I’ve ever had to do.
It will be worth it if he gives me what I want. But if he doesn’t, I’ve wasted this time and opened myself up to filth I’ll never be able to wash away. Worse than that, he might keep going.
“What little girls?” Snake asks.
“Ignore her,” Tank says. “She’s messed up. Partied too hard last night. Probably doesn’t even know where we are or who she’s talking to. Just talk to me. Look, you know why we’re here. You’ve got some pretty serious shit hanging over you, but you’re one of us. We’re not going to let one of our brothers go down. But our brothers don’t lie to us. The only way we can hook you up with our guys is to know everything we’re dealing with. We need the details. You can’t hold anything back from us and still expect us to help.”
“Stop babying him,” I nudge him angrily. “We know what he did. He just needs to spit it out.”
Snake stands up and shakes his head, holding his hands up. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I didn’t agree to any of this.”
“Yes, you did,” I say, standing up and taking a step toward him to block his way. “When we initiated you in, you knew you had to be straight up with us. Now it’s time to give it up.”
“Whatever you’re on, it’s nasty. You need to have a word with whoever you got it from. I’m leaving.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I say.
Snake pushes me out of the way, using me like a weapon to knock Gage and Tank off balance. He runs for the door and bursts out before we get a chance to get back to our feet. The men try to keep me in the house, but I don’t listen to them. Chasing after Snake, I reach under my shirt and wrap my hand around the handle of my gun. He doesn’t have a car, but that’s not going to stop the slimy piece of shit from trying to get away from me. After jangling a few handles, he finds an unlocked door and dives behind the wheel. My shot obliterates the back window, but it doesn’t stop him from cranking the engine.
Ignoring the screams of my name behind me, I run down the crumbling sidewalk to where he’s already working the car out of its tight parking spot. Wrenching the passenger door open, I throw myself into the car.
My fist makes contact with Snake’s jaw. He slams on the gas. The car lurches forward and smashes into the back of the car in front of it. I fall forward and land across him but manage to pull my knee up at just the right moment to dig into his belly.
He lets out an infuriated grunt and punches me in the side, knocking the wind out of me. Pain radiates along the side of my body. In the few seconds it takes to recover, he slings me back over into the passenger seat, and lights burst in front of my eyes as my head cracks against the window.
I don’t let it stop me. I jam my foot out, smacking him in the side of his face. His sharp turn of the wheel makes the car spin to the side. Holding the wheel tightly, he leans over to search me and the area around me. I know he’s looking for my gun. The wind whistles through the back window, reminding him of the shots I took at him. Him getting his hands on my weapon and being able to turn it on me is the last thing I need right now. At least for the moment, I’m on my own.
Hitting the control with my elbow, I lower the window and toss my gun out over my shoulder. It scatters somewhere on the pavement outside.
Snake drives faster, sending the car swinging back and forth as he struggles with me.