Needy Little Things(74)
Him talking like this makes me want to hit him. I want to rush him and feed his words back to him. Shove them back down into whatever ugly part of his body created them. But I don’t. Because he accomplished exactly what he intended to. Everything that was black or white two minutes ago is now gray. I’d go to even further extremes than Malcolm has if anything ever happened to my little brother.
“Point made.” I have one hundred more questions, but this isn’t the time for them. Deja might be in trouble. “Did you and Deja have a fail-safe? What to do if you lost contact?”
“I’m supposed to go to the police with the truth if I don’t hear from her in six hours.”
I look at my watch and snatch up Santa Bag.
“What are you doing?”
“Make up something to tell my mom. I’m going to Chefly. And I’m taking your car.”
“The hooptie?”
“Do you have another one?”
“No, but it—”
“It’s a car. Where are the keys?”
He takes out his phone. “Sariyah, maybe we should go ahead and call the police now.”
“And let them roll up on my father and accuse him of snatching Dej? I don’t think so.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“No. Our parents will flip if both of us are gone. My phone is fully charged and I’ll share my location. Text or call me randomly over the next six hours. If I don’t answer or respond within five minutes, then you can call the police.”
CHAPTER 31
Now that I’m sitting alone in this musty car with three hours of driving ahead of me, I regret not asking Malcolm more questions. He said Deja was supposed to come home today but didn’t say how she was planning to get there. I consider calling him but think better of it. I can’t help Deja if I crash this car because I’m arguing with Malcolm. And I don’t think I can speak to him without it turning into another fight. The details don’t matter right now anyway. I just need to get to Dad’s and hopefully find Deja in that rental with a good reason for not coming back as planned. A reason that has nothing to do with some stupid boy.
A nasty storm is brewing by the time I reach the halfway point of my drive. The farther south I travel, the angrier and angrier the sky gets. Not the tee-hee-hee kind of angry. The mess-around-and-find-out kind of angry. It’s hard not feeling like I should take it as some sort of omen. When the sky finally cracks open, it brings with it winds that make me grip the steering wheel until my joints hurt. The rain gets heavier and tiny bits of hail bounce off the windshield. The wipers are dry rotted and no match for a storm like this. I pull over and Malcolm texts me only a couple of seconds later.
Malcolm
Checking in.
I react to his message with a thumbs-up.
Malcolm
Still haven’t heard from her
Me
I assume she has a burner too? Text me the number. I’ll be there soon.
And I will. The storm is moving quickly. I wait another few minutes, then get back on the highway. The sun is just starting to set when I arrive in Chefly. It’s a miracle I made it. The hooptie was on E for the last thirty miles. I stop at the first of two gas stations in town. The car put-puts and groans all the way to the pump. No way it would have made it the three remaining miles to Dad’s. I call him on my way inside to pay, but he doesn’t answer. A cowbell dings as I push open the door. A door that I notice is not covered with Deja’s missing person posters.
“Now wait a minute,” the clerk says when I’m halfway to the coolers for a bottle of water. “I know you ain’t Ennis Lee Bryant’s daughter come in here not speaking to nobody.”
Tweezers. Tweezers. Tweezers. I take a deep breath and turn around, forcing a smile.
He presses his fist to his forehead. “What they call you? Maggie is it?”
“No, sir, that’s my mother.” Another need joins his, but Santa Bag is in the back seat and I don’t have time for this. Tweezers. Matches. Tweezers. Matches.
“Sariyah?” comes a voice from behind me.
I look over my shoulder, and standing there, with a Mountain Dew and a bag of pork rinds in hand, is Jedidiah Jones. I watch as he fulfills his own need and plucks a box of matches from a s’mores display. I can only assume he must have a use for them that he is currently unaware of.
“What are you doing here?” He glances out at the pumps and scratches his arm.
I scan the shop, half expecting Deja to emerge from the aisle behind him with a bag of sour candy. “I think your Facebook got hacked.” I don’t believe that at all anymore, but I don’t want to reveal that I suspect him of lying. All I want is to find Deja and bring her home.
“Oh yeah, it did.” Jed adds a pack of sunflower seeds to his snack pile. “You here visiting your dad, or…?” His forehead is sweaty and he, once again, glances out at the hooptie.
I walk to the counter with my card and continue to avoid the question he so desperately wants me to answer. “Twenty on pump one, please.” I open my text messages and tap the number to Deja’s burner that Malcolm sent me. The call connects and as soon as it begins to ring, a buzzing starts up behind me. A vibrating phone. I turn and stare at Jed and he stares back dumbly. My eyes drift to his backpack, where the sound seems to be coming from. A coincidence? Do I believe in those? My muscles tense. “Are you going to answer that?”