Page 163 of Heart So Hollow

“You guess?”

“Yes,” I say firmly.

He stares at me for a few moments, then the corner of his mouth lifts. He takes a step toward me. Then another. And another.

He glances down at the pieces of the ladder still lying on the ground, “Help me finish loading this and I’ll consider it.”

Bowen jumps up into the bed of the truck and kicks a pile of tie-downs, sending them clattering against the back of the cab. Then he reaches down and I start handing him the pieces of the ladder.

“Come here,” he extends his hand and I take it, letting him hoist me up onto the tailgate.

He motions for me to follow him up to the back window of the cab and then crouches down to begin untangling the mess of nylon straps and buckles. Some are loose and some are still affixed to the back rack covering the window where I’m sure a dead animal or two were secured not long ago.

When I kneel down next to him, he hands me an orange strap and then a black one, “Hold these so they don’t knot back up.”

I let my eyes wander while I wait, inhaling the sultry night air, thankful it’s warmer than usual. I still scan the tree line, my eyes now adjusted to the darkness. I don’t know how Bowen can see to untangle knotted tie-downs, but it doesn’t matter. I’m just relieved that Waylon is safely tucked into the cab of Bowen’s truck and not being eaten by coyotes.

I’m also relieved to have found Bowen and he seems to be in a better mood than when I last saw him. All I want to do is push the last conversation we had out of my mind. It was eerie and I don’t want to think about it. I don’t even want to think about how much I don’t want to think about it.

“OK,” Bowen’s voice snaps me back to the present.

Before I can even look down, I feel a sharp tug at my hands and my knuckles slam into the floor of the truck bed. The black nylon strap tightens around my wrists, digging into my flesh and making me wince.

What the—

I follow both ends of the strap to a rubber-coated hook jutting out from the middle of the rhino liner. The strap snakes up between the rear window and the back rack, loops once around a support bar, and then attaches to a large blue carabiner hooked in the middle of the rack. Even in the sporadic moonlight, I can see light brown and white hair peppering the black liner beneath my feet and stuck between the fibers of the tie-downs where they secured a dead coyote earlier. I try to raise my hands and reach for the carabineer at chest height, but my hands barely move an inch in either direction.

I jerk my head up to Bowen, still crouched next to me. He’s motionless, his fingers hooked in the black metal rack bars. My eyes dart up and down in confusion, panic mounting.

“Baby girl,” he shakes his head with a smile, “your self-awareness is for shit.”

“Well,” I scowl back at him, swallowing hard, “I didn’t think I needed so much when you’re around.”

Bowen reaches behind me and squeezes the back of my neck, “That’s exactly when you need it.” Then he leans forward and kisses me on my cheek, breathing into my ear, “You should probably save your apologies. You’re going to need them.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My eyes round and I let out a huff as he stands up and saunters back to the tailgate, leaving me tied to the floor. He jumps down onto the dirt path and slams the tailgate, a sinister smile seeping across his face. Locking eyes with me, he moves along the side of the truck, dragging his hand along the edge as he goes.

He throws open the driver’s side door and calls over his shoulder, “You ride in back, ‘til you can behave.” Then he ducks into the cab, giving Waylon an ear scratch as he slams the door.

The truck roars to life, the noisiest thing in the entire forest. Bowen immediately cranks up his music, heavy bass splitting the air and Maria Brink’s false chord screams echoing through the trees. I feel a shudder and the truck begins rolling down the path, but we’re going the wrong direction. He’s not driving back toward the house, he’s driving deeper into the woods.

“Bowen!” I tug at the ties and slam my shoulder against the cage.

My shouts are easily drowned out, only drawing a glance from Bowen in the rearview mirror. His grin widens until he bares his teeth and waggles his tongue at me. I can only glare back at him in disbelief as his head starts bobbing to the beat.

The truck picks up speed, jostling me with every rock, root, and tree branch the tires hit. After a few minutes, I begin to wonder where I am. During the daytime, I never really think about how vast these woods are or how far the paths stretch through the thick brush. I’ve never been this far into the woods. After a few minutes, the truck lurches to a stop and Bowen kills the engine, but leaves the headlights on. The door slams and he emerges from the cab, still shirtless and his swath of black hair hanging over his brow.

Bowen comes to a stop in front of me and rests his elbows on the edge of the bed, leering at me over his arms, “This is a beautiful picture, right here,” he drawls with a salacious grin.

“I bet,” I reply, hopelessly twisting and tugging at the nylon straps.

After a few moments, he turns and slowly continues to the tailgate, letting it drop with a thud. Gnashing his spearmint gum in his jaw, he jumps up into the bed. His boots land with a bang and he straightens up, eyeing me from the end of the truck, contemplating. Even in the dark, I can see something working behind his eyes. He looks so tall he might as well be a tree sprouting out the end of his truck, his black tattoos like vines and moss growing on his skin.

I sit motionless on the rough lining, my eyes locked with his as he ambles toward me, the suspension creaking with each step he takes. His dusty boots come to a halt a couple feet from my knees and I watch in silence as he reaches behind his back and lifts his Glock from the holster in his waistband. My chest feels like it’s about to cave in on itself as his arm swings back into view and the familiar cold sensation I’ve grown to hate washes over my body.

Bowen cocks the gun and aims into the trees, peering down the length of his arm through the crosshairs. When he shifts his stance, the moonlight catches him through a break in the trees and casts a blue tone across his arm muscles. I crane my neck over my shoulder, following his gaze as he takes aim at a fallen log about 30 feet away with nubs of broken limbs jutting out from its bark.

“It’s illegal to hunt bigger game like deer right now,” he concentrates on his target, “but not you.”

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