Page 29 of Oathbreaker

Spit threatens to choke me from the force of my wailing.

Then slowly and all at once, a blanket of peace wraps around me. I close my eyes and rest.

I eventually get up from the ground, but I don’t know how much time has passed. From one blink to the next, I’m off the side of the road and back behind the wheel of the car. Just as the sun begins to dip behind the trees, I start to see signs of civilization. Or rather, I see another vehicle.

I feel a strange combination of fear and relief as the rickety pickup truck rumbles down the road. After a few minutes, I turn the bend and see signs for a farm-to-market road.

Ten minutes later, I run across a diner attached to a gas station. There’s only one pump, and the diner has a lone late-model Honda Civic in the parking lot.

“I can’t go in there like this,” I say to the empty cabin. The heater hums. It’s been blasting for the entirety of the ride—Adam must have set it, and I didn’t notice that I’m boiling until just now. In the foot well of the passenger seat, there’s a pack of water bottles. I rip into it and run the water over my hands as they hang over the passenger seat.

Fuck this car.

I catch a glimpse of my reflection and want to cry. I look feral. My hair is a lost cause. I feel a pang of sadness that it might be so matted that I have to cut off the locs. Grime covers my face, and blood and tear marks streak down the mess. I use the water and rub myself clean.

This is as good as it’s gonna get.

Setting aside the fact that I’m barefoot, I exit and slam the door of the Tahoe as hard as I can, hoping to never see the inside of it again. A chime rattles against the door’s metal frame as I enter the diner. No one stands behind the counter and disappointment settles in my gut. I hop sideways and peer into the kitchen pass-through.

Silence.

“Hello?” My voice still sounds hoarse from my breakdown on the side of the road.

A door at the far end of the diner claps against the wall, and my head whips toward the sound. I allow myself a moment to blink against the resulting dizziness the sudden movement causes.

A large man strolls out of what appears to be the bathroom. He stalls when he sees me, scratching at the flesh that peeks out from where his shirt doesn’t meet his pants over his wide stomach. His eyes narrow when he takes in my appearance. Straightening, he adjusts his belt and kicks his leg a little, as if shaking ants out of his pants.

“We’re closed,” he says in a slow Appalachian drawl. So for sure not north of D.C.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I saw the light on,” I say. My voice comes out much more robotic than I intend. “If I could just?—”

“Like I said,” he interrupts. “We’re closed. We don’t want no kind of trouble ’round here.” Then he waves his hand toward the door.

A distant part of my consciousness tells me to push back. To make him see that I don’t need anything from him besides a single phone call.

Instead, I stare at him, my body and brain not communicating because I don’t move.

“Go on, git,” he says.

I don’t try to stop the tears that fall. I can’t get my muscles to unlock from where I’ve grown roots into the worn linoleum.

He takes a step toward me with a huff.

“Joseph Tate, what the heck are you doing to this girl?” A voice comes from the other side of the diner, and I must look like an owl with how fast my head turns toward it.

The spinning gets worse.

An older woman, probably in her late sixties, walks quickly along the counter’s length to round out our unlikely trio.

I can tell her hair used to be blond, but now it’s mostly silver-white and held up by a metallic clasp. Her blue eyes are sharp, and her skin is such a pale white I wonder if she’s ever seen the sun.

“Hell, Jean, you know I can’t cook for shit! And with you havin’ to go pick up Terry for his shift, I was just doin’ what you tol’ me to do.”

Jean shakes her head, giving him a disapproving look.

“I step away for two seconds and...” She sighs, not looking at Joseph. Her eyes land squarely on me. She lifts her eyebrows, but she doesn’t give me anything besides that one reaction.

“Well, I’m gon’ back to the station,” Joseph says. He shuffles out the door, and I watch as he makes his way toward the fuel pumps adjacent to the diner.

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