Page 48 of Mountain Man Bad Boy

I pitched myself forward, folding myself across the back of the seat. I got stuck with my butt against the ceiling, my arms and legs dangling on both sides. George saw what I was doing, ripped the driver’s-side door open, and pointed the gun at me again. I came down into the front seat with a thump, landing on the same arm I had injured before. My head fell out of the vehicle, and my hip hit the parking brake.

He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me into a sitting position, thrusting me onto the passenger’s seat. “Stop. I will shoot you.”

“Then do it!” I spat.

“Don’t tempt me!” he screamed, stabbing me in the neck with the muzzle of the gun.

I choked back tears, not believing that my own brother could be doing this to me. Where was the protective big brother that Lincoln and I had followed around when we were younger? The one that let us play with his friends even though they were “too mature” for us? Where was the kid who had stayed up late to study for his science test and ended up getting the best grade in the class? Where was the person who had helped me clean up after Mom’s tantrums, who had helped Lincoln and me hide the liquor, who had lied to the social workers to keep our family together?

He swung the door shut and slammed the car into gear, tearing off underneath the highway. I was pinned for a moment from the force of the acceleration, squished against the back of the seat. He peeled around the city, throwing me back and forth with every start and stop. I couldn’t fathom what was going on. He had roughed me up, kidnapped me, and was taking me on some kind of satanic joy ride around Nashville. I could only hope the police would catch on and they would stop him.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he came to a sudden halt at a traffic light.

“Have to waste time,” he muttered.

“Why?” I felt a throbbing in my temple and raised both hands to touch my head. There was no blood, so that was something.

“Shift change,” he said, barely coherent. He thrust the car into motion again, wreaking havoc on my transmission.

“Slow down!” I complained.

“We can sit somewhere until the shift change if you promise not to try to escape.” He split his attention between me and the road, introducing a new fear that we would be T-boned by a distracted driver.

“I promise,” I relented.

He pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot, driving around back and parking beside the dumpster.

I exhaled in temporary relief. I didn’t understand what was happening, but at least in this moment, I wasn’t going to die in a traffic accident. I closed my eyes, finding my center and regulating my breathing. I could hear his voice pick up softly as he began to repeat nonsense words and phrases. Trying to fit together the pieces of information I had collected, I developed a narrative. He wanted to wait until the shift change at the treatment center, and then he wanted me to go into the pharmacy and get as many narcotics as I could. He had a gun, and he was not thinking clearly. The drugs had done permanent damage to his thought process. What kind of drugs, how long he had been using and in what quantities, I didn’t know. But he was exhibiting both symptoms of being stoned and having lost his mind, so whatever he had taken had been chipping away at him for a long time.

I decided to keep quiet. The treatment center had its own experience with violence, and George was not the first druggie to imagine the pharmacy held a jackpot. If I could get George through the doors and make it obvious to all that it was a hostage situation, then maybe one of my coworkers would trigger the silent alarm. The police took any emergency at the hospital seriously and would arrive within minutes.

Finally, George turned the engine on and crept backward out of his parking spot. It was game time. I arranged myself in my seat, fastening the seat belt just to make sure I didn’t die on my way to my own funeral. The tension level in the car bottomed out, and we drove in silence, each focused on our own mission.

I wondered how Porter was doing.

I wished that I could be with him, in his bed right then, just like he asked. Anywhere but driving around Nashville with my drug-addled brother intent on robbing a pharmacy would be preferable. But Porter’s bed especially would be like heaven.

George pulled into the parking lot of the treatment center, now driving more calmly. There were no jerky starts and stops. He seemed focused on the task, gliding the car into a spot at the back of the lot. I was about to reach for my door handle when he pushed an arm past me, opening the glove box. Inside, a plastic bag with four little white pills crumpled into his hand.

“What’s that?” I asked, though I knew damned well what it was. He must have hidden his stash in the glove compartment when I was in the back seat. Somehow, the fact that he had used my car to transport drugs made me angrier than being kidnapped. How dare he? “I hope you choke on them.” I narrowed my eyes and spat the words.

He grinned, fishing two out of the bag and slipping them onto his tongue. He made a point of showing me by lengthening his tongue, and I thought I caught a glimpse of the child he once had been. Swallowing the pills without water, he stuffed the remainder back into the glove box.

“No,” I said stubbornly, making a play for the illegal narcotics. Out of all the injustices he had visited upon me, stuffing his poison in my space seemed like the worst.

He slammed the butt of his gun down on my wrist, chasing my hands away. I cried out in frustration and pain. I didn’t want the damned things in my car. He motioned to me that I should get out, shooing me away and slamming the glove box closed. I wrenched the door open and stomped out.

“You know what to do?” he asked, meeting me on my side of the car.

“Yes,” I said. I knew exactly what to do; it just wasn’t what he wanted me to do.

We approached the treatment center together, George holding me by the arm, the gun to my side. The early evening was calm, no voices or movement anywhere to impede our progress. I marched confidently into my place of employment, through the public entryway. There were cameras in the lobby, and I knew that from here on, everything we did would be recorded. There was a guard in a back office who should be watching the footage, though he had a dozen screens to sift through. If I was lucky, he was paying attention, and I was no longer alone.

In order to get into the locked area, you had to have a badge. I had left mine at my apartment, and George was so out of it, he hadn’t bothered with that detail. Visitors had to sign in at the main desk, where they were photographed and granted a temporary pass. I approached the receptionist, showing her my bound hands.

“He has a gun,” I said calmly.

She reached under the counter and touched the button before putting her hands in the air. That was it; I was sure now that the police would be on their way. It was just a matter of minutes before they arrived to take control of the situation. Between then and now, all I had to do was stall.

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