Page 44 of Eternally Devoted

After I’ve set up a tent, I step on the stakes, using my body weight to make sure they’re anchored tightly to the earth. Setting a few things inside, once I’m done, Dash has the door completely open, and he stands with his mask lifting, panting, eyes shining. “Ready?”

I look down at the blue tarp, envisioning the dead man rolled inside. “Ready.”

He rolls his mask down and grabs one end while I take the other. After a three count, we release the edge of the tarp, sending the dead man straight down the abandoned shaft. Next, I pluck items from the ground, passing them to Dash. He chucks them down the shaft after the man, and once our bags are empty, we reroll the tarp and slide our packs back on.

Out of breath, we stand at the foot of the shaft, sweaty and tired, moving on pure adrenaline. He faces me, stroking a filthy hand through his hair. We’re both filthy. “We just staged a death to protect Juniper from a murder charge.” He shakes his head, toeing at a rock on the ground. “I had to say it out loud to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

I can’t help but snort as we start making our way up the ravine, back toward the truck. “You know, I know I should feel bad about this but… right now, the only thing I care about is rinsing this ravine and the stench of death off of me.” Reaching for a branch, I pull myself up as I find footing on the steep hillside. “And a beer.”

“And roast beef dip with the wedge fries at Goode’s,” he groans, climbing up behind me.

We stop mid-hillside and I glance down at him. The ravine and the terrain surrounding is beautiful, but as I glance back at Dash, it takes a back seat. Sweat glistening on his forehead, his coif of dark hair disheveled as all hell, he’s one of those men that makes people look twice. He’s a guy that, on your drive home from a long day at work, you remember his face and envision how beautiful his life must be because a man with that jawline and that smile must have it all figured out.

“What?” he questions.

I haven’t said anything, yet I feel like I’ve been caught in a lie already. I scratch my jaw. “Think our plan will work?”

He nods. “It will. I believe it.”

We climb the rest of the way in silence, reaching the top a handful of minutes later, completely out of breath. Trudging back to the truck, as we near, the passenger door pops open and Juniper dips her head out. “Are you guys okay?” she whisper-hisses into the night.

I peel off my sweatshirt and gloves, and Dash does the same. We stuff them in our bags and toss them in the back, sliding into the cab. Immediately I take the keys from Juniper and start the truck to roll the windows down.

I glance across the cab, realizing that Dash and I are even filthier than I realized. Catching Juni’s gaze, I tell her the last of the plan. “We’re going to the sanitation plant to hose off our shoes and the tarp, and to get cleaned up. We don’t want to take any of him or the ravine home. While we’re cleaning up, I’ll need you to vacuum out the truck.”

She nods. “Of course.”

“Before we can head out, we have to plant some things in his truck.” I look at Dash, dirt smudged along his forehead, sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He reaches down, grabbing the bag, and nods. “One more minute, Juni,” I tell her as we slide out, walking slowly to the truck not more than ten paces ahead.

At the driver’s door, I wrap my hand in my sleeve and tug on it, popping it open. Dash cups his hands to the passenger window, peering in at me leaning over the driver’s seat.

“Oh,” he says bashfully, realizing the doors are unlocked. He opens the passenger side, and together, with our hands covered in our sleeves, we gently sift through the pickup. Dash grabs a paper from the floorboard, holding it to the moonlight to read it.

“Oh shit,” he says thoughtfully, tipping the paper sideways for more light. “This is a body scan from a gym. Says he just finished 75 Hard.”

“Good for him,” I say, slipping a pair of new gardening gloves into the side pocket of the door. I place some new bottles of water in his cup holders, and a box of garbage bags in the front seat.

“Can you imagine, doing 75 Hard and then on the day you can finally indulge, you get murdered?” he says, shaking his head as he returns the paper to the floor.

I look at him, lifting a hand to prevent my headlights from hitting me in the eye. “He was a dog beater,” I tell Dash. “He was whaling on Yellow Dog.” The yellow of his coat caught my eye, so it makes sense to name him Yellow Dog.

“His karma really got him, huh?” Dash says, popping open the glove box.

I nod. “Yes, it did.” We both pause, and even though we’re calm and collected, I think it’s one of those moments where what we are doing really hits us. We’re staging a disappearance to cover up a murder, and that’s heavy.

“All right,” I say, suddenly eager to not be in this dead guy’s truck anymore. “We’re good. You got the bag?”

Dash lifts the bag and nods, and both of us slowly and quietly close the truck doors. Walking back to my truck, he quietly says, “We’re doing the right thing in some twisted way, aren’t we?”

I dip my head once. “Yes, we are.”

We get into the cab, assuring Juniper that we handled it, that everything is going to be okay. And what’s crazy is that I believe it. I don’t feel like I’m pacifying her. I do feel a little crazy because of how much I believe we’ll be okay. I know it’s not right to be okay with murder, but for Juni, it just… makes stupid sense.

Still, I want to be smart.

Shifting the truck into drive, I pull out on the road and head to work, eager to get there and glad to be able to offer a safe place for us to wash away the evidence. “I’ve got a few sets of clothesthere in my office, we’ll need to completely wash down and change. These clothes we have on should probably get burned.”

Dash bobs his head as wind whips through the cab. “I agree.”

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