Page 5 of Inflame Me
My flight instinct is pumping hard, wanting to escape from the mess that my life just turned into. I get into the shower and wash all of James’s blood off, the swirling of pink going down the drain into nothingness. My body aches, but I can’t focus on that. I have a few bruises, but nothing I can’t cover with clothes. However, my face will take a lot of makeup to cover the bruises beginning to form, and I’m not sure how I’ll fix the split lip.
It won’t take long for the police to find James once he doesn’t show up for work, and when they do, it will be hell.
I shake my head, letting the water flow down me as if to absolve me of my sins. I took another human’s life. Sure, he was a worthless piece of shit, and I’m not sorry he’s dead; I just can’t believe I had it in me to do it. If you would have asked me if I did, I would have said hell no, but I proved tonight that, when push comes to shove, I can.
Before leaving my mother’s house, she ordered me to get the knives and even the wood block where she stored them to bring them with us. Why? I didn’t ask. I just did as she said. I turned all the lights off in the house then put my mother and her things in my car. I didn’t turn on the headlights until I was pretty far down the road and didn’t see anyone around.
My hands trembled the entire way home, and my mother was eerily quiet. Even in the tub, she was. I’m sure she’s thinking right along with me. What do we do now?
I turn off the shower and pull myself together, throwing some sweats on and an old hoodie. I put the towel on top of my head, wrapping it around my hair before I enter the bedroom where Mom is lying down with a miserable expression on her face. Can she be sad that I killed him? No, surely not. The look on her face is concerning, though.
“Mom?” I question, nearing the bed and sitting down next to her. “Do you want me to take you to the ER?”
Her head rises, and she gives me a slight smile. “No, baby girl. We can’t do that. You and I both know this was self-defense, but the guys at the station are not going to think that way.” Her confirming my thoughts makes a rock form in the pit of my stomach, weighing me down. “He’s head of the good-ol’-boys club, and they aren’t going to let this slide even with this kind of defense.”
I feel sick. I can’t go to jail … to prison.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper, not having a clue where to even start. I don’t have any friends who could get us out of this or help us. I only have a couple from work, but they wouldn’t know the first thing about what to do next.
I lean back on the bed and stare at the popcorn ceiling, the softness doing nothing for the nerves racking my body.
“We are going to see your father.”
My head snaps to hers, and I instantly feel woozy.Don’t move so fast, Tanner.I blink my eyes, trying to clear the dizziness. My mother never talks about my father, never told me who he is, never says a word about him, ever. In my twenty-three years of existence, I’ve asked about him maybe four times, and each time, I was met with, “You don’t need to worry about that.” Our relationship is close, almost like sisters instead of mother and daughter, so I knew she was doing it for a reason, but I never questioned her. For her to say we are going to see him is more than a shocker. I’m surprised my heart didn’t stop for a few seconds. Then again, maybe it did, and I didn’t register it.
“What?” I ask, my words coming out a bit snippier than intended.
She sighs. “I’m afraid he may be the only one who can help us out here, but we need to go quickly before James’s shift comes up in two days, and they notice him missing.”
Confusion sets in. How can my father fix this mess?
“How would he know what to do and who is he, Mom?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Pack some bags with whatever you will need for a while and anything that you absolutely won’t want left behind.” She can’t be serious. We are going to go on the run?
“You’re scaring the shit out of me. Are you saying that we won’t be coming back?”
“Baby, I don’t know what is going to happen. Right now, even with my battered head, I’m trying to come up with ways to protect both of us. Your father is the only option I see right now. We need to get on the road. Now.” Her eyes widen in the mom way that tells me she’s dead serious.
“Okay, but you will explain all of this, Mom,” I concede without backing down. She will tell me.
“I will. You also need to put the clothes we were both wearing and the knives in plastic bags and bring them with us.” How the hell would she know to do that?
“Mom, you are really creeping me out here,” I tell her, getting up and throwing clothes in a bag. Am I on some episode of CSI or something?
“Tanner, I’m not even getting started.”
WITH THE GPS set to Sumner, Georgia, we’ve been driving for the past five hours, and I’m getting seriously tired. My eyes keep drooping, and I have to pinch myself to stay awake. My mother fell asleep almost as soon as she got in the car. I gave her some of my left-over Vicodin from when I got my wisdom teeth pulled before we left, and it wiped her out. Since I wanted her to rest, I haven’t bothered her, but with the little machine telling me that we will be there in about an hour, I need answers. I need to know what I’m getting myself into.
“Mom.” I gently tug on her hair, not really knowing where I can touch her that won’t cause her too much pain. She stirs in the seat, her groggy eyes opening slowly.
“What?” her voice comes out hoarse and crackly.
“We’ll be in Sumner in about an hour, and I need to know what’s going on before we get there.” I keep my eyes on the road ahead of me. The sun rose a while ago, and my sunglasses shield the brightness. I desperately need coffee and a bathroom almost as badly.
“I never wanted you to know him,” she says on an exhale. “He’s not a very standup man.”
“And James was?” I say in a clipped tone, a bit too harshly, but come on here.
