Page 2 of Hideaway Whirlwind
After this trip concludes the end of my twenty-two years of long-hauling, working for my brother’s national trucking company, I’m supposed to enjoy my forced semi-retirement out on my property, thanks to my worsening eyesight, only having to put in half as many hours as I’m used to at the warehouse instead of out on the road. I just need to get through the next few days, and it’ll be nothing but sunshine and rainbows.
I’m miserable just thinking about it.
Chapter 2
Teagan
I keep a smile on my face from the time I pick the kids up from daycare after my shift until the time I put them to bed, all for their sake. They’re used to me pinching pennies, having to put off raising the heat from time to time until the temperature in our two-bedroom apartment becomes unbearably cold before I’ll adjust the thermostat. It’s an ugly reality that makes me shrivel up inside with guilt.
This time, however, it has nothing to do with being unable to afford a higher electric bill mid-February, but rather the fact that I tucked the kids into bed with as many layers of clothing as they could comfortably wear beneath the largest pajamas they own. It’s the same for me, layering two T-shirts over a long-sleeved one, followed by an oversized dark green hoodie I found in the donation bin at a women’s shelter when I first arrived in Las Vegas.
My stomach protests at the tight waistbands of the leggings I’ve doubled up on beneath a pair of my ex’s gray sweatpants that Quincy left behind after I managed to kick him out of my apartment when I discovered his years-long addiction by pureaccident. I had been looking for an earring that had fallen on our closet floor. Instead, I’d stumbled across an old, half-crumpled shoe box I didn’t recognize, shoved in the far corner. There was something ominous about the box that made my heart pound hard against my ribs. I didn’t want to look inside. I really didn’t. But with Quincy’s shortening temper, weight loss I couldn’t explain, and erratic sleep schedule, I knew I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least take a peek.
I found exactly what I, at first, didn’t want to acknowledge was real—a dirty glass pipe, tin foil, lighter, and several small, resealable baggies that most certainly did not contain powdered and crystallizedsugar. It was just sitting right there, on the carpet, where my babies could have found it, too. What if they’d thought it was candy? Or that the pipe and lighter were toys?
I thought I was going to die of shame when I realized the second chance at life I’d fought hard to give my kids was built with a drug addict for a pseudo-stepfather who had a complete disregard for not only their safety, but their very lives.
Thankfully, Quincy never was able to convince me to marry him or put him on my apartment lease, even though he did pay for a majority of the rent in his efforts to “take care of me”—i.e., keep me on a shorter and shorter leash. Though there was no great love story between us, it wasn’t all that surprising how difficult it was to kick him out of my apartment.
Even without all that, we wouldn’t have worked out long-term, if I had any say in it. It was clear soon after we started living together that I’d never measure up to his mother, who I would always come second fiddle to, which was its own set of creepy issues.
I’m nothing short of a stuffed sausageas I lie in bed and go through the mental list of everything I’ve packed in the garbage bag I’ve left in the kitchen trash can to disguise it after having taken out the actual trash right after dinner—greasy spaghetti leftovers and stale garlic bread from work. I’ve carefully folded all our forged birth certificates small enough to fit inside the plastic sandwich bags that I’ve hidden in the kids’ tiny jean pockets, along with my fake driver’s license, and the measly amount of cash tips I’ve made over the last week. It’s more than I left with last time.
Kendall rolls over onto her belly, trapping her small polar teddy bear beneath her arm after popping her thumb into her mouth, drawing my attention to her toddler bed shoved between the wall and my box spring and mattress on the floor. I gaze at her tiny, perfect features in the dark, gratified that she took after me with her straight black hair and rounded cheeks more than she did her father with his spiky, sandy brown hair and angular jaw that only grew sharper as his addiction worsened once he no longer felt the need to hide it from me.
My phone vibrates in my hoodie pocket with the alarm I’ve set.Twelve hours. It’s been twelve heart-pounding, skin-tingling, hard-to-breathe hours since I placed the call to Marigold that could very well get me killed should anyone find out what I did…or get Rohan killed should anyone discover it was his phone I used.
I squeeze my eyes shut, praying to I’m not sure what for Rohan’s safety. Or better yet, that he and his mother are able toget out, too, for the risky favor he’s done for me. Get out of this city, this state, and away from his father, who long ago hit rock bottom, hooked on the product Priscilla peddles, dragging his family down with him.
I strain my ears, listening for a hint of anyone approaching my apartment—the trucker Marigold has sent, or worse, someone who owes Priscilla money being tasked with watching me and reporting back. But the strip club near the backside of my complex is too close, their dance music drowning out everything except for the competing music booming from the apartment below mine. The only reason I took the leap of faith to call Marigold in the first place is that Priscilla is out of town attending her fourth funeral—her own brother’s—in the last six weeks. That’s one of the problems when it comes to dealing drugs, and everyone you know is hooked on your product—your best customers drop like flies.
When my phone vibrates an hour later, I can’t take the sick, sinking feeling that our tentative freedom is slipping from between my fingers, and I roll out of bed. After a quick stop into the tiny shared bathroom to dry heave over the toilet, I pace the living room, forcing down crackers that lodge in my throat, chasing them with the ginger ale I splurged on last week and have been rationing.
A creak from outside my front door has me whipping around to face it after checking the time on my phone.He’s here. A lifetime of relief washes over me, making me sway in the three pairs of socks I’ve worn to bed. I rush to let him in just before two o’clock in the morning, whoever he may be, only to stumble backward, horrified when a key turns in the lock. The trucker doesn’t have a key, which means it can only be one person.
Priscilla swings open the door, immediately looking me up and down with a shrewd eye beneath her long brown perm with her grown-out gray roots, having expected me to be in bed or asleep on the couch. She slowly closes the door behindher as I stop breathing entirely, my mind taking flight with rising panic that I try not to show.
Quincy’s sociopathic mother throws the deadbolt and juts her chin up, scratching the skin-picking scabs she hides beneath layers of concealer and foundation that mar her jawline and saggy neck. “Teagan.”
“Hi,” I answer through my tight and dry throat as I subtly slip my phone into my hoodie pocket.I’m dead,I think, when my phone vibrates with my next alarm loud enough for Priscilla to hear.
“Hand it over,” she says coldly, her brows an angry slash as her eyes narrow while holding her hand out, impatiently gesturing for my phone. It’s a cruel game she plays, plucking at my nerves when she doesn’t immediately take it after I silence the alarm before sliding it out of my pocket, watching my hand shake the longer I hold it in the air.
Her overlined eyes immediately shoot to mine when I nearly drop it, my fingers numb with terror and the freezing temps in the apartment. She snatches it from my hand at the same time as she shoves me backward with her palm on my chest forcefully enough that I trip over the low coffee table and land on my back, my head bouncing off the dingy, threadbare couch cushion behind it with only my thick, messy bun for protection. I know well enough not to cry out or rage when I fall, my teeth clacking together and rattling in my head, because she would only find more satisfaction in my reaction.
As instructed,or else, my phone is not password or code protected, and Priscilla swaggers closer when I sit up, exaggerating the sway of her hips, looming over me in her fringed leather jacket and skin-tight acid-wash jeans. The blue light from my phone illuminates her craggy face as shebegins searching my messages and phone log, in case I’m communicating with anyone I shouldn’t…like the cops. My alarm, which I must have only snoozed instead of turning off, vibrates again.
“What’s the alarm for?” She flips the phone around, shoving it in my face hard enough to bruise my nose and make my eyes water.
Still, I manage not to react, despite my flaring anger at the fact that fighting back will only make things worse for me. She may not be the one in charge of the organization, but she probably moves enough product to be protected if she were to put me in the hospital or even go so far as to kill me.
Oh, how many times I have thought about killingher. Of stealing the knife she uses to threaten me often enough and slicing her throat. Of perhaps slipping rat poison into her food whenever she eats at the restaurant. Of cutting her personal stash with a drug that would leave her permanently impaired, if not worse. Really, there are so many options to choose from. But every single scenario could ultimately lead to the same ending: me six feet under and my kids even more vulnerable and unprotected.
Turning my head away a fraction, I quickly think up a lie. “I thought I had set it for the afternoon when I need to get ready for work.”
“Bullshit.” Priscilla grinds the phone into my throbbing cheek, and this time, I can’t hold back a whimper of pain, curling my fists shut so I don’t lash out at her. She smirks in my periphery. “You’re working the morning shift, not the dinner,” she says, since she keeps track of my work schedule and anywhere else I may go.
“I switched shifts,” I say when she finally straightens.Resisting the urge to palm my cheek, I curl my stiff hands together on my lap.
