Page 8 of Shelter
Beside me, Ava’s mouth dropped open with delight. “My house is on the corner of Souvenir Gate and Myrtle Place,” she nearly sang.
For the second time that night, my eyes nearly came loose. “A-va, what are youdoing?”
Charlie just chuckled. “Well, get in, girl. I’ll take you home.”
To my growing shock, Ava reached for the car’s door handle, and my hand already clasped around her other wrist cinched tighter. She swung her eyes at me with an impatient look.
“Elise, he’s myneighbor,”she droned. “He lives right down the street. It’s okay.”
She moved toward the door again, and I yanked her back. “Do you know him? Have you ever met him before?”
Avatsked. “No, but I could have. He’s just one block away.” She looked at me like I was slow to follow, and my heart started to gallop in my chest because I could see she was going to get into the car with Charlie the Stranger, and I knew — I knew deep down in the pit of my stomach — he was not going to take her home.
My throat got tight, and my breath started coming in quick little gasps. “Ava, d-don’t. It’sdangerous.”
“Ava.” The stranger spoke her name with authority, and we both turned to look at him. “Who do you think you should listen to? Your neighbor who’s an adult and knows where you live or some little girl?”
The way he saidlittle girlcame out like the way people saidpiece of trash.And, apparently, this was all the logic Ava Whitehurst needed because she shook off my hold and opened the car door.
And I lost my mind.
“Noooo!” I yelled. At Ava. At Charlie the Stranger. At the Halloween night. My hands landed on Ava’s shoulders, and I tugged us both backward. And Ava, who was a couple of inches taller than me and a whole year older, tipped back onto me, sending us both down into the ditch.
The force of Ava’s body knocked the wind out of me, so she scrambled up first. And she did it screaming. “Elise Cormier, what’s wrong with you?!” She raised her arms, her eyes scanning the grass stains and dirt on her Baby Spice dress. “Look what you did to my outfit!”
I tried to pull in a breath to tell her I wasn’t sorry. That I might have just saved her life. But my gut was on fire, and I could only wheeze. Then I couldn’t even do that because I heard the sound of a car door opening, and before I could get up, Charlie came around the front of the car and stood over us.
He’s going to kill me and take Ava.
The thought was so clear, I was surprised no one else heard it.
“Ava, are you okay?” Charlie asked, sounding fake worried. I noticed he didn’t even look at me still lying on the ground, making sounds like a seasick frog. Managing to push myself up to my elbows, I watched Ava peer up at Charlie, and something about him made her eyes widen. She took a step back.
“I-I’m okay,” she stammered, but she hugged her elbows before looking down at me. “Elise, get up.”
“She’s fine,” Charlie said, stepping closer to Ava. “Let’s go, honey.”
In the next moment, Charlie lunged, she dodged, and I finally filled my lungs.
And then I screamed my head off.
“Ava!”
Her shouted name didn’t come from me but from the end of the block. My head jerked to the right to see Cole tearing down the street like he was charging the battlefield.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!” he shouted, his strides swallowing yards at a time. Charlie’s spine straightened at the sight.
“Shit,” he muttered, slamming shut his passenger side door. He sped around the front of his car, but before he got inside, he jabbed a finger at Ava. “Ava, don’t you dare tell anybody about this. Remember, I know where you live.” Then he turned his sinister face to me, his eyes like hot coals. “And your name is Elise Cormier. I may not know where you live yet, but I could find out, so keep your little cock-sucking mouth shut.”
My neck snapped back at his words. The threat they held. The ugliness they carried that I couldn’t define but still somehow understood. It felt like the time I’d fallen on my face on the playground at school and had to spit dirt and blood out of my mouth.
I scrambled to my feet just as Charlie gunned his car in reverse down Azalea Street. Cole reached us, and we watched Charlie’s boxy car halt before he threw it in drive and made a hard left into the parking lot of City Hall. And then with a noisy and frightening screech of tires, he pulled out of sight.
Soon, the only sounds I could hear were Ava’s quiet sniffles, Cole’s fight for breath, and the loud thumping of my heart. I looked from one Whitehurst to the other.
Cole stood with his hands on his thighs, his chest and back swelling and collapsing with each breath. His eyes never left his sister. “He drove backward so we couldn’t see his license plate… Ava, what happened?” I’d expected him to sound angry since Cole Whitehurst always sounded angry, but his voice was surprisingly soft.
Ava’s eyes didn’t meet his, but her lower lip trembled, and the only sound she made was a little whimper.
