Page 16 of Craving Theodora
“Says who?”
“Everyone.”
“Dyl will hang with you, I bet. He’s cool with kids. Plus, he’ll be glad for the help outside.”
Finn went back to forlornly looking out the window without replying.
Once the truck was quiet, I silently freaked the fuck out. When the Aces first made contact, I’d told them the truth—I couldn’t see a way out. Since Mike died, his father, David, had kept us under his thumb. Oh, he wouldn’t have put it that way. He would’ve explained it as looking after his grandson and the love of his son’s life, but we both knew the truth. Once Mike was gone, the buffer between his family and mine had disintegrated.
I’d known that Mike was bad news from the beginning. We’d been part of the same circle for years before he’d made his move, and I’d known who he was. But I’d been a single parent of a four-year-old, living with my dad in a trailer that was one step up from a camper, and Mike had been exciting. He had money that he was generous with. He happily spent time with Jesse and me when I couldn’t get a sitter. And for once, I’d wanted a fucking life outside of work and trying to figure out how I could pay both billsandbuy groceries at the same time.
I couldn’t call it a mistake because without Mike I wouldn’t have Finn. But that didn’t mean that it had been the right choice.I’d known that since the moment I told him I was pregnant and he’d told me that he’d kill me if I got an abortion. Ending the pregnancy hadn’t even been on my mind at that point. I’d still been too shocked that it was happening at all. But I knew as soon as he’d said it that he was serious. He would’ve killed me.
What followed were years of putting up with Mike whenever he deigned to visit, which thankfully wasn’t often. He’d been proud of Finn in a beating-his-chest kind of way, but he’d never been an actual parent. Before the morning sickness had even kicked in, he’d basically disappeared beyond sending me money once in a while. He had no interest in dirty diapers and colic and the ear infections Finn had dealt with as a baby. He’d just wanted the ability to say that he’d created a son.
Then he’d died, and I’d thought we were free. I should’ve known that life was never that simple.
“You guys eat?” Curtis asked, glancing at the bag of snacks beside his duffel on the floorboard.
“Yeah, we had something before we picked you up.”
“All right.”
“We can stop if you’re hungry.”
“Nah, I can wait,” he replied. “I’d rather put some distance in, yeah?”
I nodded as I fiddled with the silver cuff around my wrist, running my finger over the large turquoise stone set in the center. My pop had found it at some swap meet when he was a teenager and worn it until the ambulance came to take him away for the last time. I missed the old jackass more than I thought possible. He’d been the last bastion between me and the world.
The older man from the Aces who’d contacted me was named Grease, and I remembered him vaguely from the times he’d come to see my pop. From what I could recall, he was nice. Handsome, even though he was old enough to be my grandfather. I’d instinctively trusted him when he’d said that mypop had called him before he died. It was something my father would’ve done. Trying to get his ducks in order before the cancer took him.
At first, Grease had ordered me to go to the Aces’ clubhouse in Sacramento. He’d assured me that the men there would keep us safe and get us free, but I’d known better. If it looked like I was going for help, all hell would’ve broken loose. David Granger wasn’t a man who allowed anyone to best him, and the Aces drawing a line in the sand around the kids and me would’ve started a war. I wasn’t willing to do that.
A couple of months later, Grease had reached out with another idea. A year later, he reached out again. Then again. And again. Until finally, the day before, he’d called and told me that they knew exactly how to get us all the way out. Out of Sacramento. Out of California. Out of David Granger’s sphere of influence.
And while I still had my doubts, the situation had become untenable. I had to do something, and it was the first time the Aces had offered to move us out of state. Deep down, I’d also wondered if at some point they’d give up on us. I’d shot down every idea they’d had up to that point, and I figured my chances were running out.
I had to get my kids away from the slime that had coated us for as long as they could remember. The Aces were promising a new life, free and clear of the Grangers. They had it all worked out. A man named Curtis would be at the bus station the next day. All I had to do was have us packed and ready to leave as soon as I picked him up. Less than a day later, we’d be living our new life.
I was too exhausted and petrified by the whole mess to argue or ask many questions. Wehadto get out. The time for fear and naysaying was over. Either it would work, and we’d be able to live our lives clear, or we wouldn’t, and I’d spend the last of myvery short life in jail for murdering David Granger. Either way, my children would be safe.
Finn fell asleep an hour into the drive with tears drying on his cheeks. Jesse had put on their headphones and was listening to music while they wrote in their notebook. I checked on both of them a couple of hours later when the silence had started to become oppressive.
“We’re going to live with you?” I asked quietly, watching as Curtis’s forearm flexed, his hand tightening around the steering wheel.
He looked back at the kids and then at me.
“We’ve been talkin’ for the last few months,” he said, his voice low. “Decided when I moved back from Montana that we’d start a life in Eugene.”
“You lived in Montana?”
“For the last eighteen years.”
“Jesus, how old are you?”
“Thirty-nine. You?”
“Thirty-two.”
