Page 4 of The Trap by Catherine
Withhim??
“Is it much further?” she asks again.
He doesn’t answer.
This was a mistake, she can see that now. She’s been foolish, full of bad ideas. She’s not cut out for this.
Keeping her eyes forward, she puts her left hand down below her left thigh and starts surreptitiously exploring the door panel with her fingertips. Nothing feels like a button that will reverse the lock. And even if she gets the door open, what then? She’s strapped in and releasing her seatbelt will trip the alarm, alerting him. She’s wearing a small cross-body bag. It has a strap. She could take it off and loop the strap around his head, but it’s a cheap, fast-fashion item; it could snap, and even if it doesn’t, what’s her plan exactly? To choke him, she’d really have to be behind him, but once she makes a move there won’t be time to climb into the back seat of the car. And he’s driving. If she does anything, the car will crash. She has a flash of his face inches above hers, his skin even redder, his features strained, one rough hand around her neck and the other fumbling in her underwear as he prepares to force the burn of his body into the delicate depths of hers, and she thinks that maybe dying in a car crash is the better option. She could suddenly reach over and yank on the steering wheel, forcing them off the road, or pull on the handbrake, which she thinks would lock up the wheels and send them skidding.
But what if there’s no need?
What if she’s overreacting? What has hedone, really?
What if she crashes this car and he turns out to be just a man and not a monster?
But what if he justwantsher to think like that, so she does nothing until it’s too late to do anything at all?
“My sister will be freaking out,” she manages to say, the words feeling dry and dusty on her tongue, sounding limp and untrue even to her.
“At this time of night?” In her peripheral vision, she sees his shrug. “Nah. She’s probably dead to the world.”
Dead to the world.
The car is a depressurized airlock whose hatch has just been blown out into space by those words. There’s no air left in it at all. The pinching in her chest flares up, igniting, and now every attempt at a breath feels like a searing burn. Her chest won’t move, won’t expand, and it feels like it’s getting smaller, clenching like a fist, and her throat is closing, and she—
Lights.
Up ahead. Lots of them.
So close she thinks they must be a mirage.
The headlights have punched a hole in the night big enough for an entire service station to get through. It’s the one he promised, the Circle K. She can see a floodlit forecourt. A canopy in colors she recognizes, a familiar logo illuminated by a spotlight. A glowing square of white fluorescents—the shop—with bundles of peat briquettes stacked outside its glass façade and handwritten signs advertising special offers. There are even other people: a man leaning against a Jeep parked at one of the pumps and a woman walking out of the store’s automatic doors, twirling her car keys around her finger.
When he pulls in and parks by the shop’s entrance, it’s so bright it feels like daytime. After she releases her seatbelt, she has no trouble finding the handle that will open her door, but it doesn’t work.
It’s still locked.
“Oh,” he says. “Hang on one sec—”
Click.
She presses down on the handle again and this time, it opens easily.
A tidal wave of relief vaporizes all the adrenaline in her system, leaving her cold and clammy. Something lurches in her stomach and her mouth fills with a sour, acrid taste she can’t seem to swallow away, and she realizes that she’s about to be sick. She pushes the door back and climbs out of the car, unsteady on jelly legs.
There’s a sign at the corner of the shop,Toilets, and an arrow directing people who want to use them around the side.
“I’m just...” She points at the sign by way of explanation. “Thank you... Thanks for the lift.”
If he says anything in response, she doesn’t hear it.
* * *
The bathroom is lit only by a flickering fluorescent strip with a large moth trapped inside, its panicked wings thrumming loudly against the ridged plastic casing. There are two stalls, two sinks, and no windows. The air is warm and stale and smells of fetid things. Puddles of water have pooled on the floor and the vanity area is festooned with clumps of wet toilet tissue.
She pushes herself into the nearest cubicle, slamming its door back against the partition wall, and throws her face over the toilet bowl.
Her insides retch and spasm, but it’s only dry heaving; nothing but saliva comes up. Tears mix with make-up, making her eyes sting and water more. An acid burn starts to push its way up her esophagus and into her chest.
